Our family (the Wolf family) arrived in Forest Grove in October 1945. My parents had made a deal with Bill Tubbs on a trade between our 22 acre farm near Port Moody BC (nowadays it would be worth zillions!) for 160 acres of short grass, rocks and timber on what is now Wilcox Road.
Our two-and-a-half day journey from the Coast had been a memorable experience for my brother, Jack age 5, myself (Doris), age 7 and our parents. We had travelled by boat across Howe Sound to the PGE Railroad terminal at Squamish, taking only suitcases and two huge steamer trunks filled with our belongings. From there, we endured the snail-paced, forever-stopping, jostling, noisy, dusty day-coach excursion, which followed a winding track-line northward, to eventually arrive at Exeter Station. The first thing I did upon clambering into Ross Redpath's waiting taxicab was to throw up a delayed effect from the train ride I guess. (Mom was extremely embarrassed and I was mortified!)
We had traded everything, including dishes, pots, pans and toys, with the Tubbs family. It was great fun for Jack and I to go through the toys the previous owners had left behind. There were 5 kids-I think— in the Tubbs family and only 2 in ours, so we probably got the better deal when it came to toys. Not much else though. The old log house was dark and dingy and extremely cold in the winter. We survived in that dreadful place for 4 years or so, until Dad built the wood frame building where my brother lives now.
My first memory of the sparsely settled community where we'd moved, was the huge contrast between it and the weather, trees and terrain in the rainforest where we'd lived previously. I recall happily trudging through inches of fluffy, powdered clay (I loved watching it swirl up from my shoes!) on our way to Sandback's farm, for Dad to purchase and bring home our first milk cow. (Can't recall where we got the team of horses that would be our eventual transportation?)
In those days there were very few vehicles on the Forest Grove roads. Most everyone had a team of horses for transportation and to harvest their hay, plough the fields, etc. The Wilcox family did have a red pickup truck though.., and later I think a small Austin car, My dad was extremely hearing impaired and my mom was very nervous, so we never did have anything powered by gasoline - except for the tractor that Dad purchased in about 1949.
Archie White was the long time proprietor of the Forest Grove general store, post office and feed shed. Further down the road was the school and community hall. In 1945 I was in grade two and had no choice but to walk the full two miles to school all by myself. The following year I had company when my brother entered grade one. After the district schools amalgamated when I was in grade six, we were able to catch the Bradley Creek school bus, driven by Mr. Gordon Duke. It followed the main road and cut our walking distance in half.
At least once I had the luxury of being picked up (by Josie I think?) and riding bareback behind her on her horse. Following that exhilarating experience, I always craved having a pony of my own, but never did get one. One of the Native ladies from Canim Lake did promise me a horse, if someone was able to locate the animal. I learned later that the poor thing had died in the bush.
My first day at Forest Grove School was one that I had been dreading. The oldest Tubbs girl who was about my age had apparently been tormented by a classmate named Jo-Jo. Jo-Jo had once thrown the poor girl's hat and coat down the outdoor privy or so the story went. My own hat and coat were brand new. My mother warned me that I must be careful while wearing the ensemble. It had cost plenty of hard-earned money.
Jo-Jo (Graham) never did throw my hat and coat down the toilet. She teased me a few times but I never was afraid of her. Once she followed me all the way home growling like a bear in the bushes. I glimpsed her bright red coat through the trees and was actually grateful for the company! I never did see any bears while walking to and from school, but I was deathly afraid of the cows that lingered in small herds along the roads. I'd heard about bulls-most often dairy bulls—that gored people to death, and I didn't want that to happen to me. I had no way of telling the difference between bulls and the slobbering cud-chewing variety that would eye me when I approached, armed only with a lunch kit and schoolbooks. My expensive hat and coat were in shreds by the end of the year, from me diving under barbed wire fences to escape from being gored!
The kids had been playing "Go, Go, Stop" when I arrived at the school that first day in October 1945. There were only 11 students (counting myself) in the entire one-room schoolhouse. Ronnie Redpath was in grade one and I was in grade two. Jo-Jo and Janet were in grade three. I think Buddy Graham was in grade four.... Dorothy Devore, who had long blonde braids which Buddy once dunked in an inkwell, and Josie Wilcox, who had darker hair and eventually married Claude Vourgoise, were in grade five or possibly six.... Bernice and Sheila Wilcox attended the higher grades. And I think Patty Graham did too. Margaret Carlson was our teacher, a very nice lady whom I met in later years, after she had moved to Williams Lake.
Gerry McMyn and Floris McDougal, may have also attended school that first year? I don't recall the older kids that well... Floris's brother had died tragically the previous winter. He had apparently been rescued after being lost in the woods. His rescuers made the mistake of leaving him alone by the campfire, while they went back for supplies. When they returned they found his footprints in the snow. He had apparently panicked—running around in circles and froze to death, anyway.
Dickie Sellars must have arrived later in the year...or perhaps not until the next, while we were both in grade three. It seems to me that we had more than one schoolteacher that year(1946-47). There were several more students as well, but I can't recall who they were (other than my brother who was in grade one and kept running to the school window and embarrassing me every time a car or truck went by!)
Mrs. Scott, a fairly elderly woman, was one of the teachers while I was in grade 3 that the older students really picked on. I recall the entire school strolling through the adjoining woods for three whole days, ostensibly looking for the school axe which one of the older boys had stashed somewhere. Mrs. Scott was forever admonishing her class by saying, "I'm not going to baby you!" But somehow her punishments never did a bit of good and I think she left before year's end.
It seems to me that my fourth grade teacher was a Miss Foote, or was it a Miss Humble? Our little white schoolhouse burned to the ground the following summer (1947)- spontaneous combustion they said had caused the fire. That fall the grades five and under were ensconced in the building across the road that in later years would become Ruth Sellars restaurant. (Mmm. I always think of flapper pie when I think of Ruth Sellars!) Our teacher that year-if I remember right—was a neighbour, a Mrs. Forbes.
I have a fond memory of the old days that I'd like to share. It must have been the first or second summer after we arrived that the magic of motion pictures first came to Forest Grove. It was at the Sandy McMyn residence, a mile or so west of the school, where I recall the memorable experience of watching Errol Flynn cavort late one evening on an outdoor screen. Errol sailed across the ocean in living colour, as we kids (as well as grownups) watched enthralled, while perching on the tailgates of trucks that were parked in the McMyn yard. There was no electricity in Forest Grove in those days, but I suppose Sandy and his friends had set up a generator just to power the projector.
Doris Wolf