Life at 412 2nd St West, The Dalles, Oregon with the Allens

Last night I talked to Grandma about her memories of her times at her grandparents' house. They lived in The Dalles Oregon at 412 3rd St. I am continually astounded by her knowledge and memories of her family. I think the place looks like it is right out of Pollyanna, which is a great movie by the way. Maybe this was taken on the 4th of July or some other patriotic holiday....

 Grandma Allen was William Clark's mother, so Grandma's paternal grandmother. Her name was Ollie Lizetta. Here she is on her front porch. Grandpa Allen is on the right. He was her second husband. Her first husband ran off to the Yukon but apparently, tried to kidnap little "Willie" more than once so the boy was sent off to be raised by his maternal grandmother. He came to visit his mother when it could be arranged and she would visit him. These modern times are not so different from the past as we tend to think. I love the two chairs, especially the one on the porch.

Grandma says that when she was 10 her grandma was sick so her dad sent her to help take care of her. While living there she went to a Catholic school and this dress she is wearing was her uniform. She remembers it being blue. Her grandma thought it was silly for a 10 year old to take care of her but she grew quite fond of her. She had a bedroom upstairs as did her grandma while grandpa's room was downstairs but she doesn't know why that was - if he was anything like most men I know he snored too loud for her to be able to sleep. Grandma did say she spent a fair amount of time on that little stool thinking about why she had done something she wasn't supposed to have done at Grandpa Allen's request.

Hey look, here's that cool chair from the porch. These people were extremely fond of their dogs too.....King and Queen were their names. I surmised the fondness because of the large amount of pictures of them, especially in comparison to the very few pictures of a young Grandma Icel.


See here they are again. I liked this picture because of the snow and the winterized look of the porch, i.e. no plants

They really loved those dogs didn't they?

Grandma says her grandma was a very fastidious housekeeper. You could have eaten off her floors. Grandma helped her with the cooking and dish washing. She was taught to make a bed with perfect corners and there was no such thing as fitted bottom sheets. You tucked and folded until it was perfect and if it wasn't perfect you had to do it over!!! She owned two boarding houses (ahem... although I have heard rumors of what those houses had been in earlier days) and two rentals and they changed the bedding every day and brought the used bedding home to wash. Her grandma was sure an energetic sick person! But apparently she was so sick for a time that her hair went white because of it. Grandma told me she boarded at the catholic school for 3 months so she wouldn't get sick too. Her grandma was a huge Oregon State Beavers fan and had her own seat at the ball park.

Grandma said her grandpa, Charles Allen, was known for his beautiful roses. He would clip some every morning on his way to the bank and hand them out to the women who worked with him.

He had come to America from Norway as a stowaway on a steamboat. He sold jewelry and such to earn a living (one wonders how he acquired it) and worked his way across the country from New York. He became fairly well-to-do. Here is is with the local fire marshall.

And here they are with, of course, the dogs....

He later owned a pool hall. Grandma Icel memorized this poem http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/biography/service_r_w/dan_mcgrew.html to impress her grandpa and he was so proud he took her down to his pool hall and set her on the piano to recite it. After I read it over I was super impressed too!

There are a lot more pictures of this house (and the dogs) but I will end with this one...

And this one....

The five generations are Ollie Allen, William Clark, Icel Perkins, Barbara Gaines (my mother {in law}), and Ray Gaines (my own beloved)