Branching Out – Connections to Cottage Grove – Part 3

In my previous post I mentioned that I discovered a connection from my childhood home at Halsey to my current home in Cottage Grove while reading a family history book at the Cottage Grove Genealogical Society library. Guess what? I read another book and found another connection.

This time I read about the Currin family. Three of this family were Donation Land Claim settlers in the Cottage Grove area: John Currin, his brother William Currin and his sister Christiana (Currin) Cooley’s son, George Cooley. It was the grandson of George that caught my eye, Dale Drinkard. You guessed it, Dale had a connection to me.

He married my 2nd cousin, Delma Falk, 19 Jun 1937 in Linn County, Oregon. Delma said that she and another cousin helped to organize the Falk family reunion which was held each summer when I was growing up. After I began my family history research over 30 years ago I again attended the Falk family reunions and almost always Delma and Dale were there. Again I have always liked this photo I took of them in 1988 at the reunion.

Delma was born in the Halsey area 31 Jan 1915. Delma’s birth certificate has been altered to include her name, since the original certificate calls her Baby Falk. She was about 3 years younger than my mother Wilma and 2 months older than my aunt Lois, although Delma’s grandfather was a much older brother of Wilma and Lois’s father. I have always liked this photo of the three of them.

Lois, Wilma & Delma

While writing this blog post, I realized that I had not been diligent in adding the available sources for them to my family tree on Ancestry (joanne genealogy). So I worked on it. It reminded me that when Dale died 17 Sept 2005, at age 93, he and Delma had been married 68 years. Delma lived for almost 8 more years and died at age 98 on 27 Jul 2013. I have missed seeing them at the reunions and didn’t have the opportunity to explain the Cottage Grove connection that I had with Dale.

Busey School Was in the News in the 1920s

Yesterday (12 Feb 2017) I posted a photo of the students at Busey School in 1923. Busey School, District 44, was located about three miles north of Harrisburg, Oregon. Because Harrisburg is located between the cities of Eugene and Albany, I was able to find some mentions of the school in both Eugene and Albany newspapers.

In February 1923, eight months before the photo, Busey dedicated a new school building with a community supper and some outside speakers, including Mrs. Edna Geer, the Linn County School Superintendent. It had cost more than $2000, covered by interest-bearing warrants. The article concluded with a new fact for me. My grandfather, J. A. Falk, was a member of the school board. A month after the photo was taken, in November of 1923, a newspaper reported that the pupils "enjoyed a Hallowe'én frolic that evening. The ghost, witch and jack o'lantern featured."

The papers usually noted who the teachers were at the school:

1922-23 -- Miss Bess Jones

1923-24 -- Miss Jennie Reed

1924-25 -- Miss Mildred or Margaret Martin

1928-29 -- Mrs. Vernita Cooley

It was in May 1925 when the results of the Linn County Dental Essay Contest were announced. The winner of the division for 5th & 6th grades in rural districts was my aunt, Lois Falk, a sixth grader. The paper announced in June 1925 that District 44 had one student who had passed the 8th grade examination on the first try and so graduated: my mother, Wilma Falk.

The next spring in April of 1926, Busey School children entertained their parents with an Easter program. They also enjoyed the new volleyball and flag there, which they had earned by selling pencils. At the last day of school in May of 1926 the Lake Creek and Busey schools celebrated together at the Busey school grounds.

In June of 1927, four of the students from the photo graduated from the 8th grade: Lois Falk, Samuel Brock, Merle Cook and Ralph Wilbert. June of 1929 reported that two students from Busey had passed the 8th grade exam: Helen Cook and George Hargett. So together with the newspapers and the photo you can put faces with some of the names.