Washington County Oral Histories

Minor T. Hesse oral history recording

An audio recording of an oral history of Minor T. Hesse recorded on March 22, 1978, on the settlement and farming in Washington County, Oregon, specifically the Scholl area, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. His family represents the typical farmer in the area and his experiences convey common characteristics of rural life in the area. His family had come to Oregon with the intention to run a dairy farm and had to clear out the land of timber. He describes how his family made a profit from their cows and other products by making day trips into Portland. When bovine tuberculosis took out their herd of cows, Hesse recounts how his family invested in other crops, especially grains and potatoes to ship to California. He talks about his childhood chores on the farm, the Scholls Fair, the start of 4-H and the implementation of scientific farming, the addition of Ford automobiles and tractors to farm life, and the role that religion played in the area. Hesse describes the neighborhood trust that was built and how the farmers would help each other out, catch scammers and bring them into the town sheriff, and the expectation behind letting strangers stay at their farmhouse as they were traveling. He finishes by talking about the hops industry in the area, the breweries in Portland, the Chinese and Mexican migrant workers that came to help in the fields and stayed in labor camps set up by the farmers, and how Prohibition affected the hops business. There is a full typed transcript of the interview with an index, list of questions, and an introduction.

Hesse, Minor T.

Washington County (Or.) -- History

Hesse, Minor T.

Washington County (Or.)

2 sound cassettes (1 hr., 24 min.)

English

WCM_OH_297

In Copyright

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

Five Oaks Museum

Meyer, Lloyd

Audiocassettes

Sound