Broadway and Hollywood Dancing Star Calls Oregon Home

In 1969, Ginger Rogers sold her Beverly Hills home and moved to a 1,000-acre Rogue River ranch near Shady Cove, Oregon.

Rogers and her mother, Lela, had purchased the ranch in 1945, where they raised purebred cows and built a dairy. Some Guernsey cattle in the Rogue Valley still carry the Rogers name on their breeding records. She sold the ranch and moved to Medford in 1990.

Rogers told a reporter in 1982 that she voted and paid taxes in Oregon. "I consider myself an Oregonian," she said.

Born Virginia Katherine McMath on July 16, 1911, in Independence, Missouri, she took her step father's last name, Rogers, as her own. She was dancing publicly at age 10 and began touring when she was 14, including a performance at age 15 at the Craterian Theater in Medford. She was already a Broadway and Hollywood star when she and Fred Astaire began making 10 dance-filled pictures together.

Sixty-seven years after her first Medford performance, Rogers returned for a benefit concert in 1993 at what is now known as the Craterian Ginger Rogers Theater.

Rogers died at 83 at her winter home at Rancho Mirage, California.

Written by Kernan Turner for JPR's radio series, As It Was.

Source:
Internet: Ryder, Stephen. Craterian Ginger Rogers Theatre http://www.craterian.org/the-facility/history/; Ginger Rogers Official Site http://www.gingerrogers.com/about/bio.html

Dance in Ginger Rogers Shoes!

To get you in the mood for our May 1 Ginger Rogers Fashion Show, we are auctioning a pair of her shoes on ebay!

Check it out here!


See the latest info on the fashion show.

Tombstone Tuesday

Josephine County has many historic cemeteries, some dating back before statehood. In the case of Waldo Cemetery, it's the only thing left of a boomtown whose residents weren't even sure whether they were in Oregon or California.

The cemetery sits on a hill, beneath huge old trees. Jennie Weston lies here with her sons George and Philip, victims of an epidemic in 1865. The Bennett brothers, Frank and Edward, lie nearby, dead from another epidemic twenty years later.

Down the hill from the cemetery are the empty graves of Waldo's Chinese miners. As it was dishonorable to be buried in a foreign country, these miners were buried only long enough for the flesh to fall from the bones. They were then disinterred and the bones shipped to their ancestral village in China.

Just outside the gates of the cemetery is a small homemade concrete marker: the tombstone of Kitty Messenger. She was a Native American, married to Samuel Chauncey Messenger, and she died in 1896.

Because she was an Indian, the residents of Waldo wouldn't allow her to be buried in the "white" cemetery. But they did allow her to be buried closer than the Chinese.

Originally written by Jean Boling for the JPR series, As It Was.

Source:
Josephine County, Oregon Cemeteries, Vol 1 by K W Phillips, 1991; and personal conversations with same.

Do you have information about tombstones or cemeteries you'd like to share?
Please email us at info@sohs.org

134 Years Ago in February

Marriage records at the state level in Oregon are available from January 1910 to the present.

In the Southern Oregon Historical Society’s archives, however, there are local certificates of marriage dating to the mid- to late-1800’s. Here is a fascinating example of one such license, from 134 years ago, in February of 1877.

MARRIAGE CERTIFICATE.

STATE OF OREGON, County of Jaxson.

This is to Certify

That the undersigned, a minister of the Gospel – by authority of a License bearing date the 22^d day of February A.D. 1877 and issued by the County Clerk of the County of Jaxson, did, on the 25 day of February A.D. 1877, at the house of Mrs. Charlotte Russell in the County and State aforesaid, join in lawful wedlock R.P. NEIL of the County of Jaxson and State of Oregon, and Lydia RUSSELL of the County of Jaxson and State of Oregon with their mutual assent.

In the Presence of L.A. Neil, C. Merrith, WITNESSES.

Post Submitted by Karreen Busch

Military Monday - Eureka Blimp Base

Eureka, California, bustled with home defense activity during World War II. The sandy beaches of Humboldt Bay's north peninsula held a Coast Guard station and a variety of Navy operations. Most unique was the Navy Blimp Base.

The base supported two K-type patrol airships. These lighter-than-air vessels searched for enemy submarines and escorted ships leaving the bay. They also rescued shipwreck survivors and helped lost fishermen find their way home.

Each blimp had a large helium filled gasbag over two-hundred-fifty feet long. A gondola, or passenger car, hung at the bottom with room for a pilot and nine crewmen. Stocked with supplies and outfitted with a galley, these airships cruised south to San Francisco, north to Tillamook, Oregon, and west to Hawaii.

Using radar to find Japanese submarines, the blimp crew dropped depth charges to complete their seek-and-destroy missions. Their closest target appears to have been a sub boldly lurking off the Trinidad coast just miles north of the base.

There are no military blimps today, but a few buildings and the airplane landing strip at the old blimp base, now a community airport, remind us of the debt of gratitude owed those brave air-born defenders of the coast.

Originally written by Dawna Curler, with help from the Humboldt Historical Society, July 15, 2005, for the JPR radio show As It Was.
Sources:

Humboldt Historical Society
Nash, Glen. "When Blimps Once Dotted the North Coast," Humboldt Historian, Autumn 1994, pp. 32-39; "School days," Humboldt Historian, September-October 1993,pp.12-13; Faulkner, Jessie. "Navy Had Blimps in Samoa During World War II," The Humboldt Beacon, March 11, 1999, p. A10.

Do you have a military-related story about Southern Oregon?
Email us at info@sohs.org

Glitz and Glamour on a Sunday Afternoon!

Ready to purchase your tickets for the Ginger Rogers Fashion Show?
Visit www.sohs.org and reserve yours on-line. Limited seating!
Don't miss this one-time only event.

Sunday, May 1, 2011
2 - 4 pm
Rogue Valley Country Club

More glitz and glamour than you've seen all year!

Family Recipe Friday - Cynthia's Peach Pie

6 cup peeled, diced fresh peaches
3/4 cup sugar
3 tbsp tapioca
1/2 cup flour
1/4 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
2 tbsp butter
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
8" unbaked pie shell

Mix peaches, granulated sugar and tapioca in large bowl - let stand while preparing pie shell.

Combine flour and brown sugar in a small bowl. Cut in butter with pastry blender, until mixture is crumbly. Stir in chopped walnuts.

Sprinkle one-third of crumb mixture over bottom of unbaked pastry shell. Top with peach mixture.

Sprinkle remainder of crumble mixture over the top of the pie.

Bake in a hot oven (450) for 10 minutes.
Lower heat to moderate (350) and bake for 50 minutes or until top is brown and pie begins to bubble.

Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

Source: Hanley Family recipe collection; Favorite Peach & Apple Recipes, 1950. A wonderful pie; the nutty taste you get from the brown sugar, walnut crumb mixture accents the fresh peaches well.