My Little Shasta Valley: A Memoir

By Lucille von Wolffersdorff

In 1920, a baby girl was born at Table Rock Ranch in northern California. In My Little Shasta Valley, she tells the story of growing up north of Mount Shasta and the adventures she had as she, just like her mother and grandmother before her, fell in love with the land, the people, and the animals that inhabit it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jun 24, 2019
• ISBN: 9781543971781

Book preview

Copyright © 2019 by Lucille von Wolffersdorff

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means - - - electronic, mechanical, or other - - - without written permission from the author, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Design by Amelia von Wolffersdorff

Cover illustration by Joy von Wolffersdorff

Print ISBN 978-1-54397-177-4

eBook ISBN 978-1-54397-178-1

A Wolftale Publication

BookBaby

7905 N. Crescent Blvd., Pennsauken, NJ 08110

◆◆◆

I dedicate this book to my two wonderful granddaughters, Adrienne and Amelia von Wolffersdorff. I hope that through reading these stories, you may come to know and understand my love of Table Rock Ranch and Little Shasta Valley.

Contents

Preface

◆ Grass Lilies

◆ Henry Hogeboom

◆ Table Rock Ranch

◆ The Four Cold Springs

◆ Soda Springs

◆ Portrait of Irma D.

◆ Fort Jones v. Yreka, 1914

◆ Portrait of Daniel C.

◆ The Haystack

◆ Shelley Background

◆ The Old Ranch House

◆ Two Brothers

◆ The First Car

◆ The Brown Bear

◆ The Aspen Room

◆ A Fine Strong Woman

◆ Snatches of Childhood Memories

◆ The Climb

◆ Cecil and the John Deere Tractor

◆ First Grade

◆ Santa’s Mistake

◆ Grandpa’s Death

◆ The Shop at Table Rock

◆ A New Playhouse

◆ Timber Wolf

◆ Tricycle Ruts

◆ Mother’s Dedication

◆ A Little Sister Arrives

◆ The Animals at Table Rock

◆ Horses

◆ Shorty Lee

◆ Topsy

◆ My Fear Destroyed

◆ Riding Horseback to School

◆ Little Sister Helen

◆ Dogs on the Ranch

◆ The Fish in the Ditch

◆ Cattle Drive

◆ Solomon’s Temple

◆ Paul and Claudine

◆ Up to the Head

◆ A Different Matter

◆ White Ashes

◆ Dewey Mountain

◆ Riding the Wings of Heaven

◆ Moving Hazel Bull

◆ Alfalfa Fire

◆ Sam

Preface

I first considered writing a book at age eleven after discovering the Harp Ranch. The Harp Ranch lay in the eastern part of Table Rock Ranch, well up the Bald Mountain Road that led into Oregon. The Harp family had borrowed money from my great-grandfather, Philip Sidney Terwilliger, the pioneer who arrived in 1854 after crossing the prairie, the Platte River, and the Rocky Mountains. He had left New Lebanon in Illinois after his marriage to Phoebe Hogeboom. As the wagon train dropped down the western flank of the Rockies, they followed the Oregon Trail toward Oregon, breaking off to go through the Modoc Indian Area of Northern California. Destination: Yreka, in Siskiyou County.

The journey west had been essentially uneventful. There was a small problem with Indians. Late one night they stole a number of horses from the wagon train. In the morning, the men followed the tracks and were able to retrieve their horses. They went on their way and nooned where there was both grass and water.

At the Platte River, Philip Sidney Terwilliger kept a lame heifer rather than sell her to two French ferry men who had offered a ludicrously low price for her. Instead of selling her for pennies, Great-grandfather butchered her and shared the meat with members of the wagon train.

Sidney had information about a ranch in Little Shasta Valley. He left his young wife in Yreka, rode out to the valley, found the ranch, and hired on to work on the property. He worked for a few weeks and then bought the property.

He came west with money. He loaned money to eager settlers, then collected the land if they failed to make a payment. My mother told me, He was very fair, Lucille. He gave his borrowers every chance to make payment.

To return to the Harp Ranch, the Harp family had defaulted on the loan to Sidney (if one story is true). However, it may be that they abandoned their property for some other reason.

The Ranch was situated in the shelter of a steep, elongated cliff of lava along the south side; the north boundary was Little Shasta Creek and Bald Mountain Road. A picturesque setting. The Harp house had a barn and an orchard. The latter was still alive and producing fruit when I discovered it. In this field, there was another feature of interest. There was a special hill. It was scooped out on one side, which created a sheltered area between the creek and the hill, where mares chose to foal. How wise of them. Almost no wind, no lava, plenty of grass and juniper trees and plenty of water. An ideal nursery.

In later years, while riding one day, I found the house. Windows and doors were missing. I got off my horse, went right in, snooped around and imagined the Harp Family who had once lived there. In several rooms old flowery wallpaper peeled from the top and billowed in circles half way down the walls. There was no sign of any animal living in this abandoned relic. Possibly it was too open to provide shelter for skunks or opossums. Why did the Harp family leave? Had they left in haste? What had they been like? I rode home and started writing my first novel! You laugh––and you should laugh. I was eleven.

The point is that in 2015, when my esteemed teacher, Linda Apmadoc, suggested that I turn my stories of the ranch into a book, it was not an entirely foreign idea.

In the 1990’s when I was visiting my son’s family in Seattle, two precious granddaughters had been listening to a story when they said, Stop, Grandma Ceil. They ran and got pencils and paper and proceeded to write down what I was telling them.

To write this book, I have read several memoirs. I have concluded that the memoir author has full license to write as if writing a letter to a dear friend. The reader will respond to honesty; this will build trust. But whimsical imagination is permissible, if admitted. I admit to a little.

The dialogue of my parents in bed is imagined. They did frequently talk in bed. On the sleeping porch where we all slept during summer, I was still awake, and I heard their words.

I am including two stories about my great uncles because I think the stories are charming. Each did happen. Some of that dialogue is verbatim; some is not. As a girl growing up, I knew both men.

I have tried to truthfully portray the wonderful people in my life. There is always a reason behind a characteristic, even if it’s only genetic.

Tonight I have been writing for three hours. I love to write like this––with only one interruption. (A Resident Assistant came in to see if I am still alive. I am.) It is almost 2:00 a.m., October 22, 2015.

Editor’s note:

Within the reminiscences in this book are many place names. The author was born almost one hundred years ago, and the family stories she was told were passed down from generations going back to the 1850’s. Some of the place names the author uses in the book are from a long-ago Little Shasta Valley and not what they are called today. For example, Bald Mountain and Bald Mountain Road feature prominently in the book and are Lucille’s names for Ball Mountain and Ball Mountain Road. I always called it Bald Mountain, Lucille says, because that’s how it looked to me. Lucille’s Little Shasta Creek, which winds through Table Rock Ranch and is the backdrop to several of her stories, is now called Little Shasta River. The name China Ditch was used for more than one ditch in Siskiyou County. Another name used today is the Yreka Ditch.

As for family names, three generations of Terwilligers lived and raised their children on Table Rock Ranch: Philip Sidney (Sid) and Phoebe Terwilliger, their son Sidney Franklin (Frank) and his wife Susan, and then Frank and Susan’s daughter, Irma Della, and her husband Dan Shelley (Lucille’s parents). To help keep all the many siblings, uncles, aunts and cousins straight, an unofficial family tree can be found in the Appendix at the back of the book.

Chapter 1

Grass Lilies

Rain had soaked the steep northern side of Table Rock

Spring and serious sun shone down

Grass lilies leapt from their bulging bulbs

To canvas the hill in a billowing blanket

Of delicate, diaphanous gossamer blue.

Visited by a variable velvet breeze

The blossoms bend and softly sway

In wondrous waves of ocean spray

Born of that sensuous sea long ago

In the twilight of trilobite time.

Trilobite Fossil

Trilobites first appeared 520 million years ago and disappeared about 250 million years ago.

Chapter 2

Henry Hogeboom

Her father leaned back in his chair, placed one hand on Phoebe’s hand as she sat beside him.

Oh, Phoebe, I don’t want you to go so far away. Your girls’ school is going to suffer without you as Headmistress. You know that, don’t you?

Papa, Papa! My husband, Mr. Terwilliger, is fascinated by California. He is a very focused man. It’s not the gold. He wants to put down roots and start a family. I want that too. So, Papa, please do not make it harder on me. I have no wish to leave you. I shall miss you and our long talks terribly.

Phoebe Hogeboom Terwilliger and her husband Philip Sidney Terwilliger

Reprinted from the Siskiyou Pioneer

Not as much as I shall miss you. Where in California are you going? He told me, but I’ve forgotten.

Papa, a friend of his was in the Yreka area and just happened to find a ranch that is for sale. It is east of Yreka. Reported to be a great buy. Sid thinks it might be just the thing for us. You know how he gets.

Yes, I know. There are good buys here in Illinois. Our soil is excellent.

Papa, there is a bonus––a special mountain––Mount Shasta, 14,000 feet above sea level. It is a beautiful mountain rising from the floor of the valley. It dominates the whole area. I can’t wait to see it!

Well, I guess Illinois doesn’t have any special mountains. I guess I have to accept it––that you are going away from me. Phoebe, anything can happen during the journey to California. There are Indians, bad weather, disease.

We’ll be lucky. My husband has planned all of the details. We are taking fruit tree cuttings, cattle, ham, bacon, kitchen supplies, bedding, clothes, everything we need. I do hope that I can cook over a campfire.

Extra horses?

Two. A gelding and a mare.

Two oxen?

Yes and one extra ox.

Phoebe, I do have faith in your husband. He is a very intelligent man. I am glad he is my son-in-law. He will take good care of you. I just wish he would do that here in Illinois––in New Lebanon.

Phoebe Hogeboom Terwilliger’s Diary (reprinted from the Siskiyou Pioneer)

Papa, you will come to visit. And someday our children will get to know you––when you get stronger, and when we have a house in which to put you.

That I will, Girl. I must confess, if I were a young, just-married man, with money to spend, I also would choose to go to California. It must be a fabulous place. But I have done my traveling, haven’t I?

You have, Papa. Your family moved from Holland, across an ocean, to New Paltz, New York. Then you and Mama moved from New Paltz to New Lebanon, here in the state of Illinois.

Yes. We have moved a bit.

And you and Mama came here by wagon train. Maybe it’s not surprising that I face this trip west with equanimity––even cooking over a campfire. Will I be able to do that, Papa?

You will––of course Phoebe. Will you keep a diary for me––a day-to-day record? Then you can send it to me and I will share your trip. Will you do that for me?

Of course, dear Father, of course.

Author’s note:

Phoebe’s father, Henry Hogeboom, died before he ever received the diary which his daughter had written for him. This diary is now in the Siskiyou County Museum in Yreka, California.

Phoebe Hogeboom Terwilliger’s Diary - inside page (reprinted from the Siskiyou Pioneer)

Chapter 3

Table Rock Ranch

Grandpa Terwilliger inherited Table Rock Ranch when he married Susan Elizabeth Hill from New York State. I believe they met in San Francisco.

In acreage, the ranch measured three thousand seven hundred acres––small compared to some, large compared to others.

The physical features of Table Rock Ranch are unique and varied. Situated north of Mount Shasta in Siskiyou County at the very top of the state of California, the land boasts lava beds, four large streams that irrigate natural meadows, gentle brown hills, and a small mountain called Dewey Mountain. This mountain has four cliffs at the top, somewhat like the cliff at the top of Table Rock, but smaller and separate from each other. In height, compared to the real mountains that lie east of Little Shasta Valley, Dewey is just a hill.

Little Shasta Valley – Photograph by Joy vonWolffersdorff, 2010

Forming a ridge towards Mount Shasta from the north, you have: Willow Creek Mountain (7,829 feet), Bald Mountain (7,780 feet), Goose Nest (8,280 feet), an extinct volcano with a shale cone at its top half a mile across in diameter, Sheep Rock (5,705 feet) and finally Mount Shasta (14,180 feet). Goose Nest has a gorgeous view in all directions. I climbed it twice.

On Table Rock Ranch, we found a sea fossil known as a trilobite that we sent to the University of California at Berkeley. I think it came off of Table Rock itself, which was largely of lava. Mother sent the fossil to the geology department at Berkeley. We got a nice letter back. A trilobite is a marine arthropod, ¼ inch to 2 feet in size, three lobed chambers, oval in shape, a fossil of the Early Cambrian period (521 million years ago), and they flourished throughout the lower Paleozoic Era. Trilobites finally disappeared in the mass extinction at the end of the Permian period, about 250 million years ago. The trilobites were among the most successful of all early animals, roaming the oceans for over 270 million years. This time period pre-dates the Jurassic era, the time of the dinosaurs. (You are welcome to the science lesson.) In my next life I may be a geologist, because this fascinates me.

We were told that from the air one could detect a portion of the Siskiyou area that is much older than the rest of the county, including Mount Shasta. This more ancient area was once under the sea––hence the trilobite. Possibly that explains the four pure, ice-cold Cold Springs that gurgle out of lava east of the ranch buildings.

Table Rock as seen from northeastern Table Rock Ranch

Table Rock as seen from the air - Photograph by Cecil Shelley

Around the bubbling Soda Springs was flat, white, dome-like ground, about the size of a football field. We called it the Soda Rock. When you galloped a horse over this Soda Rock you heard a hollow echo. I always envisioned a great, cavernous space inside. When I was ill and had a fever with hallucinations, I peopled this cavernous area with huge, hairy beasts and wild monsters that roared and ravaged inside this enclosure. I enjoyed that echo every time I rode my horse up there.

Down in the valley were more soda (sulfur) springs on the Hart property. They became a picnic place for