Elsie Norris is a longtime resident of the St. John��s area where she was born and grew up and went on to raise her own family. She remembers swimming in Five Mile and Three-Corner lakes, picking berries, and ice-skating on the slough. Her husband helped when Vanport flooded as a member of the Portland Fire Bureau.
Oral History
Narrator: Elsie Norris
Date of Birth: January 17, 1916
Interviewer: Shelly O’Conner
Date: August 15, 2000
Location: St. Johns, Oregon
Transcription: Keith Dobler
Edited by Donna Sinclair
Shelly O’Conner: Today is August 15th of the year 2000. I’m interviewing Elsie Norris, my name is Shelly O’Conner, and I’m interviewing her at her home in St. Johns.
[Looking at photos]SO: Ok, and this is the horse-
EN: Oh, that’s the horse that Dad got for us, for my brother and me, and this is me in that awful looking dress. My hair hanging in my eyes.
SO: Oh wow.
EN: Duke is the dog that is there.
SO: Oh-
EN: There he is again. He went swimming with us. If we would dive off the raft, he would dive in and try to pull us back out. . .
SO: Ok, how did your family come to the St. Johns area?
EN: Well my great grandparents came to Oregon when the railroad came in. They settled first in Hood River, and then came to Southeast Portland, and then to St. Johns in about 1906. And of course my dad came with them. He had been raised by his grandmother and grandfather because when he was born, my grandmother went back home to her mother. And then when she remarried, and married Joe Fletcher, she kept my dad’s brother, and she left my dad with her mother. So he was raised by his grandparents, Benjamin and Sarah Belieu, and they lived in St. Johns. Belieu was a contractor and he hired my dad and my dad’s brother, and my dad’s uncles who were sons of Sarah and Ben Bilieu. Their names were Perry and Albert Bilieu. They all worked on houses, and Fletcher plumbed them also. My dad and his brother became plumbers, and the plumbing shop was on the corner of New York and what is now Lombard. The land has been leveled since then so it’s no longer there. He used to make apple cider every year, and I remember one time they put it in galvanized barrels, not barrels, washtubs and everybody got sick [laughing] -I shouldn’t laugh, but they got well. It was different in St. Johns then. The Salvation Army played in front of the card rooms and the pool rooms, and sometimes I would go over and stay with my grandparents, and I would lie in bed and listen to the Salvation Army band play, and things were quieter around the neighborhoods. We didn’t have radios in cars which go by now with their boom boxes on. I know when I had my tonsils out, in that old hospital that used to be, I believe it was the first street to the south of what is now Lombard. I had my tonsils out there, and they promised me all the pineapple juice I wanted, if I wouldn’t cry. So I had my tonsils out, and Dr. Graves did it, and then when I came to, they gave me pineapple juice, and of course it burned, it stung, and it wasn’t what I expected.
Dr. Graves had been in St. Johns a long time. She and our family were all friends. We used to walk up the tracks, the train tracks. Sometimes we would go out and pick the wild flowers and take them to the cemetery. It was the thing to do, to take flowers to the cemetery, and then later they put a road right where the beach was, where we used to play in the sand and then swim in the Five Mile Lake.
SO: What streets did you go out to get-
EN: Well, I’d go Columbia Boulevard to the train depot, and then follow the tracks. . .
SO: Was it all trees or was it-.
EN: No, there were trees maybe up by the tracks a little bit, but mostly brushy trees. They weren’t big trees. There were no trees in the water, that was sand, and it was a sandy beach, and we would swim in the Five Mile, and those of us who were more brave than the others would cross the tracks and go into the three cornered lake, Triangle Lake we called it. There was no beach, it was all rocky, and the water got deep faster, and you just didn’t go there unless you weren’t afraid of the water. The water in the Five Mile Lake on the other side of the tracks was shallower, and warmer, and we had rafts, and we’d jump off the rafts. There was one boy, his name was Chall Winkler, I don’t even remember what he looked like. I just know he kept watch of all the kids for some reason or other, so parents weren’t really concerned. I know I really never was, and I’m not afraid of the water at all, because I float like a cork, therefore all I’ve gotta do is lie on my back and I can breathe. So I’m not afraid of it. We had a dog named Duke who would dive right along with us and try to pull us out if we went down under, and it really worried him when we would go out of sight. Let’s see, when we walked along the railroad tracks sometimes you had to be careful where you would step too, because in those days the trains bathrooms opened up right on to the tracks. So that sometimes it would become a bit necessary to be careful where you walked.
SO: What is in those areas where the lakes were today?
EN: Trees mostly. I don’t believe there is any water in there now, in the Five Mile. There were no trees — it was just an open sandy bottom that we played in.
[Long Pause]SO: What are your memories of Lotus Isle?
EN: Well, we used to go out there on a street car, and when we got off the street car there was a wooden platform with steps that we walked down. It was like Jantzen Beach used to be — it preceded Jantzen Beach. There was a merry-go-round, and funhouses and all the things that are in a park for kids, and grownups. I don’t remember if they had a swimming pool there or not, but when they built Jantzen Beach there was a swimming pool, and we would go over there occasionally. I love the water.
SO: How much did the streetcar cost?
EN: Five cents, I think.
SO: If you were riding out on the streetcar what did things look like, was it more open, or?
EN: Yes, I’m not sure. I think it might have gone out Denver Avenue. That I can’t be sure about, but it seems like there was a golf course on one side, that may still be there I don’t know.
SO: And you went to George School?
EN: Yes, the old one.
SO: The old one?
EN: Yes.
SO: And where was that at?
EN: Where George Park is now on Fessenden, between Calhoun, and maybe Fairhaven.
SO: And what was it like? What were your favorite things to do at school?
EN: Oh, we played out in the yard, we played softball, and the teachers would be out on the grounds with us. When we had paper drives there would be paper stacked up against the walls in the basement until you could hardly get through. The boys played on one side of the basement during rainy weather, and the girls played on the other side. When I started there, there were portables up along Fairhaven. And we had what was called a May Festival every year with gymnastics outdoors, and a May pole.
SO: How did you get a May pole?
EN: I just remember that it was there.
SO: Wow.
EN: The teachers must have done it, I don’t know. But I remember some of the exercises. We had wands, and dumbbells and clubs that you twirled, you know?
SO: What about Roosevelt [High School], what was it like? What were your favorite subjects?
EN: I liked English better than anything I think. I always wanted to take ancient history, but in 1929 my family moved to Washougal, Washington. And I went two years of high school there, and you couldn’t take ancient history unless you were a junior or senior. So when I came back in 1932 to Roosevelt, you had to have taken ancient history in your first two years of high school, so I missed out. I love ancient history, but I don’t know much about it.
. . . I went to Greece, and to all the holy lands, and all the places that Caesar was, I loved Latin too. And if I had been in Italy when I took Latin, I would have been in seventh heaven because of the Roman Forum, and the Coliseum, and the river. It was just great to see those places.
SO: Beautiful. Who was your favorite teacher?
EN: Well, I don’t know that I had any favorites. Mr. York was a good teacher, and there was a Mrs. Holmes and Cartmell, or Darnell, or something like that, was the music teacher. I should have looked them up before you came, but I didn’t. I’m sorry about that.
SO: Oh no, that’s fine. Can you tell me about picking blackberries?
EN: Well that was an experience really because there were more patches of them in those days, and they weren’t sprayed like they are now, so you didn’t feel afraid to eat them. We used to put planks into a big clump, and of course it made a big trench that you could walk down and have blackberries hanging on both sides of you, and you could just grab what you wanted. We used to walk out too along the-I don’t know the name of the road, but there was a dirt road about where Olympia Street went west from McCrum Stree. There’s a good road there now, but there were berries out there and we would pick them. There would be cows sometimes in the fields where we were picking. We weren’t afraid of animals or people in those days, it was so much different than it is now.
SO: And what did you do with the blackberries? Did you make jam?
EN: We made jelly, and jam, and blackberry pie, and cobbler, and ate them with ice cream. Soda was only a nickel a bottle, and ice cream cones were a nickel.
SO: Wow. What memories do you have of the Vanport flood?
EN: Well, I was married by then and I just had a a two-month-old baby. I lived on Portsmouth Avenue and the traffic was tremendous that day, and I wondered what had been going on. My husband was a fireman and of course when he called I found out what was going on, and that people were going out there to help out and so forth. And I guess it had drained the whole Three-Corner Lake. I’ve been wanting to walk out there and walk up on the track and look over and see what it looks like over there now, but I haven’t done it. I was PTA president at George [School] at that time, and we took up a collection of baby buggies, and food and clothing and stuff like that for the people to use. That’s where my baby buggy went. I was through anyway [laughing].
SO: During the war did you do things for the war effort, or did you-..
EN: Yes. I was, I forgot what you call them, but they went around at night and checked that the windows, window blinds were all down and things like that. Block Warden I believed they called it. And, during the Price Administration Project I would go around to the stores and check the prices to be sure they were the proper ones. I remember we had a little blue button we wore to identify ourselves and some of the store workers didn’t really appreciate us, thinking we were sticking our noses in, you know, but I guess it had to be done.
SO: And did the area change after the war was over?
EN: Well, not really that, except when the other wars came along we had more Vietnamese people and Vietnam people came over here, but we had never had them before. In fact a colored person had never lived anywhere near me when I was little, and there are a number of them in our neighborhood. A lot of Mexican, and I believe one family is from India, and we never had that when I was little, just all white people and you knew all of them. Now you don’t know who lives in the second house from you anymore, they’re transient, too many moves. I’m not sure I like that, but that’s progress, I suppose.
SO: Yes. How did you meet your husband?
EN: At my uncle’s twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, we met there; then we went to different things that were downtown. He was going to Columbia Prep when I met him, that’s the University of Portland now. And then he went to Columbia U. after that. We went ice skating down on the slough. The slough came before the Five Mile Lake did. [The slough came first, as we walked out the tracks, to Five Mile Lake and 3-Corner (Triangle) Lake]. During high water the water would run over from the slough into the Five Mile Lake. But that wasn’t during swimming season, because during the hot weather the slough was lower, so the lake water was cleaner. I suppose it would be considered polluted, but we didn’t know that and it didn’t bother us. We were ice-skating when he asked me to marry him. There was a big bonfire and we weren’t the only ones there.
That reminds me too, about a houseboat that was on the slough. The man lived alone, and he came home inebriated one night and stepped off the gangplank. And [he] drowned in the slough. That kind of sobered us up for a while too. We were real careful because along the railroad track that went at right angles of the one that is there now, had a deep trench along it. It filled with water during the rainy season and we would take a raft and go along that. I wouldn’t want my kids to have done that, but we did it.
SO: Were there lots of houseboats?
EN: Not many, no. I can only remember that one. There may have been two, but that one stayed in my memory.
SO: Right, and how many children do you have?
EN: Four.
SO: Four children?
EN: Three boys, and one girl.
SO: What was it like, your daily life with kids during that time?
EN: Hmmm.
SO: As compared to today.
EN: Well, washing would take one day, ironing would take another day. It just kept you busy. I haven’t ironed for a long time. Once in a while things need a little touching up, but it took all day then, and I didn’t have an automatic washer until the kids were in high school.
SO: Wow.
EN: The radio was a crystal set, and the Heinrich kids had an old victrola with a big horn on the front, and I thought that was fantastic. We played with a — is it a stereopticon? You put a postcard that is divided in the center with a picture on both sides, and you look through it and this becomes one big picture and that was a lot of fun too; Annabelle Rowekamp had that. We used to camp out on the corners of the streets and things like that. Sleep overnight under a tree with just blankets and a pillow, it never occurred to us to be afraid of anything. Those vacant lots are now covered with houses or apartments. I feel sorry for the kids nowadays, they don’t have fun like we used to have. We dug caves, and we always had a softball game out in the lot in front of our house, and the bigger kids would tell ghost stories and try and scare us and stuff like that. You don’t see groups of kids together like that anymore. They are all the same age in the groups that you see, and they are not doing the kinds of things that we did. And they are not as polite, or as, oh how can I say it? They don’t pay any attention to other peoples property like we used too. They are more destructivem — we were just having fun. We didn’t bother anybody. One family named Verhagen had police dogs, and everybody was so afraid of those dogs, and they had puppies. I used to crawl into the doghouse with them and pet the puppies, and the mother dog never objected at all. But a lot of people were afraid of her. They had an outhouse and somebody threw one of the puppies into the hole, down into the outhouse. And nobody knew what to do, so we put a plank down and I crawled down the plank and got the puppy out, I never got a spanking, but I did have to take a bath.
SO: You were very brave.
EN: I’m not brave, it just never occurred to me to be afraid.
SO: Right.
EN: I think maybe that might be the secret — if you don’t emit a sense of being afraid, nobody is afraid of you, no animal’s afraid of you. I think they sense it.
SO: What are your memories of the St. Johns bridge dedication?
EN: Well, I know that Grandpa was one who was working for it. I think at that time he was president of the St. Johns Businessmen’s Club. And they had a carnival in the building that now houses Letson’s Garage, and several others, a travel agency too. It was fun. I know I won a box of chewing gum packages, by holding a fish line and catching it with a hook, and they had other things in there. That’s the most I can remember about it. And. . . there was another carnival up Lombard further, toward Portsmouth. Marcelle had an Indian princess that danced with snakes, and a sort of outdoor carnival, and that was fun too.
SO: Wow.
EN: Florence Evans could tell you about the time a lion got loose, when they had a Chatauqua in St. Johns. A lion got loose and they had to catch him. He was a tame lion, nobody got hurt, it was just exciting.
SO: Was that during the carnival?
EN: It was during one of them, they called it a Chatauqua and I’m not too sure just where it was, but like I said Florence Evans could tell you about that.
SO: That sounds great.
EN: My grandparents and my dad built the two houses on the Northeast corner of Mears Street at McCrum [He also built one on the north side of Mears, at the top of the rise, between Oregonian and Midway Streets]. I read in the St. Johns Review afterward that there had been a burial ground in the intersection of Mears and McCrumb. I think they call it the Stump Cemetery, and that was rather interesting to me that they were able to put a street over a cemetery. I don’t know if there are any descendants of that family or not. The only thing I ever knew about it was in the Review.
SO: So did you, since you liked older history a lot, did you follow any of the Indian stories?
EN: No, but one of my boys did. When he was in college he wrote quite a bit about the Indians. I haven’t had an interest in that. I suppose I was a little bit afraid of Indians, and I never delved into it. My mother was born in Smithville, Nebraska and they had quite a lot of Indian uprisings back there, and I suppose that stayed in my mind.
SO: I can see why. Can you think of anything else interesting that I haven’t thought to ask about?
[Indistinguishable]. . . You told me about going to eat peanuts with your mom and your aunt.
EN: Oh, yes. We took the streetcar and went downtown to the old Mannings store. My mother and her sister would sit there and drink coffee and maybe have a piece of pie, and maybe buy roasted peanuts for my cousin and myself. We ate peanuts all the way home and there was a little Chinese garden about Russell Street, on the St. Johns line; it was up against a building, and they had a little fountain in there. I remember we always got up on our knees in the seats of the street-car to look out at that fountain when we went by. It was very pretty.
SO: So you must have played with your cousin, or was . . . everybody was just together then?
EN: I had two cousins that we played with — my mother’s sister’s daughter, and my Uncle Perry’s son, Kenneth. Then there were the Heineke kids– Conrad we called “Coonie” and his little brother, Frank, and his sister, Emma, and John and Annabelle Rowekamp. Vern Reese, John Berry, John and Mary Berry. Mary Berry had a little extension built on the back of their house, and in that she had piles and piles of movie magazines, and we used to go in there and read those magazines by the hour. Real old, good movies, and we would look at the pictures, and wish we had all the money the movie stars had.
SO: Do you have any memories of how you felt about the changes in the slough and that the lake was gone and things like that?
EN: Well, yes. I’m sorry they don’t have it to play in now, but they would have to do a lot of lumber work, because it’s full of trees. It couldn’t be done anymore. I suppose the people who control what the water does wouldn’t want it anyway now.
SO: Was it gone by the time that your kids were full grown?
EN: Oh yes. We moved away in ’29 and came back in ’32 and they were building the road out there, and the road is right where the sandy beach was.
SO: Which road?
EN: North Portland Road, that follows the railroad tracks.
SO: Right- right.
[End of interview]