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PIONEERS OF THE GRAND COULEE DAM AREA
MARGARET (SEATON) TASCHEREAU
My Dad, Sam Seaton, spent 80 of his 83 years in the Grand Coulee Dam Area. He and Mother made their first home at Sherman Bluff —about 10 or 15 miles upriver from my Grandfather Thomas Seaton's ferry—near the present Spring Canyon Park. there dad built the sides of our house out of a Spokane bridge's square timbers. These were salvaged after the bridge was burned and fell into the river, eventually coming down the Columbia River where Dad caught many of them. My brother, Clair, and my sister Eleanor and I were all born while we lived near Sherman.
About 1919, Dad built a raft of the square timbers, and all our household goods were piled in the center as we were moving downriver. We children sat in the middle with strict orders not to move. Mother manned the big sweep that guided the large raft while Dad pushed with his motor boat. After being rained on several times we finally floated down to Grandfather Seaton's place. There we spent the winter while Dad built our house—located at the present dam site—again using the square timbers of the raft for much of it.
We soon settled into country life though Dad kept fairly busy running the Grant County Ferry, also called the Sam Seaton Ferry. We had livestock and considerable garden. Dad also cut trees for firewood, he improvised a saw with a horse travelling round and round furnishing the power.
In 1926 Dad ferried Herbert Hoover, then Secretary of Commerce across the river and showed him the area where the big dam was hoped to be built. Engineers took core drilling samples from off the ferry long before the dam was constructed.
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Probably in 1932, a number of congressmen and dignitaries of the U. S. Bureau of Reclamation met on the Grant County side of the river to promote the construction of Grand Coulee Dam. A huge crowd of people came to the ceremony; but no provisions were made to accommodate their needs. About noon that day Dad started bringing hungry visitors across the river to our house for food. Though we were unprepared for this we did have a considerable supply on hand as we had just received a shipment from "Burgans" of Spokane. All afternoon we worked preparing meals served on our table to customers who helped themselves, paying as they wished into a bowl mother set out. During those hectic hours my brother, Clair, came to the house, grabbed some biscuits, and went to the garden to dig another sack of potatoes. By nightfall our groceries were so depleted that Dad drove to Nespelem for more.
Finally construction on the big dam was begun; and life changed for all of us who lived in the immediate area. George Brett lived toward Elmer City, he owned most of the big hill back of Coulee Dam; from this hill came all the gravel and sand for the main dam. Rath lived near where mead Circle now is; and he owned a small portion of the hill. Explorers were looking along the river for gravel when Mr. Brett pointed out his hill of grave. Its location was supposed to have saved the government $15 million. I think John Vertress worked on the entire gravel and cement job and could give all details of it. The gravel conveyor belts, batch plants, and everything were the biggest of their kind at that time. The big sand pile in Coulee Dam is all washed sand left over from dividing the sand and gravel into the four sizes they could use.
The big hole where the gravel was removed became the garbage dump for the town of Coulee Dam; it still could be used for this for years if the ecology people would allow it. After construction began, George Brett moved to a homestead above Raymond Green's place, near McGinnis Lake. Several years before my Dad died, he and George went to Spokane to see a doctor, and George dropped dead there. Martha Rath lived on a small ranch just below Raymond Green's and she moved to Spokane when the dam was nearly finished.
Many years ago, according to my Aunt Bess (Seaton) Dumas, a large slide on the Ferry County side of the Columbia River blocked that river briefly—I believe it was between Plum and the Keller Ferry. She told that a young Indian, last name of Covington, was riding a horse along it when the slide carried him to the Lincoln County side of the river. he and his horse were only skinned a bit, wet and scared. He rode down to Granddad's ferry to get back home. Aunt Bess said that they had quite a time saving the ferry when the water and trash came. She never said the actual date, but I have the impression it was about 1904. There is no road to the area, but the slide looks fresh when you ride by it now in a boat.
Margaret (Seaton) Taschereau and Helen Rinker
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EDNA ZELIA WHITNEY ALLING
Edna Zelia Whitney Alling came to the Rex area in May, 1914, as a bride. Her young husband Ben and his father had purchased some of the property several years before, and Jim, an older brother, was homesteading some adjoining land. A log house was her new home. The next spring she was staying at the home of Ben's folks near Cheney awaiting the birth of their first child, a girl named Zelia. In the following years the family grew to nine, five girls and four boys. Five were born in the old ranch house, three at the home in Almira. They purchased the house in Almira so that the children could attend school. In the country it was a four mile trek to the little country school at Rock Lake over a dirt road. In warm weather rattle snakes were a threat — in winter the roads were blocked with snow drifts.
In Almira the Alling house was the congregating place for many of the young people in town. The opportunity to attend school was much sought after and the Alling home was home to a number of country youngsters who stayed there during the school year. Among those were Mamie Hopkins, Perena Cunningham, Nettie Rice, Claude and Charlie Harrison, lily Lael, Bea Alling and when the roads were bad in the Almira country, Helen Peha and Wennie Kelly stayed over. Margaret Seaton also stayed when her family was out of town. The girls basketball team always seemed to end up at the Alling house when coming late from a game in another town.
In the summer friends of the Alling children managed to find a way out to the ranch to spend a week or two visiting. Dad Alling often took a load of visitors home to Almira when he made a trip in for parts and supplies, only to bring back a new group of excited kids.
The Alling Ranch hospitality was widely known, visitors were always urged to stay for a meal and if business allowed they stayed overnight. Setting a table for twenty in the summer was routine with the hired men, visiting relatives, and youngsters, and a family of nine children. Besides the cooking and dishes for this many people, the large garden and orchard produced abundantly which meant weeding, picking and canning!! Vegetables, fruit, jam, and pickles — it seemed as if the washboiler full of jars was on the wood cookstove most days during the summer. There was the fresh milk to care for and butter to be churned to go with the fresh baked bread. The laundry was done in a washing machine equipped with a subborn gas motor and then hung on the long clothes lines to dry.
Finding the hidden hens nests while keeping a sharp eye out for rattle snakes kept anyone assigned that chore on the alert. Living below the basalt cliffs meant plenty of rattle snakes. Some years the family and workers
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would kill up to sixty rattlers during the summer; they strung each rattle on a thread so they could be counted.
Early spring was the time for Mom to send for the garden seed and to start a hatching of eggs in the incubator in Almira. When the move to the ranch was made after school was out, it was a major undertaking — packing up the family's clothes, bedding, the kitchen supplies, empty canning jars — loading up the young chickens — family pets and the family milk cow. In the fall the move was reversed, going to town would be a fresh cow, young laying hens, suntanned kids, more pets and maybe a new country kid to board at the Allings and start high school. When Mom Alling's children were small, she had a hired girl, and at times a couple would work at the ranch so she had kitchen help. As the older girls grew up they were soon doing a lot of the cooking and baking, leaving Mom time to do more sewing of school clothes for us.
Mom and Dad became very interested in the Grange when they joined Delrio Grange in the early thirties. As their family could take over for a vew weeks during the summer, the attended the Washington State Grange Conventions. They also took trips back to Missouri to visit relatives and just to see the sights, like Yellowstone Park.
Mom always enjoyed sewing and needlework and entered the Grange contests every spring. Her collection of winning ribbons proved her ability. After Mom and Dad moved to Grand Coulee, Mom became more interested in craft work. After Dad died, the house was full of projects she was working on. She had the knack of looking at a design and being able to reproduce it without the instructions. Many of her friends and all of the family were recipients of her talents. But what she enjoyed most in later years was having the whole family home for a holiday or her birthday.
Edith Alling and Nell Trefry
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