Washington County Oral Histories

Walter Tews oral history recording Part 2

Part two of an audio recording of an oral history of Walter Tews and his life in Hillsboro, Oregon. The recording starts with Tews continuing his description of a guy approaching him about a spotlight and telling Tews that he had done the best job possible. Tews tells stories of his time as police chief including locking a young man up in the iron cell in the jail for an hour to teach a lesson about curfew. When the discussion turns to Prohibition, Tews talks about his distrust of vaccinations and how there was nothing a shot of whiskey couldn’t cure. He recounts more memories of the fires in town and how the bakery and hospital could have burnt down. The Great Depression definitely had an effect on Hillsboro and he remembers the ways in which people helped each other through the time. During this time, Tews also worked on clocks and describes how he wanted equal money for his work. He also describes how he borrowed money from the restaurant where he worked and how people also borrowed money from him. He goes on to talk about the Fourth of July celebrations that were extremely popular and how they were more well-attended than the county fairs which became something mainly for the farmers. Tews finishes by talking about his time building roads and the process behind it with the different sized rocks. He enjoyed his time living in Hillsboro and taking on so many positions. He always finished every one of his jobs that he took on. As with the first part, it is difficult to understand many of the individual words that Tews says throughout the interview. There is some background noises of cars’ engines roaring by and the clocks chiming, but the interview is still clearly audible. There is an attached page of typed introduction and an index along with the recording.

Tews, Walter

Washington County (Or.) -- History

Tews, Walter

Law enforcement

Washington County (Or.)

Hillsboro (Or.)

1 sound cassette (58 min.)

English

WCM_OH_291b

In Copyright

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Five Oaks Museum

Audiocassettes

Sound