The Seaview Approach

Robertsons and McCrackens on the Long Beach Peninsula

The Seaview ApproachRobertsons and McCrackens on the Long Beach Peninsula

Revised Edition

Betty McCracken McDowellas told to Michael McDowell

Beagles & Spaniels PressPortland, Oregon • 2016

The Seaview approach: roberTSonS and MccrackenS on The Long beach peninSuLa

Copyright © 2016 by Michael J. McDowellAll rights reserved.

First published 1998Revised and expanded edition 2016

Most of the stories in this collection have circulated in the Robertson, McCracken, and McDowell families for many decades. Betty McDowell retold them to Michael McDowell during the many trips between Portland and Seaview while building the new McDowell beach house (1996-1997) next to the old beach house (1883) on the family property at what is now 39th and K Place in Seaview, Washington, on the Long Beach Peninsula. This revised and expanded edition has additional stories, corrections, and 28 additional images which Betty provided after the booklet was first published in 1998.

The photographs are all Robertson, McCracken, and McDowell family photos. Our apologies for any errors. You might direct your comments, corrections, and

additions to Michael McDowell.

Beagles & Spaniels PressE-mail: michael.mcdowell73@gmail.com

US Mail: McDowell Family, LLCPO Box 19094Portland, OR 97280-0094

Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data:

McDowell, Elizabeth Ann McCracken, 1912–2011 The Seaview approach: Robertsons and McCrackens on the Long Beach Peninsula / by Betty McCracken McDowell. —Revised and expanded ed.

Published simultaneously online at Issuu.comEarlier edition available at Timberland Regional Library, Ilwaco

Call No.: 979.792 MCDOWELL 1998

Text type: Palatino 11 pt.Part-heading type: Clarendon LT Standard 20 pt.

Cover and title page photo: My aunt Lil McCracken, Aunt Willima Robertson, my mother May McCracken, and my father Dr. Tom McCracken on driftwood on the beach at Seaview.

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ContentsI. The SeavIew houSe

Building the Old Seaview House 4The Trip to the House 6The Astoria Ferry 8Dr. Tom and the Tokeland Mail Boat 9The Chinook River Bridge 9Going in the Ocean 10Dances in Long Beach 14Houses in Beard’s Hollow 15North Head Lighthouse 16Riding Angelo’s Horses 17The Tillamook Burn 18

II. RobeRTSonSThe Ryan Sisters 20Happy Jack 25May Robertson 27The Mirrored Houses 28

III. MccRackenSTom McCracken Chooses Portland 30Auntie Iowa 32Aunt Lillian 33 Dr. Tom’s Black Eye 34The Bullet Hole in the Hat 35

Iv. beggSAunt Lippy at Tioga 36Aunt Carol and the Oysters 38

v. McDowellSMcDowell Seaview House 39

v. DeScenDanTSDescendants of John C. Robertson 40Descendants of Thomas J. McCracken, Sr. 41Descendants of the Park Sisters 42

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Building the Old Seaview HouseJack Robertson, a building contractor, built the Seaview house in 1883.

The “Boulevard” in front wound through trees. The small room at the back door was the original kitchen. Metal nailed to the door covers a hole made by a woodpecker standing on the door knob. A bigger kitchen was built and the old one moved back.

In the early 1920s, my parents, May and Dr. Tom McCracken, left instructions with Ollie Stout to extend the kitchen by adding a dining room. May was upset when she came back the next spring and found that what was to be a dining room had the sink and counter. The cooler of course had to be on the north. Ollie Stout also painted the house, not changing the color from barn red and yellow. He must have bought the paint by the barrel—several Seaview houses were the same color.

The house had a fence around it because cows used to wander all over Seaview. If the gate was accidentally left open, cows would leave reminders in the yard. The fence was a standard Seaview design of three parallel boards topped by a flat board which we used to walk on until we lost our balance. A few Seaview houses still have fences of the same design—the Jamison cottage, for instance.

Jean Robertson on the porch of the Seaview house with Ben in the driveway, 1934.

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The water pump was in the northwest corner of the lot, and the outhouse was in the southeast corner of the lot, near the hotel kitchen window. I remember once stepping on a slug barefoot going to it at night. We picked up cigarette butts and matches and threw them back in that window. The inside toilet was added in the mid-1920s. In the late 1920s a pipe was put in to give us outdoor cold-only showers. A couple of years later it was enclosed and hot water added. Before that we bathed in the old galvanized tub on the kitchen floor with water warmed on the wood stove. Mom would go to the saltwater bath house in Long Beach. It was a series of small rooms with tubs and a porch across the front.

The original front porch of the beach house was about five feet by five feet with an equal porch on the second floor. The upper porch had a railing. May shook the rugs there but children were never allowed to go on that porch. The door to it is now a window.

A big tree at the southwest corner of the house had to be cut down when the new porch was built in the mid or early 1920s. The tree stump was about two feet in diameter. My grandmother Margaret Ryan Robertson planted the trees around the edge of the lot, carrying the seeds in her apron.

Ed Schaefer shows a book to Mary McCracken, Tod McCracken (behind Mary), and his son Gerald (closest to him), 1920s, on the front porch before the larger porch was built.

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The Trip to the HouseIn 1918 it was a two-day trip to the beach via Chehalis, Raymond, South

Bend, and the Tokeland mail boat. Dad would take the Model T to Chehalis with Uncle George and stay overnight there. Then they’d drive to Tokeland and take the ferry to Nahcotta. They’d leave the car at the beach house most of the summer so May wouldn’t have to carry Tod everywhere.

Without the car, Tom and George Robertson came down from Portland summer weekends on the train. It arrived in Seaview at 5 p.m. Saturday—the Daddy Special, and all of Seaview was there at the depot to meet the dads. They all went back early Sunday afternoon.

Earlier, when my mother May was a girl, the family came from Portland by boat, which landed at Ilwaco. Then horses and wagons brought luggage and passengers across the Old Trail to the beach at low tide. Often they

Waiting at the Seaview Depot, which became the Depot Tavern after the line was abandoned in 1930. Aunt Jess Robertson has her hands on the baby buggy with her daughter Jean in it. My mother May McCracken has one hand on her hip and the other holding the buggy with me it, summer of 1913.

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went down on the beach with a lantern to look in each wagon to see if Papa Robertson was there, but he didn’t come very often.

I remember coming down the Columbia River by boat. Once we had to tie up on the bank to wait for the fog to lift. It was an overnight trip. I don’t remember landing at Ilwaco; we probably landed at Astoria.

When automobiles replaced the train, we children would walk about a mile Friday at 5 o’clock to the intersection of Holman Road and Sandridge Road and sit on the white fence and wait for Dad. Soon there was a filling station at that corner and we got to know the boy, Saunders, who lived there.

I remember Mrs. Green, Mr. Jennings, and my dad agreeing that if you could keep at a steady 35 m.p.h. you could make pretty good time.

On the beach with horse and wagon, 1917. My father Tom McCracken, me in front of him, the head of my sister Mary McCracken, my mother May McCracken, Aunt Lil McCracken, Aunt Jess Robertson, Jean Robertson in her arms, and Bradford Pease, whose father, Dr. Pease, had a house two houses north of our beach house and owned this horse and wagon.

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The Astoria FerryThe automobile ferry from Astoria to McGowan started in the early

1920s. The first ferry held only ten or twelve cars. Captain Elfving was a big Norwegian or Swede. We saw him just lift up the end of a car and move it closer to the rail so another car could come on, or put one on sideways at the end. Sometimes we left Portland at 4 a.m. so we could get to Astoria for an early ferry and not have to wait in line. The worst was Sunday night getting back to Astoria, when we had to wait to see if we could get on this trip or have to wait for the next.

Later a competing ferry run by the railroad company started landing ferries at Point Ellis. There was enough traffic to keep both busy.

After the October 29, 1929, crash and the Great Depression, the Washington shore road from Seaview over the KM (Knappton-Mills) Hill to Longview was built. It took a couple of years to build. Ferries still operated as part of Highway 101 until the Astoria Bridge was opened in 1966.

Captain Elfving’s wooden Tourist No. 2 ferryboat carrying cars between McGowan and Astoria in the 1920s.

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The Chinook River BridgeThe bridge over the Chinook River was only fifteen or twenty wide

loose boards laid side by side. Driving over them made a racket as the boards jounced around. When Aunt Lil Schaefer’s family was visiting from Oakland, Dad prepared them for the bridge, saying, “This is a bridge that’s very quiet.” And then the bridge was so loud you couldn’t think.

Dr. Tom and the Tokeland Mail BoatThe Tokeland mail boat carried automobiles on its roof across Willapa

Bay. My dad drove the car on two planks onto the roof of the mail boat. The mail boat operator took off the far railing on the roof so it wouldn’t be damaged if Dad drove too far and landed in the water. He went ashore at Nahcotta and drove in two ruts in the dust to Seaview.

Coming home alone once, after Dad stopped for dinner he cranked the Ford and the crank snapped back and broke his right arm. He went immediately into a barber shop on the town square and asked some of the men there to pull on his hand until he could feel the bone was set smoothly. He took the cushion from the front seat and slept in the town square. The cushion was removable because the gas tank was under it.

Dad drove home the next day, took a bath, and a went to see Dr. Pease. Dr. Pease asked, “Why did you suffer and take a bath before coming?” I remember telling my teacher that my Dad’s signature was poor on the census form required at the beginning of the school year because of his broken arm.

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Going in the OceanWe never missed a day going in the ocean, even on rainy or cloudy days.

I remember going out to the clotheslines to get a wet bathing suit to put on. On sunny days we came up from the beach and lay on our stomachs in the side yard to get a tan. Going in the ocean, diving waves, and swimming in with big ones was great fun. When low tide was in the middle of the day we could usually find crabholes to go in. Big crabholes were better than a series of small holes. Sometimes we could find crabs but not often. This was our daily bath.

On Saturday nights Mom warmed pots of water on the big kitchen woodstove and brought in the big round galvanized tub for each of us to take a turn for a warm bath, all four of us—Jean, Betty, Mary, and Tod. In our late teens Dad put a showerhead outside in the back of the house. We walked out to it on a wide plank. Soon Dad built a wood slat floor and a canvas curtain. The water was cold only, but we thought it was great.

Mom had to go to the bathhouse in Long Beach to bathe. It was a U-shaped building with many doors along the inside walk. Inside each door was a tub.

We often played on the wreck of the Frank W. Howe, which was directly in front of Seaview, when the tide allowed. Summer, 1917.

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Ready for the water: Front: Ed Schaefer, Sr., George Robertson, Lil Schaefer, Tod McCracken. Standing: Gerald Schaefer, Mary McCracken, Jean Robertson, Ed Schaefer, Jr., and me, in the Winged-M suit.

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The beach was an airport as well as a roadway. This biplane landed at Seaview. In front of the plane: Mary, me, Tod, and Jean. I’m told it’s a DeHavilland DH-4, a popular biplane after World War I. It carried air mail.

We sometimes climbed Ocean Butte south of Seaview: Uncle George Robertson, Mary McCracken, Aunt Jess Robertson, Jean Robertson, me, Aunt Lil McCracken, Tom McCracken, and May McCracken.

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When I was in college, the photographer Charles Fitzpatrick took a series of photographs of young swim-suited women in the Seaview surf for the Oregonian newspaper. They were the “first pictures of this kind ever taken on the beach here,” we were told. One photo was published in an 8-page brochure advertising the Long Beach Peninsula. The women in the surf are, from left to right, Margaret Morrison, me, Margaret-Ann Howland, Betty Karkeet, Dorothy Cunningham, my sister Mary McCracken, Cecile Frazier, Jean Macdonald, and Carol Cunningham. The caption reads, “Girls may come and Girls may go, but Long Beach has its share of the finest.”

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Dances in Long BeachThe dances at Long Beach were a big part of our summer fun. In the 1930s

Depression the Shirks moved from Kennewick to Seaview. Through Bill Shirk’s attendance at Ilwaco High, we were introduced to some of the locals. I was the oldest so I drove all the girls to Long Beach. I usually danced with Charles Doupé, Mary danced with Bill Shirk, and Jayne Bowerman danced with Bronk Williams. Jack Petit was also in our group. He later was Ilwaco postmaster. Art Samuels was another. His family had a huge truck. Several times he put benches in the back and took us for a ride—to the rock crusher down the beach where his dad got rocks, largely for beach approaches. Art later ran a parking garage in Portland near the library.

Much later we bought tennis shoes for our children at Doupé’s store. All the Doupé family would join us at beach bonfires. Charlie (and Mary when

We used to gather at China Beach as well as at Long Beach dances: Bronk Williams (in black swimsuit), Carol Povey (seated), Jayne Bowerman, Ruth Stearns, me (in black swimsuit), Mary McCracken (holding her hand to me), Ann Bennedict, Mike (?), Tod McCracken (in smoke from the bonfire), Jack Petit (seated at right). Summer, 1933.

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Houses in Beard’s HollowThe only time we could go into Beard’s Hollow was when there was a

very low minus tide. We didn’t dare stay long because the tide didn’t stay that low very long. We often came back around the fishing rocks, wading between waves.

There used to be three houses in Beard’s Hollow. Florence Courtney’s house was the lowest. In the 1920s, it was accessible only at low tide.

Looking into Beard’s Hollow, circa 1930.

she was here) would lead the singing. Charlie was a chaplain in World War II and had a wonderful voice.

Adeline Morris was one of our friends. She lived on the lower boulevard in south Seaview. Her father had the big pharmacy in Ilwaco on the corner north of Doupé’s store. Once we were asked if she and I were sisters because we both had dark hair. Mary was a blonde and we didn’t look alike.

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North Head LighthouseOnce each year we would make the trip to North Head Lighthouse. It

was an all-day trip involving the whole neighborhood. Sometimes we paid to take the train to Ilwaco, I think twenty-five cents or thirty-five cents. Other times Grandpa McKean drove us in his big Nash to Ilwaco. Then we walked to North Head on the plank road. We returned from Ilwaco walking the beautiful trail over to the beach and north to Seaview. Later when we had a car here Dad drove and the planks rattled. There was one spot where a turnout had been made. Luckily we never met another car.

We often walked to Ilwaco. Usually we walked on the railroad tracks going down and coming back by the trail through the woods. On the railroad track we could walk on the ties, of course, but we liked to see how far we could walk on the rails without falling off. Then we came the rest of the way on the beach. Once nine of us went to Ilwaco just to buy Mom a spool of thread. There were the McKean grandchildren, three boy cousins about the same age—Bob, Jim, and Bill Shirk; Bill’s two younger sisters—Phoebe and Mary Lou; and the four of us Robertsons and McCrackens—Jean, Betty, Mary, Tod. Coming back through the woods we older ones told Mary Lou and Phoebe that fairies lived under the toadstools so to be careful where they stepped.

At the lighthouse: George Robertson, Lil McCracken, me, May Robertson, Tom McCracken; in front, two unidentified children, then Jean Robertson, Edward Schaeffer, Mary McCracken, and Tod McCracken.

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Riding Angelo’s HorsesWe rented Angelo’s horses from the Seaview Riding Academy once or

twice a summer. My parents said that we were not satisfied unless our horses were going as fast as they can go. Angelo Deccio was a character.

A big day, with each of us getting a horse. I’m at far left; Jean, Mary, and Tod on the right.

My father with my sister Mary and me on horseback in our side yard, while Aunt Laura McCracken Whelpley looks on and Aunt Lillian McCracken holds the reins.

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The Tillamook BurnIn August 1933, when 355,000 acres of the Tillamook forest in the Oregon

Coast Range burned, ashes landed in the yard of the beach house and throughout Seaview, almost a hundred miles northwest of the fire.

On the way home that September, we took Highway 26 for the first time. Until then, there was only Highway 30 along the Lower Columbia River. As we drove through the Tillamook Burn, trees and logs were still burning.

Aerial view of Seaview looking northeast, early 1930s. Our house is center left, in the same block as the large Seaview Hotel and The Gables. The old railroad depot is the far right building. Grass and weeds cover the railroad bed alongside the depot and further up the line where the tracks have been taken out. Strand’s Store is the long building across the street from the depot. The Corbett barn is at the south end of The Boulevard, next to the cow pasture where the Corbett family kept a cow for milk while living in Seaview during the summer. Note the horse heading east on the approach.

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In front of Strand’s Store: Jean, me, and my mother May in back, my brother Tod and my sister Mary in front. For the big boxing match between Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney, Mr. Strand brought out a radio, and everyone in Seaview sat by the ditch along the railroad tracks to listen.

We all had pocket knives and often played mumblety-peg in the yard. Here I’m about to throw the knife while my cousin Jean and sister Mary wait their turn.

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The Ryan SistersThe Ryan sisters were sent from Ireland to San Francisco two by two, as

their mother saved money and could afford to pay their passage. One pair shipwrecked in the Caribbean and almost lost their lives.

Margaret Ryan married Jack Robertson, who had been born in England, and they had three children. When the oldest child, my mother, May, was one year old, the family moved from San Francisco to Portland. Her birth certificate was later burned in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire. Their second child, Uncle George, married Jessie Park. George and Jessie had one child, Jean Robertson Jones. After Jessie died, George married Aunt Willima Munro, and they had one child together, Ming Robertson. The third child, Chub Robertson, married Leila Waite in Riverside, California, and they lived in Phoenix and then Mesa, Arizona. They had an irrigation ditch behind their house in Phoenix where they could fish. My grandmother Margaret eventually went insane and was put in a mental hospital in Salem.

My aunt Kate Ryan, later Mrs. P. J. O’Brien of San Francisco.

My grandmother Margaret Ryan, later Mrs. John C. Robertson of Portland.

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My mother took me as a baby to see her. She told my mother that she better take the baby back to her mother. Chub worked for O’Malley Lumber Company. Their trucks were painted orange, so they were kidded a lot on St. Patrick’s Day for having the opposition’s color.

Ellen Ryan had no children. She carried a satchel everywhere she went—to the beach, to bed, to the bathroom. When she died in the 1950s, she left me and my sister Mary Lathram $200 apiece.

Kate Ryan married a San Francisco policeman named P. J. O’Brien. They had ten children, including three who became nuns and two who became priests. Father Joe O’Brien, a Jesuit, was one. Kate had a leg amputated. When P. J. retired from the police force, he became a guard in Golden Gate Park.

Delia Ryan (DEAL-yuh) married a man named Mahoney, and together they had five children. My mother May knew her children Mae and Lil best. Mae Mahoney divorced her husband, named Schindler, when her only son, Walter, was still very young. She sent a photo of the boy to her ex-husband every Christmas, with her always holding the boy. Lil married the owner of a Florsheim shoe store in San Francisco who was named Schaefer. He eventually had a branch store in Oakland, and they lived in the Piedmont district, where we McCrackens stayed when we went down to visit. They

My great-grandmother Ryan. On the back of the photo is written “Mrs. Ryan. Mother of Mrs. Robertson, Kate O’Brien, Delia Mahoney, Minnie Belani, Ellen Sipplee, Francis, & William both in Ireland. Kilrush, County Clare, Ireland.”

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had three children—Ed, Marion, and Gerald. Ed Schaefer worked in Seattle. He went to St. Mary’s College, a Jesuit school, outside Oakland, with Tony Martin, nightclub singer.

Minnie Ryan married a man named John Bellani (b’LANE-ee, a Swiss name). They had five children. After their children were grown, John and Minnie used to come to Seaview every July 4th. While driving in an early Studebaker around 1916 or 1917 they were struck by a train, which carried them about twenty feet. Minnie was taken to a hospital for an arm injury, while John was taken to the morgue. Someone lifted up the sheet over John, and he opened his eyes. He was OK, but Minnie was in poor health ever after.

After Minnie’s death, John Bellani continued to come to Seaview every July 4th with his daughters Marge and Kathleen. I remember how in the ocean Marge’s eye makeup ran and hurt her eyes. She was probably in her thirties then. Marge, a second-grade teacher, eventually married a radio announcer named Bob Adams. She was going with him in 1926. He dedicated a record to the Tom McCracken family over the air. They made sure we were listening.

John Bellani eventually remarried and brought his new wife, Mary, to Seaview several times on his annual trip north. We could never talk him into yodeling at our bonfire.

Minnie Ryan Bellani and John Bellani.

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Kate O’Brien’s son, Father Joe O’Brien, S.J., visited us when he was in Portland.

Some of the extended Ryan family in Ireland. The photo is inscribed, “To Cousin May Robertson, with love from Delia Ryan.” Then, in another hand, is a list of most of those in the picture: “Fr. Felix Ryan, OFM; Nellie (Ryan) Darcy; Fr. Francis Ryan, OFM; Delia Ryan; Sr. Antonia (Ryan), Strabane, Ireland; Nora Ryan; Fr. Paul Ryan, OFM; Catherine Ryan, Sister of Mercy, Perth, Australia. Family of Francis.”

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John Robertson built the Seaview house in 1883, when Washington was still a territory. After losing his money in 1893, he moved from Portland to the Seaview house to live for a while. His father was born in Scotland and moved to Birkenhead, on England’s northwest coast, where he worked as a carpenter and married John’s mother.

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Happy JackJohn “Happy Jack” Robertson was born in Birkenhead, England. As

a building contractor he constructed the First Presbyterian Church in downtown Portland at Southwest 12th and Alder, the Benton County Courthouse in Corvallis, and the county courthouse in Goldfield, Nevada. When he went to build the courthouse in Nevada, after the Panic of 1893, he took his youngest child, Chub, along, which led to Chub’s eventually settling in Arizona.

Jack had a farm in Eastmoreland which stretched in a narrow strip between 36th and 39th streets from what is now the Reed College campus to Crystal Springs Boulevard. May talked about taking the Stark Street ferry to the East Side. Old Tim would come with the horses and wagon and meet the family at the east end of the Stark Street ferry to take them to the farm. May said the farm was “just a lot of hazel brush.” She remembered a huge maple or oak tree by the big white wooden farmhouse, which was north of Woodstock at about 37th. The house was still standing when I was attending Reed College in 1933 and 1934. The area is now a college parking lot.

Jack was wealthy from his construction company. He gave his daughter May a Steinway piano on her sixteenth birthday. When he built the Seaview beach house in 1883, the family lived in a tent in the yard during construction.

In the Panic of 1893 “Happy Jack” was overextended and lost nearly everything, including the farm (but not the Seaview house). A Judge Cleland,

The Esmeralda County Courthouse, Goldfield, Nevada, 8 a.m., Sunday, April 5, 1936. It was cold as Greenland and the wind was blowing so hard that I lost my balance just as Mrs. Fritsch, a teacher in Carson City, where I was teaching, took the picture.

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a family friend, was handling the taxes on the farm, and without telling Jack, he stopped paying the taxes. Years later George and May found that the judge had his sisters pay the back taxes and claim title to the land. In the 1920s someone asked May and George to sign something to clear this up and they refused. The case was never resolved, and to this day no one in that area of Eastmoreland can have clear title to their land.

May McCracken, Willima Robertson, Irene Mahoney, George Robertson, and Lil Schaefer, alongside the Seaview house, July 1950.

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May RobertsonMary Margaret (May) Robertson, born March 15, 1878, in San Francisco,

was one year old when she came to Portland. The family lived at Southwest 5th and Lincoln. She went to St. Mary’s Academy and later Couch School. At St. Mary’s one day they heard fire engines and everyone was saying, “I hope it’s not my house.” It was the Robertsons’ house. The family moved next door while the house was repaired.

After high school May did “pupil teaching” at night. This led to her becoming a third-grade teacher. She taught for twelve years, until she married at age 32. Tom McCracken was 35.

My mother May Robertson McCracken, my aunt Lillian McCracken, my aunt Mae Mahoney Schindler, my aunt Jessie Robertson.

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The Mirrored HousesWhen Uncle George was thirteen years old, he lost an eye when a piece

of wire someone was twirling struck him. He became the paymaster and later the personnel manager for Portland Railway, Light, and Power (now Portland General Electric, PGE). He used to personally sign all the paychecks with six pens fastened together.

In 1913 Uncle George and Jessie Robertson and Tom and May McCracken, George’s sister, built a duplex at Southeast 17th and Taylor in Portland. Uncle George, Aunt Jessie, and their daughter Jean lived on one side, and my parents Tom and May and their children— me, Mary, and Tod—lived on the other. They designed the duplex so that each side was the mirror of the other. At their weddings, the couples had received many matching gifts, so the two sides were also furnished much the same. On each mantel was a cloisonné vase; between two front windows was a tall thin mirror with a painting of the goddess Flora; above each fireplace was a large oval mirror.

Jessie died when Jean and I were seven years old. She was semi-invalid due to rheumatism. After Aunt Jess’s death, a doorway was cut between the two stairways so the two families could easily cross into the other’s house. Jean and Uncle George ate their meals with us.

The house was built on acreage that Jack Robertson had bought. He decided against buying in Portland’s then-unbuilt-upon Portland Heights,

Our duplex at 644 Taylor Street (later 1712 Taylor Street): McCracken on the left, Robertson on the right. The floorplan shows the McCracken side.

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saying, “No one is going to climb those hills.” So he bought on the east side of the Willamette.

The duplex sat on the southeast corner of 17th and Taylor. When Tom bought the Ford Model T, he put up a portable garage on the half block south of Taylor, between 16th and 17th, which they also owned, with the entrance on 17th. Behind the garage, Tom raised chickens in a fenced area. Raspberries grew all along the south edge of the half block. May gave us children a nickel for each basket of berries we picked.

Six years after Aunt Jess’s death, George married Willima Munro, who taught first grade at Irvington School. Her sister, Alice Munro, taught eighth grade there. For a honeymoon, in the summer of 1925 they drove to California. There were forty-seven first cousins in the San Francisco Bay Area. A year later when Alice May was born, Aunt Willima and the baby (who we called Ming) went home from the hospital to a new home on Southeast 26th and Dunkley in the Alameda district.

Jane Dean Munro, the mother of Aunt Willima Robertson and Aunt Alice Munro, in the yard of the Seaview house. She was born in Scotland.

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My granfather Thomas Jefferson McCracken, Sr., and my grandmother Elizabeth Ann Lewis McCracken, after whom I was named.

Tom McCracken Chooses PortlandTom was the tenth child of Thomas Jefferson McCracken, Sr., and

Elizabeth Ann Lewis. His parents had come from Kentucky to Iowa by wagon when their oldest child, Christopher Columbus (Lum) McCracken, was one year old, around 1857. He had an infection in one leg that his mother had to clean out each day. He always limped, and died at the age of 93. Tom didn’t know him because Lum moved out when he was seventeen and Tom two years old.

They lived on a farm and their father had a general store in Bedford, Iowa, near the Missouri border. The nearest town was St. Joe, Missouri. If Iowa (her real name was Amanda) or Lillian or Laura wanted stockings they would just go to the store and get them. Tom’s job was to bring “Old Blue,” the cow, in from the pasture to be milked. Sometimes he rode her.

When Tom was seventeen he came to Portland to stay with Auntie Iowa.

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His brother Carey was already there, clerking in a shoe store. Tom spoke of swimming at second-story level across First Street in the 1894 flood. He got a job in a dental supply store, and then decided to become a dentist. He went to Northwestern University Dental School in Chicago. He graduated in spring 1906 and went to San Francisco to start practice. He saw the result of the April earthquake and fire and thought San Francisco could never revive. So he returned to Portland, where he practiced in the Mead Building and then the Morgan Building for the next forty-five years, until the week he died.

In the Seaview front yard: Back row, my aunt Lil Schaefer, my uncle George Robertson, my mother May McCracken, my father Tom McCracken; front: Barbara Jennings, me, my cousin Jean Robertson, my sister Mary holding our mother’s hand, my brother Tod with my father’s hands on his shoulders, and in front of Tod, Gerald Schaeffer and Ed Schaeffer.

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Auntie IowaAuntie Iowa, my father’s sister, had a small and then a larger house at

Seaview. She coined the name “QuitYoWorry” for the house. Her sisters Laura, Mary, and especially Lillian all visited repeatedly.

Auntie Iowa married Charlie Dunning, who died the year after the wedding at the age of 24. Later she married Gus Dippel, an agent for Studebaker, but she always mourned her first husband.

Throughout my childhood, on Sundays we visited at her house on River Road in Milwaukie. I remember sitting and staring at a bookcase with a mirror and purple curtain during those tedious hours.

The umbrella stand coat rack in the new Seaview beach house is Auntie Iowa’s.

Tom’s sister Auntie Iowa McCracken with their mother, Elizabeth Ann Lewis McCracken.

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Aunt LillianTom’s sister Lillian McCracken never married. She was supervisor of

music for the schools of boulder, Colorado. She came to Seaview often in the summer.

Once my mother, May, found some hair in the yard. Aunt Lillian had cleaned her hair brush and thrown it out. She said she thought the birds might like it to make their nest.

Tom’s sister Lillian McCracken.

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Dr. Tom’s Black EyeMay Robertson and Tom McCracken were married June 28, 1911. They

went to the beach house after the wedding. May’s father, Happy Jack Robertson, was up on a ladder. He dropped a hammer which caught Tom on the cheek. So when he went to the wedding of George Robertson and Jessie Park on July 20, he had a black eye.

We liked climbing onto the roof of the Seaview house. Here we are on the roof above the kitchen: Mary McCracken, Margot Beggs, Tod McCracken, Jean Robertson, and me.

Mary (right) and me (left) on horseback again.

35

The Union Pacific’s poster advertising “North Beach, Washington,” the “Queen of the Northwest Resorts,” always hung above the kitchen table of the Seaview house.

The Bullet Hole in the HatDr. Tom was driving home alone from the beach one day when apparently

he was shot at near Cathlamet. He was driving on a long straight stretch near a wooded area when he felt struck, lost consciousness, and drove off the road and crashed. His hat was found in the car with what looked like a bullet hole in it. He never fully recovered his health after the accident.

On Friday evening after Thanksgiving, May and Tom walked down to Uncle George and Aunt Willima’s to have leftovers from Thanksgiving dinner. They came home early because Tom didn’t feel well. Like most people in the early 1950s, Dr. Tom worked Monday through Friday and half-days on Saturday. The next day, Saturday, he had patients scheduled, so May went with him to the office. He spilled water on one patient. After Tom and May rode the streetcar home, Tom sat down and told May, “I feel terrible.” He had a headache and went to bed. Each day he felt worse, and on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving he died, aged 75.

36

Aunt Lippy at TiogaAunt Lippy’s husband, James Beggs, owned a plumbing company, and

she was always ashamed that he was “just a plumber.” One day he came home after a day of working at his plumbing store, leaned back in the chair, and said, “I don’t feel very well.” Three days later he was dead. This was during the flu epidemic of 1918.

Their older child, George Beggs, married Carol Montague, and they had Jimmy and Buddy Beggs. Lippy took her younger child, Margaret Beggs, to live in France for around six years. Lippy taught French after they returned.

Margaret (who went by “Margot” and who the family called “Bokky”), was seventeen years old when they returned. She had long blonde curls. She studied music and thought of becoming a concert pianist. When she went to a musical meeting in Colorado, she saw long-haired men and weird women and decided the music career wasn’t for her.

In France, Margot had learned to speak French as fluently as English. She translated medical articles after graduating from college. She married Hayes Henderson.

After her husband died, Aunt Lippy lived half the year plus a day in her house at Tioga, north of Long Beach, in order to avoid paying Oregon income tax.

At Aunt Lippy’s house: Jean Jones (on porch), Gravy Jones, Jim McDowell, George Robertson, and Abe Hathaway, 1958.

37

Aunt Lippy’s house at Tioga, about three miles north of our Seaview house: Standing, my aunt Iowa McCracken Dippel, my mother May Robertson McCracken, my aunt Lil Schaefer, my aunt Lillian McCracken, Aunt Lippy Park Beggs, my aunt Mary McCracken Grimes; seated, my cousin Jean Robertson, Margot (Bokky) Beggs, my brother Tod, Gerald Schaeffer, Edward Schaeffer, my sister Mary, me, and my aunt Jean Park McCracken.

Aunt Lippy also began to play the stock market after her husband died. She would get up at 5 a.m. and ride the Morrison streetcar down to the stock exchange in Portland every morning to be there when the New York Stock Exchange opened. She made enough playing the stock market to set up her son George in business with what became Norris, Beggs, and Simpson.

The Beggs family was very close to a number of other families, and all the kids of those families learned to treat each other as siblings. In addition, each of the kids chose another couple as “surrogate parents” to whom they could relate any problems.

38

Carol Beggs and the OystersRichard Montague, a wealthy man, married a gracious, lovely, slightly

taller woman. He started the Mazamas when it still took a day-and-a-half horseback ride to get up to Mount Hood. He was a judge, a regent of Reed College, and a good ice skater.

His son John became a doctor. His daughter Beth married a man named Paine, and lived in Berkeley, California.

His daughter Carol married George Beggs in September 1922 after a campus romance at the University of Oregon. He was a Beta, she a Theta, and they were both very short. For their honeymoon, they took the train to Long Beach. George hadn’t arranged for anyone to meet them as they got off the ferry, and it was pouring rain. There was a huge puddle in front of Aunt Lippy’s house at Tioga, where they stayed. Carol ate oysters at Astoria and was violently sick for three days afterwards and couldn’t eat. So George went into Long Beach to eat Campbell’s Soup alone throughout the honeymoon.

They had Jimmy Beggs, who has taught at San Jose State University in the Psychology Department, and Buddy (Richard) Beggs, who appraised buildings in Portland and sailed sailboats until he died in a fire when his houseboat burned at Tomahawk moorage on the Columbia River.

Tioga, 1958. Me, Carolyn Jones, Malcolm McDowell, Jim McDowell, Jr., Michael McDowell (front), George Robertson, Tom McDowell, Mary McDowell, Jean Robertson Jones, Mark Hathaway (front), Terry Jones, Willima Robertson (back), Abe Hathaway, Robbie Jones, Kathy McDowell.

39

McDowell Seaview HouseIn 1996 my children and I began designing and then building a new

beach house in what had been the side lot of the original Seaview house. We moved into the completed house June 1997.

Champagne christening of the new McDowell Seaview beach house, June 28, 1997: Jim McDowell, Jr., Anne McDowell, Andrew McDowell, Janis McDowell, Julia McDowell, Michael McDowell, Mary McDowell, Malcolm McDowell, Katie McDowell, Tammy Clark, Betty McDowell with the champagne, Steve Lathram, and Dan Daniel.

40

Descendants of John C. Robertson

John C. (Jack) Robertsonb: 16 Feb 1848 Birkenhead, Cheshire, Englandd: 05 Apr 1913 Riverside, CA

Margaret Theresa (Maggie) Ryanb: 17 Apr 1852 Kilrush, County Clare, Irelandd: 27 May 1918 Salem, ORm: 1877

Mary Margaret (May) Robertsonb: 15 Mar 1878 San Francisco, CAd: 01 Nov 1957 Portland, OR

Thomas Jefferson McCrackenb: 15 Oct 1875 Bedford, IAd: 04 Dec 1951 Portland, ORm: 28 Jun 1911 Portland, OR

George William Robertsonb: 28 Oct 1879 Portland, ORd: 26 Oct 1959 Portland, OR

Willima Munrob: 10 Aug 1889 Portland, ORd: Mar 1974 Eugene, ORm: 1925

Jessie B. Parkb: 1879 Scotlandd: 17 Sep 1921 Portland, ORm: 20 Jul 1911

John Alfred (Chub) Robertsonb: 06 Jun 1882 Portland, ORd: 1961 Mesa, AZ

Margaret Leila Waiteb: 29 Jan 1893 Riverside, CAd: 28 Apr 1992m: 1913

Elizabeth Ann McCrackenb: 29 Aug 1912 Portland, ORd: 03 Nov 2011 Milwaukie, OR

James Newman McDowellb: 11 Jan 1912 Portland, ORd: 27 Sep 1995 Portland, ORm: 22 Jun 1940 Portland, OR

Mary Lee McCrackenb: 28 Jun 1915 Portland, ORd: 11 Apr 2016 Washington, DC

Leslie Wade Lathramb: 07 May 1916 Dothan, ALd: 15 Apr 2000 Alexandria, VAm: 20 Feb 1943 Washington, DC

Thomas Jefferson (Tod) McCrackenb: 21 Sep 1917 Portland, ORd: 18 Aug 1934 Portland, OR

Alice May (Robbie, Ming) Robertsonb: 24 Nov 1926 Portland, ORd: 01 Dec 2010 Lincoln City, OR

Mark Hugh (Abe) Hathawayb: 03 Apr 1922 Eugene, ORd: 28 Apr 1995 Eugene, ORm: 13 Sep 1947

Jean Robertsonb: 23 Nov 1912 Portland, ORd: 27 Oct 1984 New York, NY

Ernest Graves (Gravy) Jones Jr.b: 11 Jan 1914 Rhode Islandd: 23 Apr 1997 Spartanburg, SCm: 20 Jul 1940 Portland, OR

Charles Marion Robertsonb: 21 Jun 1914 Riverside, CAd: Sep 1983

Dalton (Dolly) Bevilleb: 20 Sep 1915 Mesa, AZm: Sep 1940

John Alfred Robertsonb: 23 May 1916 Riverside, CAd: 26 Jan 2002 Burlingame, CA

Anna T. Coyneb: 26 Dec 1922d: 15 May 1995m: 06 Nov 1961

Margaret Leila (Peggy) Robertsonb: 21 Feb 1920

Edward Vincent O'Connorb: 12 Aug 1916d: Jul 1984m: 06 Nov 1950

Martha Robertsonb: 13 Mar 1930 Mesa, AZ

Dan McAllisterb: 10 Dec 1928 Dallas, TXm: 26 Jan 1952

Horizontal Hourglass Chart for John C. (Jack) Robertson

41

Descendants of Thomas J. McCracken, Sr.

Thomas Jefferson McCracken Srb: 12 Jan 1832 Randolph, NCd: 23 Jul 1903 Bedford, Iowa

Elizabeth Ann Lewisb: 27 Dec 1836 Elizabethtown, KYd: 21 Aug 1916 Bedford, IA

Christopher Columbus (Lum) McCrackenb: 18 Oct 1855 Kokomo, INd: 19 Jan 1946 Denver, CO

Julia Amanda Keelingb: 01 Mar 1858 Wayne, IAd: 29 Oct 1927

Mary Elizabeth McCrackenb: 01 Dec 1857 Bedford, IAd: 07 Jan 1942 North Platte, NE

Hanson Millard Grimesb: 04 Nov 1852 Russellville, INd: 25 Apr 1921 North Platte, NE

Amelia Amanda (Iowa) McCrackenb: 15 Sep 1859 Bedford, Iowad: 30 Jan 1952 Portland, OR

Charles B. Dunningb: 05 Dec 1855 Mount Ayr, IAd: 22 Oct 1880 Ringgold, IA

Justice August (Gus) Dippelb: Sep 1848 Kassel, Hessen, Germanyd: 11 Mar 1925 Portland, OR

Laura Helen McCrackenb: 24 Jan 1862 Bedford, IAd: 23 Feb 1942 Fremont, NE

Loren Day Whelpleyb: 22 Apr 1858 Ithaca, NYd: 04 Mar 1939 Chile

Ulysses S. Grant McCrackenb: 25 Dec 1863 Bedford, IAd: 17 Mar 1866 Bedford, IA

Lillian May McCrackenb: 09 Mar 1866 Bedford, IAd: 05 Jun 1932 Boulder, CO

Omer W. McCrackenb: 14 Jan 1868 Bedford, IAd: 15 Jan 1869 Bedford, IA

Carey Judson McCrackenb: 15 Nov 1869 Bedford, IAd: 01 Aug 1969 Portland, OR

Jean Lucile Parkb: 01 Dec 1873 Minonk, ILd: 30 Jul 1973 Portland, OR

Harry J. McCrackenb: 30 May 1872 Bedford, IAd: 14 Dec 1872 Bedford, IA

Thomas Jefferson McCrackenb: 15 Oct 1875 Bedford, IAd: 04 Dec 1951 Portland, OR

Mary Margaret (May) Robertsonb: 15 Mar 1878 San Francisco, CAd: 01 Nov 1957 Portland, OR

Lora Belle McCrackenb: 17 Jul 1880 Bedford, IA

Jacob Wolverton Reedb: 16 Sep 1871 Jefferson, IAd: 07 Mar 1929 Monte Vista, CO

Beulah Lewis McCrackenb: 09 Jul 1888 Bedford, IAd: 21 Aug 1960 Denver, CO

John Charles Talbotb: 1883

Bethel Dorcas McCrackenb: 29 Jun 1892 Bedford, IA

A W Clergyb: c. 1887

Lee D. Grimesb: 1885d: Dec 1918 Chattanooga, TN

Clement Glenn Dippelb: 11 Nov 1884 Fremont, NEd: 09 Aug 1960 Santa Clara, CA

Anne Vb: 14 Jun 1892 Oregond: 29 Apr 1988 Portland, OR

Ora J Peggyb: 1893 Warren, PAd: 27 Jun 1920 San Francissco, CA

Helen Lorene Whelpleyb: May 1892 Fremont, NEd: Jan 1975 Rockford, IL

Carl Jacobs Lordb: 01 Dec 1889 Parkston, SDd: 04 Mar 1960 Sarasota, FL

Dorothy L. Whelpleyb: 13 May 1894 Fremont, NEd: 22 Sep 1984 Fremont, NE

Abram (Abe) R. Thomasb: c. 1879 Wisconsind: 1960

Sterling Hugh McCawb: 13 Apr 1877 Winfield, IAd: 03 Mar 1967 Norfolk, NE

Mary Ellen Whelpleyb: Sep 1898 Fremont, NEd: 24 Dec 1983 Uniontown, PA

Edward S. Dumbauldb: 26 Oct 1905 Uniontown, PAd: 06 Sep 1997 Uniontown, PA

Laura Elizabeth Whelpleyb: 28 Sep 1903 Fremont, NEd: 06 May 1977 Lisco, NE

Wendell Bergeb: 24 Apr 1903 Lincoln, NEd: 25 Sep 1955 Washington, DC

Elizabeth Ann McCrackenb: 29 Aug 1912 Portland, ORd: 03 Nov 2011 Milwaukie, OR

James Newman McDowellb: 11 Jan 1912 Portland, ORd: 27 Sep 1995 Portland, OR

Mary Lee McCrackenb: 28 Jun 1915 Portland, ORd: 11 Apr 2016 Washington, DC

Leslie Wade Lathramb: 07 May 1916 Dothan, ALd: 15 Apr 2000 Alexandria, VA

Thomas Jefferson (Tod) McCrackenb: 21 Sep 1917 Portland, ORd: 18 Aug 1934 Portland, OR

Horizontal Hourglass Chart for Thomas Jefferson McCracken Sr

42

Descendants of the Park Sisters

George Parkb: Scotland

Elizabeth M. (Lippy) Parkb: Jun 1872 Scotlandd: 12 Apr 1960 Portland, OR

James Beggsb: 18 Aug 1870 Stevenson, Scotlandd: 09 Mar 1920 Portland, OR

Jean Lucile Parkb: 01 Dec 1873 Minonk, ILd: 30 Jul 1973 Portland, OR

Carey Judson McCrackenb: 15 Nov 1869 Bedford, IAd: 01 Aug 1969 Portland, OR

Jessie B. Parkb: 1879 Scotlandd: 17 Sep 1921 Portland, OR

George William Robertsonb: 28 Oct 1879 Portland, ORd: 26 Oct 1959 Portland, ORm: 20 Jul 1911

George Judson Beggsb: 03 May 1898 Evanston, ILd: 30 May 1958 Portland, OR

Caroline (Carol) Montagueb: 28 Jul 1898 Portland, ORd: 16 Jan 1992 Portland, ORm: 07 Sep 1922 Portland, OR

Margaret (Margot, Bokky) Beggsb: 01 Aug 1907 Portland, ORd: 01 May 2004 Novato, CA

Lance Hasell (Hayes) Hendersonb: 12 Feb 1909 Minneapolis, MNd: 04 Jun 2004 Novato, CAm: 1945

Jean Robertsonb: 23 Nov 1912 Portland, ORd: 27 Oct 1984 New York, NY

Ernest Graves (Gravy) Jones Jr.b: 11 Jan 1914 Rhode Islandd: 23 Apr 1997 Spartanburg, SCm: 20 Jul 1940 Portland, OR

Horizontal Hourglass Chart for George Park

43Robertson Reunion, 2010.

Robertson Reunion, 2004.

44Robertson Reunion, 1989.