One of my favorite things is used bookstores. Visiting Ashland, Oregon, recently, for the Shakespeare festival, I wandered into Yesterday's Books and found a treasure trove of interesting western-oriented fiction. One, titled Pan Bread 'n Jerky, by Walter L. Scott, is an authentic collection of memories of the author who grew up and "thrived" in eastern Oregon, around Baker. This book is full of nuggets of information about mining, schoolteachers, crooked lawmen, and stalwart frontier wives.
Walter was born in Conway, Missouri, in 1882 and came out to Oregon with a wagon train in 1884. As a young man he broke horses, cut hay in the summer, did some freighting with a wagon and teams of horses in Baker, Grant, and Harney counties. This was the era when "each person roasted and ground his own coffee, ground wheat for flour, and largely lived off the land."
One interesting note about schoolteaching in the Old West: women schoolteachers earned $45 per year and usually boarded with a town family. Men schoolteachers earned $55 per year.
Walter was born in Conway, Missouri, in 1882 and came out to Oregon with a wagon train in 1884. As a young man he broke horses, cut hay in the summer, did some freighting with a wagon and teams of horses in Baker, Grant, and Harney counties. This was the era when "each person roasted and ground his own coffee, ground wheat for flour, and largely lived off the land."
One interesting note about schoolteaching in the Old West: women schoolteachers earned $45 per year and usually boarded with a town family. Men schoolteachers earned $55 per year.
1 Comments:
Sounds interesting! It's always neat to find old books like that!