History Snoopin': Welcome Mr. President

by Bill Miller for the Mail Tribune

Monday, February 17th 2020

As difficult as it seems for our presidents to visit us in the Rogue Valley, there have been a few who actually made it.

They came by stagecoach, train or airplane; however, only a few managed to even touch the ground. Some were dying, or at least very sick, and if rumors were true, one was poisoned. Some even slept through their visit.

Rutherford Hayes, our 19th president, in 1884 was the first sitting president to visit Southern Oregon. He stayed overnight and was the only one who came in a stagecoach. Hayes, a Republican, was elected with fewer votes than his Democrat opponent, so his Jacksonville reception in a stronghold of angry Southern Oregon Democrats was courteous, but not overly enthusiastic.

Our 23rd president, Benjamin Harrison, passed through the valley by train in 1891, the first “whistle-stop tour” of the nation by a U.S. president. He too had won the presidency with fewer votes than his opponent.

President William McKinley broke everyone’s heart in May 1901, canceling his Medford visit because his wife was ill. He promised to return sometime in the future but was assassinated four months later. It was his vice president, Theodore Roosevelt, who kept the promise.

 

“Teddy’s” first arrival in Oregon came on the “Presidential Special,” chugging into Ashland May 20, 1903. Only seconds before its arrival, gusty winds blew away a 34-foot welcoming arch of Oregon Grape that spanned the tracks near the depot. Within 15 minutes, the train vanished, bound for an early morning stop in Salem.

William Howard Taft had two problems during his rail trips through the valley. He was ballooning to 340 pounds and he suffered from sleep apnea.

In 1909, his train stopped, but Taft stayed in bed. Returning in 1911, he disappointed the crowd again, saying his voice was too hoarse to say anything more than “thank you.”

When Woodrow Wilson came through in 1919, he was on a grueling railroad trip of 8,000 miles that would devastate his health. Facing the Medford crowd, he clutched his wife’s arm, smiled, waved, and said nothing. Nine days later he suffered the first of many strokes that would eventually kill him.

His successor, Warren Harding, was also heading for a date with death in July 1923 when he passed through the valley. “The president is unable to appear,” said the newspaper, “due to a slight case of ptomaine poisoning.”

He died of a heart attack in San Francisco 5 days later. Rumor said Mrs. Harding had poisoned her husband because of infidelities.

Gerald Ford took a tour of the MEDCO plant in May 1976.

Ronald Reagan landed at the airport in Air Force One in October 1984. He gave a rousing speech and left for Portland.

George Bush Sr. stayed a bit longer, campaigning in September 1992 at Burrill Lumber in White City.

His son, George W. Bush, came in 2002, to see the damage caused by our summer of smoke and fires. He returned for the 2004 campaign and became the second president to stay overnight in the valley, sleeping only blocks away from the hotel where Rutherford Hayes had stayed in 1884.

So, as we mark another President’s Day in the midst of the political season, we start to wonder. Who will it be? Who will be the next sitting president to come to the Rogue River Valley?

Writer Bill Miller is the author of five books, including “History Snoopin’,” a collection of his previous history columns and stories. Reach him at newsmiller@live.com.

https://mailtribune.com/lifestyle/welcome-mr-president

History Snoopin': Little men, and ladies' choice - It's Leap Year

Little men, and ladies' choice

By Bill Miller for the Mail Tribune

Monday, February 3rd 2020

By the turn of the last century, the only males fearing leap year were gullible school boys.

It was a terrifying threat to a little boy that he would actually have to marry that cute second-grader in the next row, just because she asked.

Guilty as charged.

It all began in that two-room schoolhouse in North Albany — for those who don’t know, it’s up in the Willamette Valley.

North Albany School, Oregon

In that leap year of long ago, it must have been our teacher, Mrs. Wilson, who decided to tease us. She seemed so serious, but looking back, I think she must have been holding back one whopper of a laugh. She warned that we “little men” could all be married by December.

WHAT??

OK. Just like most little men in the second grade, I was afraid of girls. But that didn’t mean I didn’t like them as friends. One of my best friends of the feminine persuasion was Sandy. Notice how carefully I worked my way around the word “girlfriend?”

Sandy and I talked a lot, and she was always smiling at me and complimenting me about one thing or another. I suppose she was flirting, but how would I know? I was just a little man.

Well, after Mrs. Wilson’s dire warning, I didn’t know what to do. What if Sandy asked me to marry her? I didn’t even have a job, and where would we live? That was a lot of heavy thinking for a little man in the second grade. Scary too!

If only I had known then how, in the 5th century, St. Patrick had handled the situation. Maybe you remember.

While St. Patrick was driving all those snakes out of Ireland, St. Bridget, a single woman, showed up with a complaint. It was unfair, she said, that a woman had to wait for a man to propose marriage.

After some fierce haggling, the story goes, they reached a consensus — every four years a woman could ask a man to marry her.

Immediately, St. Bridget asked Pat to marry her, and he just as quickly refused. We never agreed, he said, that a man must accept.

There’s mathematical and scientific reasoning behind leap year, of course, but it doesn’t have anything to do with getting married.

Leap year is supposed to run like a clock, where every fourth year is a leap year, and a February 29th is added to the calendar, right? Well, no. Even science has its exceptions.

If you can divide a year by four, it’s a leap year — except years ending in two zeros — unless those years are evenly divisible by 400. So, 2000 (aka: Y2K) was a leap year, but 1800 and 1900 weren’t, and 2100 won’t be one either.

If you had fun with that, my friend — you’re welcome!

If I had to guess, and I think I’m on safe ground here, I don’t really think there are any women sitting on a hope chest every night, eagerly waiting for a February 29th to suddenly pop up on their calendar so they will have a legitimate right to propose to some clueless dude.

So, rest easy little men. They’re only pulling your leg.

Oh, and Sandy? As fondly as I remember that cute, blonde, second-grader of the feminine persuasion, we never got married. Sandy and I wrote a few letters back and forth after my family moved away, but one day the letters just stopped.

I suspect she moved on, having met up with an exciting little man in the third grade.

Have a safe and sane leap year.

Writer Bill Miller is the author of five books, including “History Snoopin’,” a collection of his previous history columns and stories. Reach him at newsmiller@live.com.

https://mailtribune.com/lifestyle/little-men-and-ladies-choice

Christmas in France - The Great War

Christmas in France

---

by Bill Miller for the Mail Tribune

Monday, December 23rd 2019

For the first time in nearly six months, Corporal Ted Fish wasn’t jolted awake by the bugler’s cornet, blasting out another early-morning rendition of Reveille. It was the U.S. Army’s way of giving the men a gift on Christmas Day.

The 22-year-old farmer’s son from Phoenix had

just returned from a four-day pass, where he had journeyed through the countryside of WWI France. “Of course, we all wanted to go to the center of fashions (Paris),” he said in a letter to his parents, “but we were forbidden.”

From Gien, near his assignment along the La Lorie River, he randomly chose the town of Angers as his destination, some 190 miles away by train.

“I had to change cars twice and had to stay all night at a little town halfway to my destination,” he said.

Back on the rails, early the next morning, Ted arrived in Angers four hours later. He strolled through the town and had lunch at a small cafe. There he realized that there wasn’t much to see or do. He decided to hop back on the train and continue on to the larger town of Nantes. The town had double the population and was only 55 miles farther east.

“I left at 3 p.m., and after the slowest ride I ever took, I reached Nantes at 10:30 that night; too late, because everything closes at 9 p.m.”

By the time he managed to find a hotel he was beat, and that, combined with his long journey, kept him in bed until 10:30 the next morning.

“There were many interesting things to see,” he said, “but I was getting homesick, so I left for

Christmas in France - 1917

camp. I arrived late on Christmas Eve and was rewarded by finding your Christmas package waiting for me.”

Even before the first selective service draft registration in June 1917, Ted had seen an advertisement looking for “forest men,” and urging them to join the U.S. Army’s 10th Engineers Forestry Regiment.

“The men will work behind the lines in France,” it said, “and will be made up of woodsmen and sawmill workers. Its duties will be to convert the French forest into railroad ties, bridge timbers, pilings, telephone poles and lumber.”

Ted signed up and left Southern Oregon by train July 11, 1917. Less than a month later he was aboard a ship on his way to France.

After breakfast on Christmas morning, and surrounded by his friends, Ted opened the Christmas package his parents had sent.

“I was greeted with, ‘Ho, you lucky devil,’ on all sides,” he said. “Canned tobacco, you see, is unknown here. I’m certainly thankful for such thoughtful parents; even though I’ve only been using this filthy weed for two months.”

War duties were on hold for a morning baseball game followed by a Christmas feast in the afternoon.

“We all lined up 15 minutes before time and, when the mess call whistle blew, a cheer went up that startled all the natives. We had turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, pie, nuts, figs, dates and coffee.”

While the men waited in line, Lt. Walter Blair, the regiment’s leader, walked by carrying an overloaded dinner plate. He looked at the men with a big grin and shouted, “Who said war is hell?”

Ted returned home in January 1919, married, and raised a family. He died in 1967 and is buried in Medford’s Siskiyou Memorial Park.

“Well I hope you all had a fine Christmas,” he said, “and I know you did. Must close now and write thank-you letters to all those who remembered me. Merry Christmas to all.”

Writer Bill Miller is the author of “Forgotten Voices of WWI.” Reach him at newsmiller@live.com.

Christmas ‘42

By BILL MILLER

For the Mail Tribune

Christmas was just around the corner and the war news was still not good. The country was entering into its second year of combat and the patriotic folks at home were still proudly struggling with their own war efforts. There were no new cars to buy, no nylon stockings to wear. Tires and gasoline were rationed. Even a morning cup of coffee required a war ration book.

It was one sacrifice after another. When the government banned sliced bread, the Fluhrer Bakery ran newspaper advertisements explaining how to safely slice bread—“Lay the loaf on its side, bottom toward you. Hold it firmly, use a sharp knife, and long, easy strokes.”

Clocks stayed on daylight savings time to save energy, and restaurants began “Meatless Tuesday” so the boys overseas would have enough to eat. Shoes were rationed to one pair each year and Oregon’s weekly liquor allotment was cut from a quart to a pint.

No matter how bad it got, few people complained. After all, what were their troubles compared to those of a tank soldier in the African desert or a Marine on a Pacific island beach?

Five miles north of Medford a new military city had appeared—a training center named Camp White. The camp was about to celebrate it’s first Christmas, and most of the men would spend their holiday alone. That was unacceptable to community leaders who announced their intention to “bring gaiety and good cheer to our adopted sons. Let’s make Christmas a joyous day for every Camp White serviceman.”

Families invited soldiers to Christmas dinner. “Older girls and women, and especially mothers,” were asked to become hostesses at the local USO club. The ladies were assured that these social functions were well “controlled” and that it wasn’t necessary for volunteers to know how to dance.

Christmas 1942

By Christmas day, service clubs had helped soldiers wrap over 3,000 packages for the folks back home. Postal workers labored in 12-hour shifts to keep the mail flowing.

Medford musicians donated instruments to a servicemen’s makeshift band. Just in time for the holiday, they got everything they needed.

The artillery barrage on the Camp White practice range stopped at exactly five o’clock on Christmas Eve. The guns would be silent through the holiday and resume operations the following day.

Santa Claus was everywhere, but nowhere was the genial fat man more appreciated than in the camp’s hospital. Behind the white wig and whiskers, everyone recognized 1^st Sergeant Henry Putnam, but carried on with make believe surprise and wonder. At the “Kiddies Christmas Party” Santa even brought along one of his reindeer—Susie, a toy-carrying fawn adopted by the engineer’s battalion.

A choir from the local Episcopal Church sang Christmas carols and the band played a few selections on their newly borrowed instruments, while a magician worked his magic.

On Saturday, December 26, 1942, the world went back to wartime normal. Artillery shells whistled northward on the practice range, boots marched over the parade field, and engineers practiced bridge building on the Rogue River. Civilians returned to work and rationing.

Another Christmas would come and go before Americans landed in Europe. For nearly three more years soldiers would die.

On the home front, they would carry on no matter how long it took—one  sacrifice after another. And, if they were very, very lucky, Santa would bring them the gift they all wanted most—Peace on Christmas Day.

Writer Bill Miller is the author of “History Snoopin’,”a collection of his previous history columns and stories. Reach him at newsmiller@live.com or WilliamMMiller.com.