Oregon Women - Sarah McBee

The other night I felt extremely overwhelmed.  Things around here have been crazy busy.  The laundry is piling up, the cleaning the garage project is only half done, we haven’t been to the grocery store in three weeks, my car needs washed and cleaned out, there are literally six half finished major craft projects piled on my craft table, I haven’t filed our bill paperwork in four months, there are eight books on my nightstand waiting to be read, and the vacuum cleaner hasn’t seen the light of day in a month.

On top of that, the weather is getting warmer and we don’t have air conditioning.  That means super warm nights that are hard to sleep through.  What does that matter when my alarm is just going to go off at 6:00am to get up for work.  The struggle of digging through an entire closet filled with clothes, and yet I have nothing to wear.  Then there’s the mornings that I hit the snooze one more time and don’t have extra minutes to stand under the hot water while I try to wake up.  These are usually the mornings that I don’t have time to stop by the local coffee shop for my latte and bagel.

I continuously walk by the treadmill in my living room, feeling guilty that I am not walking on it.  Nothing like adding a little extra guilt on top of everything else.  The eating healthy thing has taken a back seat (not a lot of time and energy to do pre-planning for meals).  This means lunch out everyday.  Ugh, I swear I am on a first-named basis with the majority of the drive-up window employees in this town.

So why do I tell you all this.  Let’s go back to a few nights ago when I was feeling extremely overwhelmed.  I had decided to just give up and go to bed.  I picked up one of the eight books staring at me from the nightstand.  This was a new book, one I had picked up the weekend we were in Sumpter.  To be honest, I chose it the other night because it was the thinnest of the stack.  That’s really not the point to this whole story,  The point is how much this book changed my focus on my life.

The book, “Remarkable Oregon Women” is a series of short biographies of the extraordinary women who shaped the state I live in today.  Reading about what these women went through in their lives really made me think of how blessed I am and how petty most of the things I was stressing about are.  These women left everything they had behind and headed west, either by wagon train or by boat (which, in case you were wondering, had to go around the cape of South America).  Either way, it was months of traveling.  They buried family members along the way, gave birth, were attacked by Indians, and most were on the brink of starvation before they reach their destination.  Many would never see the family members they left behind again.

On our recent trip to Salem, Scott and I made a point of stopping by a couple of the pioneer cemeteries.

I had a list of women I had researched and we were able to locate a few of them.  Their stories are fascinating to me and I want to share them with you.  This is the first installment in a new series I’m calling “Oregon Women”.  Hopefully, you will enjoy getting to know these women also.

Today I want you to meet Sarah McBee.

Sarah McBee

Born: 23 May 1826 – Kentucky

Died: 13 Jan 1864 – Salem, Oregon

BIOGRAPHICAL:
Source - Sarah McBee Judson (daughter) in interview with Fred Lockley, Oregon Journal 27 June 1922

"My father, John McBee, who was born in Ohio, came to Oregon in 1852. My mother's maiden name was Sarah Matheny. She was born in Kentucky. My parents had four children when they started by ox team across the plains for the six-months trip to Oregon. John, who was about a year and a half old, died near the Blue Mountains. Ellen, who was a few months old, died not far from where the city of Pendleton now is. Mother's brother, many years later, took the map mother had made showing the location of the graves of her two babies and went up there to put headstones on the graves. He could locate only one of the graves, and it was in a field planted to wheat, so he couldn't tell just where the grave was. My brother George, 6 and Francis, 4½ years old made the trip in safety. My sister Elisabeth was born in 1853, not long after they took up their donation land claim. I was the next child and was born in 1859."

OBITUARY:
Died, in Salem, Marion Co., on the 18th day of January, 1864, Mrs. Sarah McBee, aged 37 years, 7 months and 20 days.

Sister McBee united with the M.E. Church in the State of Missouri, a number of years ago, but was baptized and admitted into full connection by Rev. David Rutledge, during his pastoral relation to this charge. Her Christian experience may be summed up in the apostle's language, "For me to live in Christ, to die is gain." She was taken with diphtheria while watching by the bedside of an afflicted daughter, and in a few hours expired while seated in a chair. Her last words were, "Jesus take me, Jesus take me."

Sister McBee and four of her children are now over the river, while the husband and three children are on this side. May they all at last compose an unbroken family in heaven.
Isaac Dillon
Pacific Christian Advocate 23 January 1864 2:6

NOTES:
1850 MO CENSUS - Sarah McBee, age 25, b. Kentucky, is enumerated with  John McBee, age 31, occupation farmer, b. Ohio, along with George W., age 3, b. Missouri, Frances, age 2, b. Missouri, and John, age 6 months, b. Missouri.
1860 Marion Co. CENSUS lists S. McBee, wife of J. 33 yrs. Born in KY.

SOURCES:
DAR pg 30
1850 MO CENSUS (Ray Co., Dist. #75, FA #577)
OJ 27 June 1922
PCA 23 Jan 1864 2:6

Sunday Brunch

Whew, I am glad that this week is over.  What a busy week we had.  We were not home one night this week.  I managed to make it to five of the seven home baseball games, while Scott made it to three.  In fact, Monday night, Tonja and I were picked to sit in the best seats in the house.

Two nice leather recliners right along the third base line!  The weather is starting to get warmer and we no longer have to pack in our snow jackets for the evening.

Scott and I made a quick trip to Salem on Friday.  I had a meeting for work, but we managed to fit in a quick side project.  I’ll let you in on that one a little later in the week.  I haven’t had time to work on it yet.

I wanted to catch you up on the yard/glass project.  As soon as the weather turned nicer, the grass grew really fast and the dirt dried out to where it was too hard to do anymore digging for the year.  I called it quits on the digging and took my six full buckets into the house for cleaning.  When I say cleaning, I mean that I soaked the glass in hot soapy water and then washed each piece individually with a toothbrush.  It was time consuming, but there really was no other way.

This is the pile that I ended up with:

This pile contains all sorts of finds. 

There are the remnants of an old Wesson container:

Various types of handles:

Lots of pieces to something that was painted a very shiny orange and blue.  I can’t figure out what it supposed to be because these pieces are all shapes and sizes:

These pieces must have come from a window:

And these pieces make almost a complete crock:

There is blue glass:

Glass with Texture:

Glass with writing:

Even glass with painted flowers on it:

There are whole bottles:

Just bottle tops with the lids still attached:

There is even a pot with a lid:

My favorite is a bottle top with a marble stuck in it:

Yes, it is wedged in there.

Now, you might ask what one person would do with all this glass they have collected.  I picked up a large old crock and an old pickle jar.  Between the two, they are pretty full. 

If anyone else has any ideas how to properly display shards of old glass, I would love to hear them.

One last note: I was done in the yard for the season, but apparently someone else was itching to get it.  On my way to work Tuesday morning, I noticed some tire tracks in the gravel headed straight for our fence line.  Someone was nice enough to drive through our fence line and then leave. 

The downside is that Scott has to spend time and money fixing this.  But the upside is that the culprit was nice enough to leave behind some good fishing gear and parts to an orange pickup.  Hmmm, I’ll be keeping my eyes out for an orange pickup missing parts.

Sunday Brunch (Wait, What Day Is It?)

Do you ever have those weekends where you bounce from one thing to the other?  Where you just go, go, go, and by the end you are so exhausted that you can’t even remember what you did?  The kind of weekend where you take extra days off just to fit it all in.

This past weekend was one of those weekends.  We headed up North first thing Friday morning with a truck loaded down with stuff for my parents garage sale.  I am sure that people on the road couldn’t tell if we were moving, heading to the dump, or just plain crazy to be hauling this junk 250 miles just to sell it for pennies on the dollar.  I am pretty sure that my husband fell into the category of thinking I was crazy.  It’s not crazy, it tradition.  Every year, my parent’s subdivision holds an annual garage sale day.  We participate every other year.  This happened to be the year.

We spent Friday rounding up everyone’s stuff.  Between my parents, my sister, and us, we had quite a variety of items for sale.

Everything was priced and ready to go at 8:00am Saturday morning.  At 8:01am, the sky opened up and the rain came down.  This was a shock from the warm, sunny day on Friday.  But, this is Albany, the Willamette Valley! A little rain never stops anything.  Within ten minutes, we had a crowd.

Another ten minutes went by before my dad and Scott made the executive decision to put up the pop-up tent.

The pop-up tent helped (as long as you didn’t stand under the sides that would unload puddles of water when you least expected it!)

My dad is the salesman of the group.  He hates to see people leave with money still in their pockets.  He even told several customers this very thing.  As the day went on, he was wheeling and dealing.  Everything had to go.  He and Scott where happy to tear it apart, box it up, or load it in your car.

In the end, we made close to $400 between our three families.  This was awesome considering the weather and the lack of advertising.

The garage sale was just the first nine hours of the day.  We had enough time after cleaning up to get cleaned up ourselves before attending my niece’s Summer ballet recital.  This was her first performance on her toes shoes and she looked beautiful!  I was very proud of her.  We all went out to dinner after her performance and made it back to my parent’s house around 11:00pm.  What a long day. 

We woke up Sunday, had breakfast, took a truck load of stuff to my sister’s house, loaded up our stuff to take home, and headed down the road towards home.  We didn’t make it far before we had to stop at the new Cabela’s store in Springfield.  I am thinking that every other family within a 200 mile radius thought it would be a great idea to take their dad there for father’s day. It was so crowded that we would get stuck on the aisles.  It was too much and we left without purchasing anything.  Maybe we will go back on a day that it isn’t crazy.

From there we went another 30 miles to the town of Dexter.  They were having their weekly farmer’s market at the park, so we stopped by there.  In addition, we stopped at a roadside strawberry stand to pick up a half flat of fresh strawberries.  Last official stop was for lunch in Oakridge.  The four hour ride home took about seven hours in the end.

We made it home in time to do the Sunday chores of taking out the garbage, cleaning dog kennels, cleaning the liter box, three loads of laundry, cooking dinner, and sorting through three days of mail.  Ugh, we were exhausted by the time our heads hit the pillow last night.

This week isn’t looking any better for having any downtime.  We didn’t even bother with the weekly grocery shopping because we won’t be home together one night this week.  Summer officially starts tomorrow and it is supposed to be 90 degrees here.  A far cry from the 60’s and low 70’s we have been experiencing.  A few days of hot weather is nice, but I for one am hoping that it doesn’t stick around very long. It might be time to get the dog’s pool out and go for a swim.

I would like to end by wishing my mother a Happy Birthday today.  I won’t tell you how old she is, just that she is very wise for her age.  I love you mom!

Sunday Brunch (just a little late)

This past weekend was free fishing day in the State of Oregon.  Free fishing day means that you don’t have to have a license to fish.  It also means that there are events held at lakes and fish hatcheries for kids to learn how to fish.

In preparation for free fishing weekend, Scott got the boat out last weekend.



Ummm, yeah this is redneck fishing at it’s best.  The dogs were having so much fun that Scott made a couple of laps around the yard.



Unfortunately, Scott didn’t a have motor for his boat, so they didn’t end up taking it fishing.  Neither one of them wanted to row.

Dusty and Scott headed up first thing Sunday morning to Lake of the Woods.  Luckily they got there early enough to rent a boat.  One that actually had a motor on it.



Dusty had to take it for a spin just to make sure everything passed the test.  The boys decided that getting a boat and getting out of the crowd was the better way to go.



After a few hours of trolling the lake by themselves, Dusty and Scott turned their boat back in and met up with Andy, Treva, Michael, and Devon.  They were catching fish by the bucket load.



Everyone was having a great time.



The boys came home sunburned, tired, and happy.  It was a good day on the lake. 

Send a Boy Scout to Camp

A few weeks ago we saw a flyer at the local gas station with the headline “Send a Boy Scout to Camp”.  Upon closer inspection, we discovered the local boy scouts were raising money to go to summer camp for a week.  They were looking for some odd jobs around the neighborhood to raise the funds.

Scott happens to work with Andy, the dad of two of these boys.  After we came up with a small list of things the boys could do in our yard, Scott talked with Andy about having Michael and Devon come over for a couple of hours.  They were available over Memorial Day weekend, when we happened to be gone.

Now, you have to take into consideration that these boys are 8 and 10.  They really can’t run a chainsaw, weed eater, rototiller, etc.  Most of our work required one form of this or another.  We had two trees that Scotty and Scott  had recently cut down.  They boy’s job was to take the cut up wood and stack it in the wood pile, on the other side of the yard.  They were then supposed to take all the little branches and put them in the burn pile so they could dry out to burn later.

The wood was cut up in pretty big pieces, so Andy had to chop it down to smaller pieces.  Our wheelbarrow is really big, so Andy had to push it over to the wood pile.  The woodpile is getting pretty high, so Andy had to stack the wood because the boys couldn’t reach.

It does appear that the boys were able to drag the little branches to the burn pile though.  It also appears that they had time to practice some of their boy scout skills, based on the outcome:



One thing is for sure, these boys will definitely pass “building a shelter” at camp. 



Scott was pretty excited.  It’s the best $20 worth of yard work he has ever paid for.  As for Andy, I think he deserved a few Advil and a six-pack of beer by the time he was done.

Sunday Brunch–Part One

This week, there will be two installments of Sunday Brunch.  There is a lot to report from the Brainard home front.  Tonight’s report will be about the opening of the Gems Baseball season.

First, a brief history of Gems baseball in our town.  The Gems (which are a type of potato, in case you didn’t already know that) originally played in the Basin from 1948 to 1951. 

The stadium, originally named Gem Stadium, was renamed for longtime youth baseball supporter Estin Kiger.  The ballpark is one of two all-wood stadiums left in the United States.  Sitting at an elevation above 4,000 feet, baseballs travel much farther at Kiger than the other sites of league opponents, most of which are right around sea level.

Scotty and Emily came over on Friday to go to opening night with us.  Over 1,700 people turned out, which is pretty good for our town.

Only at a small-town baseball game can you go to the beer stand and come back with a six-pack!

And only at a small-town baseball game is your mascot a large carton of French fries that answers to the name of “Tater”.

Friday night’s game ended with the Gems beating the Bend Elks by a score of 5-2.  Although the weather has not warmed up, none of us had to put on our heavy duty winter jackets.

Saturday night Scott had to work so Tonja and I went to the game.  It was a nice night at the park and, again, the Gems beat the Elks in extra innings by a score of 3-2.

Tonight was an earlier game, and the last in this series with the Elks.  Prior to the game, the OIT Softball team was introduced.

This team won the NAIA Championship a couple of weeks ago. 

Pitcher Jackie Imhof was named Player of the NAIA tournament.  That could be in part because she threw a no hitter in the semi-finals.  She threw out the first pitch of tonight’s game.  I am not sure if the Gems catcher has ever had to catch for a girl, but I think he was pretty impressed by Jackie’s pitching.

The lighting was better today because it was an early game.  Scott took his extra zoom lens.  Here are a few of my favorite shots from tonight’s game.

Tonight’s game broke the winning streak with a loss by 5-6.  It got pretty intense in the bottom of the ninth inning, but we just weren’t able to pull it out. 

Next game, next Friday night, against the Wenatchee Applesox (the defending league champions).  This should be a real test for our team.

Tune-in in the next couple of days to find out what happens when you leave the boy scouts unattended in your yard, and Scott’s idea of redneck fishing.