Mehama History

[kevin_standlee]

Yesterday, Lisa asked me to scan an old photo of the old house. Besides wanting to preserve the old photo, we also wanted to take a picture of the house from the same angle to compare the changes.

This photo of the old "Stout House" is undated, and our first estimate of its age was the early 1900s. However, we have another photo (I'll upload it later) that is dated 1911 that shows another building to the right of this one and that is sufficiently weathered that we revised the date of this photo to be earlier. Lisa's father volunteered that one of the family relations had a photography studio, including doing glass-plate photography. That meant we could revise the date of this photo into the 1800s, which also seems to more closely match the clothes of the people in it.

The old man sitting in the middle is Lisa's great-great grandfather, the man who homesteaded this land and built the house. (We know him from a pencil portrait hanging in the house.) We do not know who the women are here, but there's a pretty good chance that one of them is one of Lisa's great-grandmothers.

I ran off a draft-quality print of the picture on my printer, went over to the old house, and tried to match the angle. It's challenging because there's a building (the Mehama Community Church) in just about the spot I needed to stand. Try as I might, I could not find any angle that matched the old house. The main thing was that the angle of the roof and chimney wouldn't match.

Lisa came and looked at the photo as well. After puzzling over it for a minute, she had a brainstorm and turned the paper over. It matched very well. The print was mirror-flopped! It isn't obvious because there was nothing in writing or otherwise out of place, but it's the only way the picture fits reality. I went back and mirrored the scan using Paint Shop Pro and that is what I've posted above.

This morning before going to work I tried taking a photo, but when I looked at it later, I saw that there was so much glare from the rising sun that it was unusable. After lunch, with the sun overhead and not reflecting directly off the front of the house, and after several tries, I got the relatively close match above

It is of course difficult to make out much detail because there's been so much growth around the house. I mentioned to Lisa how taken I was by how little growth there was around the old photo. She said that her g'g'grandfather settled here when it was virgin forest, cleared all of the trees (I think the house is built from lumber milled from the wood thus cut), and let the sun shine in, at which point the temperate rain forest started reasserting itself.

At the far left in the newer photo is Lisa's trailer, which is my home when I'm here in Mehama. If there were not trees blocking the view, you would be able to see an additional outbuilding (the "summer kitchen") that was added to the building sometime after 1911.

The most significant difference (besides the trees) is the loss of the upper-floor "sleeping porch." Not visible in the old photo is a ladder built into the roof just below the chimney, presumably to make it easier to clean the chimney. The lower floor also used to have a wooden porch that went clear around the building. That is long gone, replaced by small concrete front and side door porches with wooden awnings over them. The point of the front door's porch structure would partially cover the upper-floor door shown in the old photo.

There is a tree behind the house in the old photo. We don't think that tree is there anymore, or else if the tree in that location is the same one, it has been substantially topped long ago. We are not sure if the bushes at the front of the house today are the same as the ones surrounding the gate in the old photo, but it seems plausible. (The gate is long gone.) Of the giant Sequoia that looms over the house to the upper left in the new photo there is no sign because it hadn't been planted yet.

What a difference a century makes!

Comments

[maurinestarkey.livejournal.com]

Love the wooden side walk. Reminds me of places in Alaska, were wood weathers better than cement. What happened to the second story windows and door? I would love to see how Great, Great Grandpa laid out the house. How the kitchen was used. Hope you find the more pictures or records.

My Grandparents house in Texas was designed by my grandmother. She drew it up on a table napkin and presented it to the rep of a pre-fab outfit. The house of her dreams was delivered to the farm on two flatbed trucks.

People need to know how life was even fifty years ago. We are losing so much.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

The front door of the ground floor of the house opens into a living room dominated by the fireplace. To the left of the front door is the Library. Beyond the living room is the kitchen toward the back of the house. Upstairs — and they are very steep, narrow stairs — are five bedrooms. There are also stairs to the attic, which is spacious enough to be almost a full third floor.

By the time Lisa's father came to Mehama (after marrying Lisa's mother), the second story porch was gone and the doors onto it sealed. The windows are still there, though. You can't see them in this photo because the trees are blocking them. Since Lisa's mother told Lisa she remembered sleeping on the porch on hot nights, we know the porch was there until at least World War II. We don't know exactly when it was torn down, but Lisa thinks the current siding that covers the original painted surface and the bathroom (one bathroom, located in the left rear of the ground floor relative to this picture) was installed during WW II.

Lisa says the current roof covering was installed at least 35 years ago over the existing roof and according to her, it has had no maintenance since then except what she's done to it.

[garyomaha.livejournal.com]

This is fascinating stuff. Thanks for sharing it.

So, indoor plumbing was added around WWII? (Is there water from the town or is it from a well?) When would electricity have been added? (Is there electric service from the town or is it what we call here in the midwest rural electric coop?)

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Lisa says that some indoor plumbing (water to the kitchen) was installed in the 1930s, and that the bathroom and toilet were put in around 1940. Although she was born long after that, Lisa reports having had to use the outhouse when she was little. She didn't like that.

Water is now from the local water district (it's drawn from the Santiam River), but was originally from a well.

Electrical wiring in the old house is a style I'd never seen before: Knob & Tube. The wires are on posts mounted on the ceiling, out in the open for all to see. We aren't sure, but speculate that it was installed in the 1920s. There have been hydroelectric generation facilities in the area since the time people installing electricity around here. Nowadays, the power comes from the local utility, Pacific Power, and most of our power here is being generated from Detroit Lake and its associated projects.

[johno.livejournal.com]

Is the Knob & Tube still active?

For modern high and continuous power draw they can be quiet dangerous.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Actually not; they're safer than modern wiring if used within their design limits, because the conductors are more widely separated. If overloaded of course they're dangerous, like any wiring.

(Three of my four houses have had knob-and-tube wiring in them; all less when I finished than when I started :-).)

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Yes, the K&T wiring is still active. Lisa knows how dangerous it can be. Nothing more than ordinary house lighting and some low-power-draw items are plugged in to it.

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

My house, which Kevin remembers, had some K&T up until the 1990s. It's a very reasonable way to wire up a house - provided you live in the 1930s. The system is safe when in good shape (which isn't always the case decades after installation) but back in the day nobody imagined the levels of electrical use that are common today.

[lisa-marli.livejournal.com]

Our house was built in the 20s. I would love to see some photos like that of the house.
Luckily, it was built with indoor plumbing and Knob and Tube Wiring in the walls.
We still have it around, mostly to wall switches up to the ceiling and the ceiling lights. We have replaced most of what went to the baseboard power outlets with more modern heavier duty stuff. But it is quite safe and was well done, so we don't want to ruin the walls to replace it for the lights.
How do we know how safe and well done it is? Seems one of Big Harold's Grandfathers was an electrical inspector for NYC. And Harold has his inspection book someplace. He read it years ago, and as soon as he saw the wiring in the house, knew what needed updating and what could stay that way forever if need be, as it was Very Safe.
Yes, the geek in my husband and son is definitely inherited. :D