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LETTERS
To the Editor:
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Eckard Toy's "Whose Frontier" (OHQ vol. 107, no. 1), concerning mainly American-Japanese immigrant relations in the 1920s, stimulates me to contribute some memories from childhood. In 1927–1934, from ages five through twelve, I was a student in Wilkes School, about halfway between Parkrose and Troutdale in Multnomah County. The main economic activity in the Wilkes School district was farming, much of it "truck gardening" for vegetable stands in Portland. |
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About 20 percent of the some eighty students in Wilkes School were children of recent immigrants from Japan. In the school, they were obviously different but were accepted warmly. From conversations between my parents that I overheard, I gather that the Japanese farmers were also decently accepted. |
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One of the Japanese students, a very short boy, was remarkably successful as a batter at softball. The vertical distance between the bottom and the top of his strike zone was so short that opposing pitchers found it difficult to pitch strikes, and so he often got to first base on a walk. |
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Our Japanese playmates at school told us that Saturdays they had to go to Japanese school, no doubt to learn how to read and write Japanese writing and some things from Japanese culture. They told us that in a matter-of-fact way, without either distaste or enthusiasm for Japanese school. |
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My childhood experiences no doubt helped me in the years 1942–1945 to welcome a Japanese American student, Dave Fukushima and his wife Sachi, who relocated from UCLA to the chemistry department of the University of Rochester (New York). Decades later, when the U.S. government compensated the relocated Japanese Americans for the abuse they suffered, Fukushima donated the whole of his compensation to the University of Rochester chemistry department. |
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Also, cheers to authors Dibling, Martin, Olson, and Webb for their interesting report, "Guild's Lake Industrial District," (OHQ vol. 107, no. 1). While I was a child, I sometimes heard my parents mention Guild's Lake, but never understood it. |
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But the most interesting remainder of the Lewis & Clark Centennial Exposition was mentioned only in passing. That was the Forestry Building, which I had visited several times in the 1940s and early 1950s. It was like a cathedral, with handsome strong columns, which were Douglas fir logs, along both sides. It contained exhibits that probably remained from the Exposition. The whole scene — the architecture and the exhibits — was in worship of the inexhaustible wealth of the forests of Oregon and Washington. |
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The Forestry Building was up on the hill, somewhat elevated over Guild's Lake. It was open, with no admission charge and no attendant on duty. I felt it to be a precious gem, and was a little worried that it was so open and accessible. My worries were perhaps justified. Was the fire that destroyed it in the 1950s due to arson?
Joe Bunnett
Santa Cruz, CA |
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To the Editor:
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Recently, I came across an interesting connection of Edward Bellamy with Oregon that is not directly linked to those aspects I examined in my Spring 2003 (104:1) Oregon Historical Quarterly article "Looking Backward at Edward Bellamy's Impact in Oregon." Among the Liberty Ships built by the Oregon Ship Building Corporation during World War II was a freighter christened the Edward Bellamy. As Capt. Walter W. Jaffee notes in The Liberty Ships From A (A.B. Hammond) to Z (Zona Gale) (Palo Alto: Glencannon Press, 2004), the keel for the Edward Bellamy was laid on March 26, 1943, and it was launched on April 14, 1943. It was delivered on April 22, 1943, as Maritime Commission Emergency Hull No. 1625 and had an engine made by the Iron Fireman Manufacturing Company. Jaffee states: "Following postwar service, she was laid up at Brunswick, Georgia on June 4, 1946. She was later transferred to the Olympia Reserve Fleet and was used in the grain storage program in 1954. Withdrawn from the fleet on September 21, 1970, she was scrapped at Tacoma, Washington in December of that year." Jaffee identifies Bellamy as an "author" who "founded the Springfield Daily News in 1880" but does not mention his utopian novel, Looking Backward 2000–1887 (Boston: Ticknor and Company, 1888), which prompted a movement that was felt in Oregon in the late nineteenth century and again during the Great Depression. That one of the hundreds of ships hastily constructed during World War II was named for Bellamy may not be surprising, as the United States Maritime Commissions cast a wide net for names. As L.A. Sawyer and W.H. Mitchell note in The Liberty Ships: The History of the 'Emergency' Type Cargo Ships Constructed in the United States During the Second World War (London: Lloyd's of London, 1985), "Initially, the ships... were, generally named for eminent Americans from all walks of life who had made notable contributions to the history or to the culture of the United States of America — some famous, some forgotten, yet others heroic — or even mythical." Sawyer and Mitchell include the Edward Bellamy on their list of ships but provide few details. That this ship was one constructed by the Oregon Ship Building Corporation is just a curious connection with this utopian dreamer of the nineteenth century.
James J. Kopp
Aurora, Oregon |
OHQ LETTERS TO THE EDITOR POLICY
OHQ will publish all letters to the editor unless they are libelous or carry a tone that is not in keeping with the journal's mission. If there is a direct challenge to an article, OHQ will give the author of the article an opportunity to respond. The exchange will not be allowed to proceed beyond that point.
Letters will not be edited for length unless they exceed 500 words. Any editorial work suggested on letters will be shared with authors and not published without their permission.
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