Friday, January 3rd
Russian tea cakes (formed into balls and rolled in 6 Tbsp powdered sugar, excellent)
Friday, January 10th
We took a longish hike today, on a trail that we’d never gotten around to even though it is very near. Called the Mulkey Ridge trail, it is a 3.9 mile route that passes through two natural areas located on the western edge of Corvallis. The trail first passes down through the Fitton Green Natural Area and then along Mulkey Ridge through beautiful oak savannah. For variety there are also some big old firs and a healthy population of madrone. But the main thing is that it is semi-open country with lots of fine views, which is quite different from a fir forest with its view of nothing by tree trunks. About two and a half miles in, our trail went up to the top of the ridge, where we stopped for lunch at a bench in the sun. After that the trail took us down to Mulkey Creek and then continued east through a section of the original Green Belt Land Trust property. The route ends at the Bald Hill parking lot, where we had conveniently stashed an extra car so as to be able to drive back to where we’d parked the other.
Both creek and ridge are named for a family of immigrants who arrived in Oregon in 1846. Johnson and Susanna Mulkey were from Missouri and brought eight children with them. They settled on a homestead claim just west of Corvallis (then still known as Marysville.) Accompanying them was a young black woman named Ame. Missouri was then a slave state and in Missouri that’s what Ame had been. Once she entered Oregon, Amy was technically no longer a slave because slavery was not legal in Oregon. But she wasn’t free either. Oregon’s solution to the slavery controversy had been to pass a law saying that no black person would be allowed to live in Oregon. Any black person who chose to live in Oregon was subject to being publicly whipped every sixth months until that person decided to move on. But at least out in the hills west of Marysville, no one cared to enforce any of that legal folderol. The Mulkeys were able to ignore Oregon law and keep Ame on, still considering her to be their slave.
According to a memoir written by one of his granddaughters, Johnson Mulkey was a big believer in education. In the early days, he built a schoolhouse on his land and invited his neighbors to send their children there for free. Later on, a larger district school was established in area. During the Civil War this school suffered disruption due to the fact that the schoolmaster, a man named Emery Allen, was an anti-slavery northerner while some of the children came for families that had immigrated from the south. Writing many years later, Maude Keady, the memoirist granddaughter, remembered it this way:
Mr. Allen forbid the children to yell for Jeff Davis on the school grounds but allowed them to yell all they liked for [President] Abe Lincoln. One day enthusiasm ran high for Abe Lincoln. There had been lots of cheering, so my mother did not wait until she was off the school grounds until she began yelling for Jeff Davis. One of the younger Horning boys followed her lead. The next day, Mr. Allen called them up and threatened to whip them but finally let them go without the whipping. However, the school board, who were Uncle Charlie Johnson, Mr. Horning and someone else, discharged Mr. Allen and payed him off in greenbacks, which were at a considerable discount at that time.
As for Ame, she continued in her doubly illegal status even after the war, the Emancipation Proclamation notwithstanding. When Johnson and Susanna Mulkey died, she was passed along to their daughter Mary, who had married a man named John Porter. Ame outlived all four of these ostensible owners. She was buried in a Corvallis cemetery, near the plot owned by the Mulkey family but not quite inside it. Here is the marker:
When we first came to Corvallis in the late 1970s, there was a shop downtown called Mulkey’s Shoe Repair. In 1982, the shop was the site of a shotgun murder. But that’s a story for another time.
Wednesday, January 15th
It just takes a little sun for the solar car to really get going…
…until it runs into the shade.
Friday, January 17th
We had dinner at Ba’s in Albany with B and J. Ba’s seems to be popular these days; we were lucky to get there just before the rush. We all had warm noodle salads. Good stuff. M says their pho is also great.
We’ve been getting in contact with friends and family a lot lately. Perhaps it’s a response to the times.
Saturday, January 18th
Mexican Wedding Cookies (rolled in an entire bowl of powdered sugar, and perhaps even more excellent)
Sunday, January 19th
Over the last month or so, we’ve had to scramble over a fallen tree every time we walked up to Cronemiller Lake in the OSU forest. But not today.
Along the way we found a new sign. Maybe it’s because we’re English teachers, but to us it seemed a bit off.
Monday, January 20th
Sunny today with highs in the 40s. We did our grocery shopping early, then M fetched the red car out its winter quarters. To give the cat some exercise, we drove up to Wilsonville and met the Andees for lunch.
In the evening we watched The Six Triple Eight, a movie about a battalion of black women who served in Europe during World War II. We’d intended to stop in the middle and save the last half for another day, but it was so absorbing that we had to see it all. Very inspiring.