My husband’s grandfather
played the fiddle at many socials. He called dances and played, and told funny
stories, and recited poems. He couldn’t read music, had thick-fingered, farmer
paws, but he could play the fiddle with precision. He was an entertainer who
lived in eastern Oregon until 1935 when they closed free range grazing and
moved his family to Kings Valley, Oregon. My husband and I visited the Baker
City, Oregon Natatorium in eastern Oregon, which is the Baker City Museum. The
building used to house a huge swimming pool and up stairs is a large room used
as meeting hall and dance floor. There is a balcony on the second floor that
goes all the way around looking over what used to be the pool, now filled in
and used to display the museum items. We looked through the old guest registers
and there is was, my husband’s grandfather’s name. He actually preformed and
called the dances in that building. The date was around the year 1918 or 1919,
smack dab in the middle of a flu pandemic. We have his dance instruction book,
along with my husband’s mother’s school reader and several other old books, and
a full set of 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica. My husband’s grandmother taught
school in 1916/17 and lived in an army tent for the first year of her career
before she married. If you’ve ever visited eastern Oregon you have to know it
get’s buggery cold out there during the winter.
Dancing Instruction and Etiquette 1911
Interesting bit of history. My grandfather also played fiddle at dances in North Dakota and later Montana. My mother remembered she and her sister being put to bed on the coats piled up by dancers, then listening to the music until they fell asleep, and were eventually carried home by their parents.
ReplyDeleteI'll bet the book on etiquette and dancing is interesting.
ReplyDeleteWhat memories. I can just see they dancers and the band playing. (Sigh) Doris
ReplyDeleteIn those days folks spoke to one another, and greeted their neighbors. NO TV and too few books. What great memories.
ReplyDelete