Working on Wednesday: Chopping Wood for the Smoke House, Winchester Bay - 1954

I've posted before about our visits to friends at the Fisherman's Trailer Park* in Winchester Bay, Oregon. Lena (Helen Dunn) Spooner (1903-1972) and her husband Stanley (1898-1970) managed the trailer park for their son-in-law and Lena also smoked salmon for sports fishermen using her special recipe**. In this photo taken in 1954, Dad is chopping alder wood, I'm stoking the fire and Lena is posed in front of her smoke house. 

[From my personal collection]

*Now known as Fisherman's RV Park, it's operated by Lena's great granddaughter.
**If I recall correctly the salmon was soaked in a brine that included brown sugar. I've never tasted smoked fish that could match Lena's--still warm from the fire. Somehow whenever the time came to sample the salmon we kids would always be there.



© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Sunday Drive: Winchester Bay, 1952

Every summer vacation where our ultimate goal was Oregon we spent several weeks at a trailer park in Winchester Bay.* These photos from 1952 appear to be taken during our earliest stay there.**

[I have no clue what that dark diagonal line through the image is. From my personal collection.]

[Caption: Boats Winchester Bay taken from cannery. From my personal collection.]

*At this time the park was being run by Stanley and Lena Spooner, the in-laws of the owner Jack Himbaugh. Trying to figure out just how we came to know these people, I think the Curreys probably met the couple initially through their son Lee Spooner, a sailor stationed in San Diego during World War II. Mother and Dad had friends whose sons were in the U.S. Navy who sometimes brought their friends around for a good home cooked meal. I can't imagine any other connection.
**Here's a view of the park taken two years later.

© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Sunday Drive: Oregon Wilderness, 1958

While we were staying at Fisherman's Trailer (now RV) Park in Winchester Bay during the summer of 1958, the owner Jack Himbaugh invited Dad to go with him on a visit to the gold mining claim in a remote part of Oregon* that he and a partner were working. The first photo shows the bulldozer the two men were using in their attempt to reach bedrock on the property.

[Northwest United States -- Physical. Source: David Rumsey Historical Map Collection]

To reach the claim, Dad said they turned off a county road onto a logging road, then left that to follow a fire trail, and finally several traversed a couple of miles of rough track bulldozed out of the wilderness, ending up at an old cabin built by earlier miners next to the gold-bearing stream. Farther on the canyon opened out into a sunny water meadow filled with carnivorous pitcher plants (Darlingtonia californica).

[Jack Himbaugh, right, and his partner Ferdinand (last name forgotten) on the left]

[Ferdinand standing next to the chain at the entrance to the claim]

[Jack drove an old Dodge Power Wagon--this was probably taken through its windshield]

[All color slides from my personal collection]

There were bears in the woods, one of which was causing problems for Jack's partner who lived on-site. But that's a story for another day.

*Probably in either Coos or Douglas County.



© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Sunday Drive: Curreys and Travel Trailer #3 (Promise Partly Kept*)

When he decided the time had come to buy a new, larger travel trailer in 1952, Dad narrowed his options to Airstream and Boles Aero. Being a "nut and bolts" kind of guy, he wanted to tour both factories to see how they were built but he said Airstream wouldn't let him do that and Boles did. 

 [Boles Factory 1952, from my personal collection] 

So we got a 21' Boles Aero with some modifications: installation of a larger Servel refrigerator (that Dad bought and took up to the factory); the bathroom was replaced with more closet space;** and a 50 gallon water tank put in the back underneath the bed. I'm pretty sure Dad bought it through this dealer in Solana Beach.

[Tuesday, June 24, 1952; Paper: San Diego Union (San Diego, California) Page: 26  

This entire product and/or portions thereof are copyrighted by NewsBank and/or the American Antiquarian Society. 2004.

Source: GenealogyBank.com]

[Servel Ad from Better Homes & Gardens, February 1950, ebay seller Balovel]

I haven't been able to find a photo of the interior of our trailer, but the kitchen layout (including Servel refer) was the same as this one, although our wood paneling was much lighter in color (matching the color of the screen doors). We almost never used the heater (far left, just inside the front door).

[Kitchen of 1953 Boles Aero Ensenada, Source: Boles Aero Pinterest Board by Opuntia Potwell]

Note: On our travels I was allowed to take toys and games that fit in the second drawer on the right. A few books could be fitted into narrow cupboards under the table at the front of the trailer.

By our 1953 trip to South Dakota with the new trailer, the Boles had acquired a canvas awning (red of course, to match the truck). The wagon wheels were destined to grace our rail fence in Encanto.

[Grenfell Ranch, Black Hills of South Dakota, 1953 from my personal collection 

 

[Walt & Alta Shell's Ranch, Black Hills of South Dakota, 1953, from my personal collection]

[Camp near Prescott on Way Home 1953, from my personal collection]

Next summer we traveled to Oregon where we stayed (among other places) at a cherry orchard owned by friends on a hill near Eugene and in Winchester Bay at what is now Fishermans RV Park.

[Trailor at Redingers 1954, Back Door, from my personal collection]

[Winchester Bay Fisherman's Trailer Court, 1954, from my personal collection]

*I'll describe last week's photos later.
**We used a portable chemical toilet instead.



© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.