Reflections in Time

Powell Butte Native Stories of the Past

Gazing across the fields that line Ochoco Highway toward Powell Butte, it’s easy to imagine what life was like nearly a century ago. On a sunny July day, 90-year-old Walt Follose and his family reflect on their connections to the land they cherish.

Walt was born in 1935 at his great-aunt Margaret’s home in Powell Butte. His family owned a 300-acre homestead in Eastern Oregon, but stayed with her so his mother, Mabel, could give birth with a nearby doctor.

2 years later, Walt’s parents sold their property and moved to Powell Butte, buying a 40-acre homestead near Margaret.

Walt, an only child, enjoyed being outside and growing up on a farm. The family had a few milk cows, chickens, pigs, and horses.

“All the farming was done with horses,” Walt says. “My dad was partially crippled, but I remember when I got old enough to ride the plow, I got to trip the lever. I rode the plow, and he walked the furrow.

When we got to the end, he’d turn around, put the plow back in the ground, and I’d sit there and hang on. You’ve noticed there are a few rocks in the area, so every time the plow hits one, I’d have to be hanging on or it’d buck me off.” The family farmed wheat, barley, and hay. To supplement the family’s income, his father sheared sheep, and his mother sold eggs.

In the 1950s, the family turned to potato farming. “By that time, we had a small tractor and could plant the potatoes with machinery,” Walt says. Local schools closed for 2 weeks while students worked in the fields picking potatoes.

“You got a workout,” says Walt’s wife, Jean. “That’s how I made money for my school clothes.” Upon clearing the fields, potatoes were loaded into the farm’s truck and taken to a local potato warehouse co-op north of Redmond for storage.

Electricity Comes to Powell Butte

Today, the flick of a switch or plugging in an appliance is second nature. For Walt and his family, getting power for the first time was a big deal.

“I know we got power in 1941, because I was watching them set the poles,” Walt says. “I got to watch them replace all those original poles here about 3 or 4 years ago.” In the 1940s, Central Electric Cooperative members were selected via lottery to help dig and set the poles. There were no augers, so blasting was often necessary due to rocky terrain.

“I’d hang around, and when they got ready to blast, they’d make me go home,” Walt says with a laugh.

The farmers and ranchers wanting electricity wired their homes before the cooperative arrived.

“These were all board-and-batten houses,” Walt says. “So, they didn’t have the framework to run the wire through the walls. All the wiring was plain and visible, and they had ceramic junction boxes and switch boxes.”

Walt recalls how excited his family was to receive power because it gave them another way to keep food cold, rather than keeping it in the root cellar.

Even with the advent of electricity, Walt, Jean, and their son Michael remember the wood cooking stove that Walt’s mother used.

“She loved that stove,” Walt says. “They depended so much on heat from that stove, too.”

Michael, one of the couple’s 4 sons, remembers visiting his grandparents in the summer. His grandmother baked a perfect angel food cake.

“She’d have her stool, and she’d sit on it and watch the thermometer in the oven,” he says. “She’d be putting wood in to keep it at the exact temperature she wanted until the angel food cake was done.”

Michael also remembers his grandmother getting the stove going before going out to milk the cows.

“They’d milk the cows, then have a big breakfast, and then she’d make a big meal for lunch so she could let the heat go out on the stove,” he says. “It was always hot during the summers, so we’d have that big lunch and then a really light supper of sandwiches.”

The stove had 3 dampers, and his mother knew from experience how to set them and cook any meal.

“Mom was still cooking on that stove when I went into the service,” Walt says.

With electricity, other luxuries were a toaster and a hot plate Mabel used to cook. The family eventually converted its gas-powered clothes washer to electric.

Another benefit of having electricity was the use of electric pumps to help milk cows. Walt says Mabel wanted him to focus on his schooling, so he never had to help with the early morning milking.

“I was always there for the evening milking,” he says. “What used to really be fun is when the power would go down, and you had about 12 or 15 cows to milk by hand.”

The Folloses didn’t install electric heat in the house until the early 1970s.

Growing Up in Central Oregon

Ask Walt what it was like growing up in Central Oregon, and he responds, “Quiet.”

“We didn’t have any paved roads,” he says. “There were barely gravel roads. We drove around in big mud puddles.” While the family never had a lot of money, they weren’t considered poor.

“I never missed a meal in my life,” Walt says. “I always had something to eat, always had something to wear. And I know the folks didn’t have a lot of money, ever.”

Michael says he never felt his grandparents were skimping. “They lived a really good life,” he says.

Walt remembers riding his bike to church and either riding the bus or his bicycle to the local Powell Butte elementary school. “I rode my bike most of the time, because the bus route took about an hour each way,” he says. “So, I was just as happy riding my bicycle.”

Walt attended elementary and middle school at Powell Butte School. He then attended Redmond High School, now the Redmond City Hall building.

Redmond High holds many memories for Walt and Jean. The couple toured the renovated building earlier this year and said a flood of memories came back, including hearing presidential candidate Thomas Dewey speak on the front steps, walking the path to the detached gymnasium, and remembering the dance where they met.

“I could see him across the way,” Jean says. “I had a girlfriend with me. He had on white cords, his dark blue FFA jacket. And I said, ‘I’m going to date him.’ I remember my friend looking at him and saying, ‘Why?’ ‘Because I think he’s cute.’”

Jean asked a friend to tell him she wouldn’t mind dating him. From that moment forward, the 2 were a couple. They’ve been married 70 years.

Coming Home to Central Oregon

After being laid off at a local auto dealer, Walt worked at a potato warehouse and befriended the foreman, a veteran. He suggested Walt consider joining the Air Force.

“Well, New Year’s Eve, I got laid off again, and I thought, ‘I’m not liking this,’” Walt says. “So, I went to the recruiter up in Bend, walked home with a pile of paperwork, and put it on the living room table. My mother flipped.”

Soon, he was off to boot camp. He came home on leave to marry Jean.

Walt worked as an aircraft mechanic, and the young couple moved around the nation for 10 years, including stops in Kansas, New Hampshire, and Mountain Home, Idaho.

“I was born in Kansas, my brother Marty was born in New Hampshire, and my brother Gary was born in Idaho,” Michael says.

Eventually, the couple decided to return home to Oregon. “I didn’t mind the traveling, but my biggest deal was I had 3 kids,” Jean says. “I knew what it was like going to different schools from my childhood, and I didn’t want that for my kids. So, I told Walt, ‘When we get out, I want to buy a house as soon as we can.’” They settled in Albany, where Walt worked at a paper mill until he retired 29 years later. They also added one more member to the family—son Jeff.

“My parents only lived in 4 states, but managed to have a son in each one,” Michael says with a laugh.

The family’s return to Powell Butte hinged on Walt’s father. When he entered a nursing home at age 75, the family discussed selling the farm.

“I didn’t want them to sell the farm,” Michael says. “I told them, ‘I’ll move there, I’ll get a job, and we’ll figure it out.’”

Michael moved to Powell Butte, while Walt and Jean remained in Albany. For a while, Michael worked a full-time job and then came home to deal with irrigation lines, cattle, haying, and more, all while raising his own family in the original family home. He admits it was a lot to take on.

While Walt and Jean loved their time in Albany, they eventually knew it was time to return to Powell Butte. The couple built a new home on family property west of the original homestead and worked with a CEC energy specialist to make it as energy efficient as possible. The family now leases out its land to other farmers in the area.

When he sits back and reflects on the past 90 years, Walt can say 6 generations of his family have visited or lived on the family farm. He has witnessed a lot in his lifetime, but he doesn’t pick out one thing or event that stands out.

“I have been here most of the time, and the changes happen slowly,” Walt says as he sits back and smiles.