HomeMy Public PortalAboutDavidson, CharlieOne of Boise's founding families, the Davidson when they were young, from left: Charlie, Frank,
Donnie, Bette (Gregorie), Jack, Clayton and Myra (Allan). Only the sisters survive. (Idaho
Historical Society Photo)
By "NINA vkiirAtr
McCALL -- You . needn't
think of Idaho as being
a Johnny -come -lately kind of
a state ... not with a three
and four generation summer
colony in its mountains'. Although
many still well-known Idaho -fam-
ilies came here long enough ago
to qualify for the four-
.genera-tion bracket, only two have great
grandchildren now dog -paddling in
the lakes .... the late R. M. David-
son and Mrs.: Davidson, and the
late Mr. and Mrs. Johnson. _
If any Regans were still in resi-
dence here instead of scattered
around the globe, they would "com-
prise a five -generation family by
virtue -of the late and beloved
money Moe," grandmother of the'
Will -Regan brood,- whcr -camped-
long and happily at Sylvan.
Descendants, of the Will Regan,
James Clinton, Edwin Snow, Ro-
frier Teller, Sam. Hays, Bradley
Sheppard, Frank Blackinger, . and
Craig •Coffin families still return
here on sentimental journeys but
only the Snows now own their old
property' here.
The Frasers .rank in point of
time almost with the oldest be-
cause they. first came here 37
years ago; their presentcottage
on Wagon Wheel bay was 27
years old last spring. It is steeped
in memories, furnished with a
thousand 'odd' ineinentoes of family
living. Gertrude and. Thor, Jane
and PRA slut Playnts s�pput s31 their
summers there; and now their
children • play on the same beach,
worry the same huckleberry
bushes.
Others, who came later but who
are now running into their third
generation of summering here in-
clude the families of J. L. Eberle,
Gen. L. R. Holbrook, J. L. Dris-
coll, C. _W. Gamble, Dr. Arthur
Jones, Dr__T__ N. Brsy tan, .Reilly"
Atkinson, A. H. Burroughs, Mrs.
Leo F. Falk and Mrs. Walter
Young.
s • s
Charlie Staited
As Missionary"
BUT .THE 'LOVING CUP 'for
unbroken summer -occupation . in-
dubitably rests on the Davidson
mantel.' Its' place is due mainly to
the fervor . of - one Charles .David-.
son, third son of the late R. M.
and Carrie 'Abernathy -Davidson.
Charlie, when he .first. appeared
here, was young (about 12) and
hungry. ' - -
With him were Stannard Fun-
ston, son of the then Episcopal
bishop of Idaho; and two English
missionaries, Purpose .of .the trip,
0 - a" we -
board was to establiali s -mission-
ary outpost to convert. the Indians
rumored to be languishing here in
spiritual durance vile.
The trip took more time, money
and food than was estimated. The
men of God being, in the last
analysis, strangers in a foreign
land, -and therefore--adjudged-poor
credit risks, it was up to Charlie
to save the day.
He bearded the owner of the
Boydston general store, success-
e c
Ch irlie"Davidson
As Boy Pioneer
Started Resort
fully identifying himself as the
son of R. M. (who, luckily for all,
was the wholesale grocer to whom
Mr. Boydston was indebted for his
entire inventory) and was there-
upon ahowered with groceries.
These included a whole vide of
bacon, atiVk of potatoes, a bushel
of flapjflour ana gallons of
syrup.
The solution of the second dif-
ficulty of the missionary party
was out of human hands. There
were no Indiana in the entire
vicinity. .
• • •
Remember Mr. Nelson? -
He Softened Up
IT WAS at that point, ethically
released from his mission, that
young Charlie took the step which
was to set the summer course of
scores of Davidsons for nearly
half.a century.
Instead of throwing himself on
the mercy of his Uncle Wallace
Abernathy, whose farm was on the
site of the present McCall golf
course, young Charlie lit out for
the Nelson camp at Sylvan beach.
Mr. Charlie Nelson's reputation
as a grouchy individual is so well
documental: that it still, shivers
your timbers- to hear the stories
of his ferociousness, especially to-
ward his pet objects of abomina-
•tom , children. But young
Davidson waited on camp tables
with such guile and effectiveness
Nelson grandly invited Charlie to
come hack next year and bring all
his brothers and sisters.
The family, next year, 'went by
train to :Weiser, then to New
Meadows and took the gtage to
McCall. Myra Davidson Allan still
remembers that first ride up Goose
Creek-canyon—iaehind --a skittish
four -horse team. An era had begun, an era so
golden that its participants, 40
years later, relive it often as they
sit by their tiniest hearths in their
beautiful, dish -washer equipped
cottages.
Mr. Nelson eventually sold out
and families began building cabins.
.The old sense of community liv-
ing, however, was sustained by
the maintenance of the general
dining hall tent; and by the com-
munity cook house.
The Nelson dance hall floor, dis-
mantled in sections for the winter,
and set up again in the spring,
eventually was permanently as-
sembled as the floor of the first
Davidson cabin which, indefatiga-
bly mended, enlarged and im-
proved, still stands on Sylvan
beach.
Young people danced in the old
Payette Lakes inn on a floor built
over the lake, Charlestoning dog-
gedly to the music of the Musical
Martens. Cars now boiled up the
Horseshoe Bend grade and the
overnight stop at Smith's ferry
was no longer necessary.
For a 'few years, the young and
romantic would even dance around
and around the lake on the launch,
the Winston, a boat still held in
blessed memory by hundreds of
scattered and aging Idahoans.
Building jogged along leisurely
in the twenties. The Frasers
abandoned their east -side camp,
pioneered a new tract on Wagon
Wheel bay. Then in the late thir-
ties, disaster overtook Sylvan
beach. It was invaded by despoil-
ers from Hollywood who made a
movie (whose merits are still hot-
Iy debated) and who made a
shambles, tearing up the ground
and trees, erecting ugly and use-
less buildings.
s s s
Sylvan Was Re -Born
To Charlie's Design
ONCE AGAIN it was Charlie
Davidson to the rescue. He worked
furiously, d e s i g n i n g, building,
planting and the new Sylvan beach
which emerged is a testimony to
his artistic accomplishments.
The re -birth of Sylvan, after the
black plague had devastated it,
The Ansgar " Johnson gave their
mountain cabin the Davidson
treatment, turning it into the
charming cottage they love today.
Two miles down from Sylvan, to
name one of several, is the en-
chanting R. J. McCaslin cottage,
transformed by Charlie.
__Charlie Davidson ig quite_a.mod-
est man. He also has a vigorous
sense of humor. If it were not for
these two traits, there probably
would now be, neatled into some
sylvan plass, a statue of the boy
discoverer and man preserver of
Sylvan beach .. .
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The Idaho Oral History Center collection is the product of more than fifteen years of
interviewing. The nature of oral history and the age of some interviews mean that special
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Oral history interviews are protected by the 1976 copyright law. Both interviewer and
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Idaho Oral History Center, 210 Main Street, Boise, ID 83702, or the copyright holder, as
listed below. When quoting from an interview, the following bibliographic form is
recommended: John Grey, Interviewed by Mary Hall. Boise: Idaho Oral History Center,
January 11, 1994.
This copy of the interview is not for resale, nor should the researcher allow others to
reproduce either the tape recording or the transcript.
Narrator: Charlie and Myra Davidson
OH Number: #0099
Additional Restrictions: none
Copyright held by: no legal release on file
UH 997
Tape Summary
NARRATOR: Charlie and Myra Davidson
INTERVIEWER: Kathleen Regan Birdie
DATE: September 28 and 30, 1974
LOCATION: McCall, Idaho
Tape Manuscript
Counter Page
Summary
1 Introduction
2 Coming to McCall by train; Charlie Nelson's
early summer tent resort
7
8
Charlie Davidson arrives at McCall with
missionaries; Mr. Boydston's store at Lardo
Waiting tables at Sylvan Beach; Mr. Nelson
restricted resort to no children
10 First wooden cabin built at lake at cost of
$3,000; early visitors to resort
14 Riparian water rights; Wagon Wheel Creek water
rights; electricity arrives in the area
19
20
23
END OF SIDE 1
SIDE 2
25
Cutting and storing of ice
Town of Burgdorf settled by Mr. and Mrs.
Burgdorf; present day residents of the town
Mary Davidson maintains records of Charlie
Nelson and Sylvan Resort; early visitors
Continuation of early visitors
26 END OF INTERVIEW
n� H 9 9
Names and Places Mentioned in the Text
Adelmann, Jack
Allen, Charlie
Anderson, Renie
Blackinger, Helen
Boydston, Mr.
Bradley, Jessie
Brown, Carl
Burgdorf, Mr. and Mrs.
Burgdorf, Idaho
Davidson, Donald
Davidson, Frank
Davidson, Rod
Davidson, Janie
Dayley, Mary
Eastman, Hosea
Eastman, Ben
Funstone, Bishop
Hall, Fred
Hawley family
Hill, Dr. and Mrs
Holbrook family
Lardo, Idaho
McCall, Idaho
McKloskey, Mary
Miny Moe
Moore, Catherine
Musical Martins (Mr. and Mrs.)
Nelson, Charlie and Mrs.
Oremsbey family
Regan, Billy
Regan, Timothy
Regan, Johnny
Regan, Monie
Regan, Margaret
Regan, Kathleen
Regan, Mr. and Mrs. W.V.
Simplot, J.R.
Simroe, Mr.
Snow family
Sylvan Beach (McCall)
Teller family
Warren, Idaho
Webb, Mrs.
99
NARRATOR: Charlie and Myra Davidson
INTERVIEWER: Kathlen Regan Birdie
DATE: September 28 and 30, 1974
LOCATION: McCall, Idaho
[The following is an excerpt from a series of interviews conducted by Kathleen
Regan Birdie on September 28 and 30, 1974 in McCall. The interviews were
conducted one after the other with Mr. Pomme de Terre, Bob Reynolds, Mrs.
Pickle, Tim Williams and Mrs. Williams, and Myra and Charlie Davidson. Only
the portion with Myra and Charlie Davidson is included here. The other
transcripts are currently located in the DNI files under "Charlie Davidson"
LMK, 8/19/1993]
SIDE 1
The following interview was recorded on September 28, 1974. The narrators are
Charlie and Myra Davidson. The interviewer is Kathleen Regan Birdie. The
interview was recorded in McCall, Idaho.
INT: Today it's September 28, isn't that right, Charlie? And I'm sitting in
the old Davidson house, and I'm sitting here and Myra's sweeping off the
table to --turn it off, [Patty?] I can't say a word, I can't record, I
hate my voice. Anyway, Charlie Allen's standing there --the Commodore --
by the fireplace and I rode with him in the ark over to McCall
yesterday. And Myra's just had cantaloupe and presented me with a
little dish of fresh huckleberries. Where'd you get them?
MD: Somebody sold them to Lulu three weeks ago.
INT: Well, where were they picked?
MD: Well, way up by Burgdorf. They must have been up high because they
wouldn't be that ripe down here.
INT: Well, we had the real McCoy, none of those California blueberries. They
weren't frozen; they were fresh. And Charlie and Myra are just packing
up to be on their way. I've just become a member of the Royal Yacht
Club that I'll tell you about when I get home and Myra just opened some
little knickknacks from Janie Davidson and darling things here. Myra,
one of the things I really do want to ask you, that I don't remember as
1
Davidson, Charlie and Myra (September 28 and 30, 1974)
well as you do --can you remember when our families really started coming
to Sylvan Beach? Do you remember when your mother and your father
started coming? And our mother and father came? How many kids were in
your family?
MD: Well, there were seven of us, but Clayton didn't like it up here.
INT: He didn't like it up here. Well, what house did you live in?
CD: Well, Myra says she came when she was eight years old. That would make
it 19--?
INT: Did you come when you were eight years old?
MD: Yes, I might have come when I was seven. The first year we came on a
train to McCall because a car would never get to McCall.
INT: You don't mean that.
MD: That train, that funny little train that comes up the river.
INT: How many hours did it take?
MD: It took us all day. And I remember they would stop. You'd wonder what
the men were doing --there was a little caboose on the back --out in
back flopping their hats. They were killing grasshoppers. They were
across the river on the bridge; they just stopped there and then fished
in the river. That was their meal. We stopped at Banks and ate lunch.
INT: And you stopped at Banks.
MD: And then came on up on the train.
INT: Myra, would this be Clayton and you, and Frank and Donnie? [looking at
photo]
MD: I think so, but then there were still more because Uncle Wallace and
Aunt Emma had a little log cabin over on the golf course; it's the golf
2
Davidson, Charlie and Myra (September 28 and 30, 1974)
course now, and we played everyday and my cousin, Irene, from Tennessee,
was here, and Mobrey's sister, Julie.
INT: My memory, which is kind of vague sometimes, what was the wooden place
by the bridge there? Was that a place --did anybody stay there ever or
do we have a laundry down there?
MD: Well, it's Boydston's.
INT: Boydston's store.
MD: At Lardo.
INT: Lardo, Lardo. That's the name.
MD: Boydston's store. Yeah, Charlie, wait 'til Charlie gets to talking
about the missionaries. He came up with the missionaries, in the
buckboard. They were to save the Indians. They got up here and there
weren't any Indians. They nearly starved to death. (chuckle)
INT: Well, I'm so glad they didn't pick on us.
MD: Well, we weren't here; this was before that.
INT: Did you and your family stay over at McCall before --
MD: We stayed up there the first time, you know, just four months.
INT: Did we ever stay there or was that before we did?
MD: No, that was before any of the rest of you came. No, no, I'm 65, Kathy.
This is where I [?], but Charlie Davidson and I went up in there then
the next year. This was the year Betty was born, in September, that
September when we got home and the next year we came up to New Meadows
on the train and across from there on the stage with horses so the stage
finally was a big--
INT: Oh, no.
3
Davidson, Charlie and Myra (September 28 and 30, 1974)
MD: Yes. A big round meadow --we stayed all night in New Meadows and I
remember Betty slept with me; she was a little baby, September to the
next June, about nine months old. And so cute. Then we stayed a little
that year, we stayed in a little tent house down by the Payette Lakes
Inn. But I don't think the Payette Lakes Inn was there then. I think
it was built right after that. And so we went to Tokley, we all went to
Tokley one year or something.
INT: Well, did you ever know that Mugs went to Tokley? When did you start
coming to Sylvan Beach and when did we, do you remember when?
MD: Well, I believe we came first. They didn't want any children. Mr.
Nelson just hated children.
INT: Charlie Nelson?
MD: Charlie Nelson hated children. And Charlie Davidson worked for him. I
think he was 17 or something. I don't know how old he was. But he
waited on tables up here and I think we went up for dinner once or
twice, or something. Mr. Nelson thought that momma had her children so
disciplined that he started taking children. I think we were here maybe
a year before you came, or the Clintons. I can't remember.
INT: Where did you live when you first came here, Myra?
MD: In a tent. Up there on the point, real tent, three or four tents, I
think. We always had tents.
INT: Yeah. Well, I remember when we first came we had the green house that
we called the cook house.
MD: Didn't you ever live in a tent?
INT: I don't know. I don't remember. Maybe we did.
4
Davidson, Charlie and Myra (September 28 and 30, 1974)
MD: I'll bet you did part of the time because I think everybody did. They
gradually built more and more houses, but there weren't any there at
first; there were just tents.
INT: We certainly lived by kerosene lamps then. We did that for many years.
MD: Oh, mercy. Yes!
INT: Because I remember when they first put the lights in. We used to shoot
them out with B-B guns. (chuckles) We were so mad. Myra, can you
remember when Mother brought us up here and Dad? Do you remember
Mother at all?
MD: Of course I remember your mother. She was the most beautiful woman I
ever saw. Oh, she had a darling deep voice.
INT: Yes, she had a deep voice.
MD: Oh, she had the cutest voice. Oh, she was just so wonderful.
INT: Your mother and my mother were great friends, weren't they?
MD: Your mother was a lot younger than my mother, but my mother just adored
your mother and your mother adored my mother. Oh, yes, they were great
friends.
INT: Well, Rod Davidson and your mother knew the names of all the plants and
of all the flowers and all the shrubs. How many years did they come up
here, Myra?
MD: Papa didn't know anything.
INT: Well, your right. [chuckle] He chopped the wood.
MD: He chopped the wood. He was a good mathematician, but he didn't know
anything about plants. That's where Charlie got his.
INT: Did he?
5
Davidson, Charlie and Myra (September 28 and 30, 1974)
MD: But Momma didn't want any. You notice there's no plants around here,
except maybe little things out in the woods. You know she had that
lovely garden in Boise. She didn't want any lawn or any plants or
anything to take care of.
INT: Myra, I can remember tearing back from Beaver Dam and saying to your
mother, "Oh, Mrs. Davidson, I saw the star flowers out." And she would
say, "Kathleen, trilliums." She'd always give me the correct name.
[chuckle]
MD: Trilliums, yes. Hey, Kathleen, when you go up to the garden, you must
ask Charlie or Betty where the little Tiki garden is that they call it.
It's a little roof --but you probably don't remember. You were one of my
children, Molly. We'd all come over to play with it but we thought we
were miles away from Sylvan Beach. But it was just that little pile of
rocks up there by what he calls Jenny's little garden. That's the name
for his little granddaughter. That's the pile of rocks and then that
little room was kind of, you could see the road from it now because they
cut down so many bushes burning up some stuff on the road. They make me
so mad, but it's still a cute little dark mysterious place, right up at
the garden. But we use to play over there and think we were miles away
from everywhere.
INT: Isn't that amazing? [tape turned off and on]
[For reasons now unknown, the following portion of the interview was
missing from the storage copy of the reel-to-reel tape when this
cassette copy was made. This portion of the transcript therefore has
not been audited against the original.-LMK]
6
Davidson, Charlie and Myra (September 28 and 30, 1974)
INT: This is September, oh gosh, about the 30th and I'm sitting out on Mary's
front porch and in the most brilliant Indian Summer you have ever seen.
We've just had fresh huckleberries that Myra gave us and the Bluejays
have been hopping around eating practically out of our hands. I'm gonna
call over to Charlie to see if he won't come over to visit on this tape
a little bit with me. I was just saying in this thing that I was gonna
go get Charlie, and and here he is. Charlie, you know yesterday I was --
CD: Tell me what you're gonna do.
INT: I'm gonna tape some old lore about Sylvan Beach. I was talking with
Myra and I said, "I wonder if Walt from Walt's Cafe is around," and
Betty said, "Kathleen, you're about 50 years behind time." So all the
oldtimers are you and Myra, and I'm talking in this little tape now
because Myra brought us up on old stuff about your parents and their
coming up by train via New Meadows. And I wanted to get some more lore
of the earliest memories you could possibly have of Sylvan Beach. And
Myra said, "Don't talk to me, go talk to Charlie, because he knows about
the missionaries and he knows about Charlie Nelson and he knows about
all sorts of things that I can't remember." So, I just wanted you to
bone me up on some of the earliest memories you have.
CD: The earliest memory I have is coming up with the bishop's son, and two
priests, Episcopal priests from England who wanted to do something as
dramatic --they wanted to convert the Indians so we drove up in an old
buckboard, not really a buckboard because it had two seats. It had four
seats, but they were really tenderfeet and they didn't know any; we had
a terrible trip up. It took us two weeks to get here instead of a week
7
Davidson, Charlie and Myra (September 28 and 30, 1974)
driving this team and when we got here, there wasn't one single Indian
and there'd never been many Indians. They used to come up once in a
while to get salmon, but there wasn't a single Indian for them to
convert. [chuckles] So here we were and starving to death, and I went
in to Mr. Boydstons--there was no McCall, no Lake Fork, no anything.
And there was one little store where the river flows out there at Lardo.
And Mr. Boydston, I went in to ask him if we could get --we were starving
and he asked me a little bit about myself and he said, "Well, you look
enough like your father, I guess I'll trust you." I said, "Well, what
can I have?" And he says, "Anything you want." So I bought a bag of
flour and slab of bacon and we went out and cooked for three days in the
woods and ate and ate and ate, we had a lot of syrup, too. But my
father was in the wholesale grocery business and selling stuff, and I
don't think Mr. Boydston paid his bill that month, so he was happy to
credit me with a whole bunch of stuff. [chuckles]
But my first experience with Sylvan Beach was, I came up when I
was about 11 or 12 years old to wait on tables for Charlie Nelson. And
I was up here for the summer. No, I was up, I think, maybe on that
missionary trip. But, anyhow, he had a --there were no houses here, just
he had a cook house but the places he rented were all tents and frames
and they had a great big frame for a dance hall even. And they had a
great big boat on the lake that would make lake tours around. Would
hold about 40 people and the Musical Martins would play and Charlie
Nelson would sell sandwiches and we'd all have a big time. It was the
"Winston," was the name of it, and I think it was named after Mrs.
8
Davidson, Charlie and Myra (September 28 and 30, 1974)
Nelson's family; she was a Winston. And, the launch is right where our
house sits now, the railroad track went out into the lake and they'd
pull it up onto this track and our house is the old boat house, right
there. And this was a resort for people like Senator Borah and
prominents would come through and stay there for a few days, because the
lake was as beautiful as it is now but not anymore so. And it was a
long hard journey to get up here. You had to come by train to New
Meadows and then take the stagecoach and that was a horrible trip
because the road was about a foot deep in dust and the poor horses,
sometimes we'd have to get out and push, help him up the grade over here
out of New Meadows. But then no children were allowed on Sylvan Beach
at all.
INT: Why was that, Charlie?
CD: Oh, he just didn't like children, and lots of places still don't allow
children. You know, it's for grown people, and children were just
troublesome, but they took such a fancy to me they asked me to come back
next year. And I said, "Oh, I have six or seven brothers and sisters,
and we're a big family." And he said, "Well, your family can come."
Well, that was where he made his big mistake. [chuckles] The Davidson
family was not a very nice group anyway, and they were followed by the
Regans and the Clintons and the Coffins and the Holbrooks and all the
people in those days had families. A family wasn't a family unless
there were at least five or six children, most of 'em had eight or nine.
And poor Mr. Nelson's life was made a living hell. Your grandmother,
Miny Moe, said it was a children's paradise, but a children's paradise
9
Davidson, Charlie and Myra (September 28 and 30, 1974)
is just the opposite for everybody else. Oh, the things they would
think up to do.
INT: Charlie, was there a Mrs. Nelson?
CD: Oh, sure, Mrs. Nelson was a very cultivated woman. She painted, I have
one of her paintings in here now, a bowl of roses. You can go down in
the guest room there. And she had a beautiful little folding chair. It
was called a schooner chair because they came across in prairie
schooners and in the evening around the campfire out on the prairie,
she'd bring out her chair and sit in it. We have the original one down
there; it doesn't have the old carpeting on it anymore, but they were
made out of like carpet bags were made out of, you know. And she was a
very competent woman. But she grew to be enormous in size; she must
have weighed, oh, I don't know, she was a short woman and about this
wide.
INT: Well, I cannot remember her. I can remember Charlie.
CD: Her brother came and lived out on the point, Mr. Shelton. And his tent
was always where your big old house is now. And the dance hall, they
finally dismantled it. It was such a big thing, at one they didn't get
the canvas down in time and the snow caved it in and so Charlie Nelson
let us have some of the floorings in ten foot squares. That they put
down there, and it's in this house here that I built 53 years ago. This
was the first cabin on the lakes and--
INT: Which is that, Charlie?
CD: It's Myra's. And it's not log. Yes, and then we couldn't afford logs;
they're too expensive. We had to saw wood up into boards.
10
Davidson, Charlie and Myra (September 28 and 30, 1974)
INT: That house is 53 years old?
CD: Yes, at least. It's the first cabin on the lakes except for a little
log cabin down near Lardo called Jews Harp Jacks, but there's no--
INT: That rings a bell.
CD: And that one, but this was the only house left that was a big cabin. I
remember the beams for the living room. The sawmill sat right here
where your house is by the stream and they couldn't saw them long
enough. They said the carriage wouldn't hold them, so I would get on
the carriage and ride up there holding these logs right to the saw like
in the movies! And to keep them from wobbling so much so the beams were
a little irregular, but they did span that big living room. Then we
were in a big tent over at Nelson's--a big double tent with two big
double beds and a stove. It was the only tent with a stove in it. And,
in August we got a great rainy spell that year and every child in the
place got piling up on those beds and Momma said she'd never come again
unless she had a roof over her head. So that's when this cabin was
built and Bishop Thunston, after the difficulty with the Indians getting
converted and the missionaries, decided to build a church up here anyhow
for the local inhabitants. The men that came to build it ran out of
money so the builder was up here and Nelson had the logs and Papa said
he'd put up the money for the labor and he'd lease the house for 99
years to us, so I got to work with the church builder and built this
cabin and for three years after, neither Mr. Nelson nor my father spoke
to me because the house cost $3,000. $1,800 for labor and $1,200 for
materials. It was a huge thing, I don't know how many bedrooms, and we
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Davidson, Charlie and Myra (September 28 and 30, 1974)
all lived in it for years. Even then you couldn't have done it, if
there'd been any electricity or plumbing, but there wasn't. We all had
outhouses and dipped water out of a little spring. The spring was a
fake too, we just brought the water in a little ditch and let it run in
a hole there. But they said we've never heard of such extravagance,
such a fiend, I must have spent all this money on the house. Now I
guess you could easily ask $100,000 for it with the lake front and in
fact that we've been offered that much. And so, it was an actually good
investment for both, although they didn't realize it. Since then, it's
had plumbing and wiring put in, but that wasn't too expensive. Will you
shut this thing off? ... And the Martins would play --we'd go around
the lake. It was always the same tour, but Mr. Nelson was a--
INT: Where do the Musical Martins come from, Charlie?
CD: I don't know. They were here, husband and wife, and they played a lot
of old time music and they were really very good.
INT: It seems to me I remember having swum out and hung on a float that had
an orchestra on it. Do you remember that? That must of been
somewhere.
CD: There were some left out, I can't remember those two --well, I was away a
good many years in the East when I was a professional landscaper there,
so my recollections are very early times.
INT: Well, Charlie, those are the times that I looked in an old register in
Mary's house and I saw that in 1919 my parents came up here with Billy,
Monte, Kathleen, Tim, and Margaret.
CD: That's right. And that was the first year.
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Davidson, Charlie and Myra (September 28 and 30, 1974)
INT: We came up and old Mary McKloskey, who shortly thereafter had a
religious fanatic breakdown and had a vision that she was supposed to
murder all the Regan children and Dad slipped us out of the house to
Miny Moes. Mary McKloskey had come with us, and your mother and your
family and the Coughlins and the Clintons.
CD: I can understand that vision she had.
INT: (Laughs) You didn't egg her on?
CD: No. Your mother was one of the most interesting women and, well, one of
the prettiest I ever met. I remember, she'd loaned me one time your big
new automobile --the huge Packard or Winston to go with the children up
to Burgdorf to take them on a picnic. When I came back, both running
boards were torn off. And I said, "Mrs. Regan, the road just got too
narrow." She said, "I know you're right, Charlie, because you didn't
tear off one bearing. Both running boards are off, and so it's true
that you did the best you could." [chuckles]
?:
CD: Oh, no, I, oh, the kids were something, and there were so many of them.
I remember when we used to go to Tokeland [?]. That was another resort
on the Washington coast. Instead of coming here, and I can see your
mother out going --she wanted to go with us to get crabs and they were
great big ones we got with pitchforks and gunnysacks. She got excited;
she had on a great big mink coat that came down, it was cold in the
morning. Well, it got warmer and warmer, but I looked back and saw your
mother with the mink coat --she was about at her waist and the mink coat
was floating out on the sea. If it hadn't gotten wet, you'd think there
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Davidson, Charlie and Myra (September 28 and 30, 1974)
was a great mink coat floating out there behind her as she was getting
these crabs. And when we finally got back, she said she'd never had
such a good time. [chuckles] We got the crabs, we'd got a whole
barrelful and cooked them up and had them with mayonnaise that evening.
They were well worthwhile. Come on.
INT: Charlie's gonna feed that big Bluejay that's sitting up there. Here it
comes down, and it's --
[The cassette recording resumes at this point.-LMK]
INT: Now I'm going to be recording Charlie on this tape. I've already
started and completed one of Charlie on another tape, and I'm going to
be continuing here on Mary's porch this morning. September, what is it,
30? September 30. Charlie gave us a lot of early history; we're gonna
visit a little more with him in just about a minute. Charlie's gonna
tell us a little bit about the homesteading now at Sylvan Beach.
CD: The last homestead granted up here was a 160-acre and even took
riparian rights out into the middle of the lake, Charlie Nelson. And
there is only one or two lakes in the United States that have riparian
rights, of any kind, and they're not--
INT: What does "riparian" mean?
CD: It means you own out into the water. All this other, all this you see,
is from high water down. It's suppose to be free to the public. We not
only own the beach, we own out to the middle of the lake. And then also
when little Sylvan Creek would in August, it would often dry up
practically, so he went over and filed on all the water in Wagon Wheel
Creek and brought it around the mountains in a great big ditch and
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Davidson, Charlie and Myra (September 28 and 30, 1974)
brought it down so little Sylvan always has lots of water in it. We go
up and turn it on in July, about the middle of July, and the people over
on Wagon Wheel are very upset about it, but they have had suits --oh, I
think four or five suits --trying to get the water back. But it's one of
the oldest water rights in the state. The grant for this came from
President Ulysses S. Grant to Charlie Nelson and his wife in about 1875,
I think --somewhere around in there. And it's always been privately
owned land since his time. Our house with a 99-year lease was the only
thing they couldn't rent to the Northwest Passage group that came. They
built a huge sort of hotel up where my garden is now for the extras.
The important people lived in the--
INT: Indian Towers.
CD: Yes, lived in here, in the cabins, but that was kind of a shacky thing.
It was torn down later and taken over to Stibnite for the miners to live
in, but after it was gone, my father and mother spent two years burning
up old boards and tar paper and trying to bury old plumbing fixtures and
breaking sections of concrete out of the old showers and everything.
INT: We lived for years here, didn't we, without any electricity?
CD: Oh, there was no electricity. They put in a great big plant, right
here, you see. The foundations are still there, but --and brought an
eighteen inch pipeline down from a reservoir up in the hills to give
power for this movie company, but they didn't figure that there wasn't
that much water, and so you could run it for four or five hours and then
you'd have to let the pond fill up again. So the electricity was very
irregular. They'd turn it on about dusk, and then let it run 'til
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Davidson, Charlie and Myra (September 28 and 30, 1974)
eleven or midnight and that was the end of it. But shortly after they'd
put that in, the power company saw the advantages of coming in, and that
put this little power company completely out of business. In fact, I
think they lost about $60,000 on the deal because quite an
elaborate --the pipeline was more than a quarter of a mile long with
eighteen -inch pipe and the generating plant was another big investment.
INT: Charlie, I remember when they first got electricity and as kids, and
they put all the posts with those electric bulbs, we used to shoot out
the bulbs with our B-B guns. We were so mad. We so hated giving up our
kerosene lamps and our campfires.
CD: Well, for many years, we still had candles and kerosene lamps in all the
rooms 'cause the power would fail often. Even the power we got would,
so we always prepared and then when snow came and--
INT: We sort of loved that.
CD: And even it's only recently the telephones have come in. I think we've
had ours two or three years. We were the last to put one in. The only
reason we ever put one in is because the neighbors had to come over and
call us all the time because people insisted on calling us.
INT: That's right.
CD: I looked at the lake this morning and it's just gorgeous.
INT: It's beautiful. Say, Charlie, you always have been sort of what we
considered mayor, governor, and proprietor of this beautiful place.
Yesterday I was just flabbergasted at what you've done with bringing
water over little rocks and over streams and making all of these
wonderful things. You have just been perpetual motion here, haven't
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Davidson, Charlie and Myra (September 28 and 30, 1974)
you?
CD: Well, I was away for many years, and the movie company was kind of hard
on the place, but now they think I do a lot of landscaping, but only for
myself. I recommend that everybody have just natural growth so they
don't have to have lawns to take care of or flowers to look after. If
they want a terrace with some tubs that's all right. But I counted,
last night I was thinking about it, I counted twenty houses along in
here, ten of them I built and twenty of them I added additions onto, I
mean, twenty altogether. Ten of them I about doubled the size or else
put big terraces or something on them. So I've helped on nearly every
house between here and Simplot's. And then I put Simplot's stream in
for him. I remember him coming over and sitting on mine. I said,
"Well, you have that beautiful point, it certainly is lovely. But you
don't have a pretty little stream like this." Day or two, the phone
rang, "Charlie, why can't I have a stream?" And I said, "Well, we can
put a little pump up there and get some water and run a little hose down
and have a very pretty stream." He said, "I think that'd be nice."
Well, I went over a little later to help him with it, and here was this
enormous pipe out of the lake pumping up a great flood of water, as much
as little Sylvan Creek had, and his point is all sand, so it wouldn't
have been anything left of the point. In two or three days, it'd be
just like when they--
INT: How long has the swimming pool been there?
CD: Not too long. And the reason he put it out in the lake was because the
lake comes up and down so bad and they raised it a little higher, you
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Davidson, Charlie and Myra (September 28 and 30, 1974)
see. He was afraid of losing his point. It was to help hold it. There
were some objections to it from looks, but they're getting accustomed to
it now and there were some rocks in there so it keeps people from
running into those.
INT: Charlie, for years all of our families used to eat in the cook shack.
CD: That's right.
INT: And we didn't have any cooking in our cabins, and we all used to have
these great big tables all of us down there and in my memory, that was
when Mrs. Webb cooked, but somebody cooked before Mrs. Webb.
CD: Mrs. Nelson cooked.
INT: Mrs. Nelson. You know, I've got a real block about Mrs. Nelson. She
mustn't have liked me.
CD: Mrs. Nelson, she was a great stout woman, and Charlie was kind of
dashing. I remember Lulu's mother dancing, yes, he was dancing with her
one time and her father got kind of jealous and he said, "Do you know
you're dancing with a murderer?" Somebody paid too much attention to
Mrs. Nelson and he had shot them and he was gonna be put in the pen,
but--
INT: I thought he'd shot Mrs. Nelson.
CD: Oh, no, no. Mrs. Nelson, she was very firm with Charlie and kept him in
line and after she died, he went all to pieces and lost the place
completely.
INT: You know one of my memories, too, Charlie, is that when we all used to
be asleep and the bell rang or whatever got us out of bed. Charlie
Nelson used to walk right in and tumble us out of bed for breakfast. Do
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Davidson, Charlie and Myra (September 28 and 30, 1974)
you remember that?
CD: That's right. You had to be on time for these meals and if you were
late, there was a great deal of difficulty because it was put on the
table and great pitchers of iced tea in the summer and fresh
corn --always good food, that was one of the chief attractions here and
the cabins were a long afterthought. The Webb's, Mr. Simroe, a relative
of the Webb's, built them and the logs were harvested up in the canyon
here and built these houses. They look much older than my sister's home
there, but it was the first one and, as I say, we couldn't afford--
INT: Charlie, where did we get the rock, the flat stone that went into the
fireplace, for instance, in our place, all the flat rock. Where does
that stone come from?
CD: When we built our house, there was no stone around. We had to go across
the lake in rowboats and get it off the slide over there, the lava
stone. I got stone with moss on it, and Charlie Nelson said, "It'll be
off in years, but you can paint it back on." But it's still on there,
and it still grows even inside the house. But now there's roads going
through and blasting, and there's a lot of good stone down at Riggins.
But before, there were no roads to Riggins to get the stone, and no way
to haul it. Now there's plenty of this nice flat stone from the
blasting from roads and the stone from Riggins is very nice. So there's
plenty of good building stone.
INT: Charlie, there used to be a big thing about shutting the water off, and
then I remember it used to catch some fish up in the shutting of the
water off, and we used to actually have-- The lake freezes over,
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Davidson, Charlie and Myra (September 28 and 30, 1974)
doesn't it?
CD: Yes.
INT: And then Charlie Nelson and some of these people, Fred Hall and some of
these people, used to cut ice and store it in the old ice house, didn't
they?
CD: Before they had the old ice house, though, they just had a great pile of
sawdust with--
INT: I remember that.
CD: And they'd dig in there, and it would last all season 'til the next
year. You could use ice that was harvested two or three years ago even.
But the ice house is the prettiest thing up here. Now it's going to
pieces but had no windows or anything. Just a great --you went in and
double walls with sawdust in them and then sawdust on these great blocks
of ice. They went out and sawed it every year and stored it so we
always had plenty of ice for iced tea and stuff like that. Even in the
earliest times.
INT: You know, Charlie. With Burgdorf being one of our last "burgs," some
threats of about maybe houses being built up in there sometime. Do I
remember right when I heard that Carl Brown and some of the old timers
used to run sleds down through there to get mail or take provisions up?
The lake freezes over and weren't there dogteams going across there, or
what connects that?
CD: Most of the time, Carl Brown went on skis and snowshoes without any
dogteam clear to Warren to take the mail in during the winter. It must
have been a really --it's forty miles even now by highway, but-
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Davidson, Charlie and Myra (September 28 and 30, 1974)
INT: Did they have much transportation running between the beach and McCall
over the frozen lake, or did they have to go by --
CD: No, they nearly always went around because the lake didn't freeze until
very late. And it was usually after New Year's and so there wasn't -
They went through the regular trails. It didn't save much time to cut
across the lake.
INT: Did Charlie stay here all winter, was there --
CD: He stayed here all winter and had running water in the cook shack by
leaving it running, you see. Never turned it off, and so it never
froze. Running water, no matter how cold it gets, won't freeze; and so
it just ran on out in the lake. But Burgdorf was not named because it's
a little mountain, but it was named after Mr. and Mrs. Burgdorf.
INT: Oh, really!
CD: They were German people, and it's amazing that there'd be anything as
appropriate as that name. They used to trap up there; she had beautiful
furs, Martins and things and--
INT: Oh, Charlie, this is something I never knew.
CD: Old Mrs. Burgdorf made a lot of furniture out of these gnarled and
deformed pine trees, and her place is extremely interesting. And that
old swimming pool which is still there, made of logs and the bottom is
just a-- It feels a little slimy and dirty; it isn't, because there's a
vast amount of pure fresh hot water running through it all the time.
It's one of the cleanest pools in the country. There are Ponderosa
Pine, Yellow Pine, and Douglas Fir, and then the logs for the house
usually are Lodge Pole, big Lodge Pole. But you can use any kind,
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Davidson, Charlie and Myra (September 28 and 30, 1974)
there's some Tamaracks, too.
INT: Charlie, what was the furniture made out of that has that swollen sap in
Burgdorf?
CD: This is just pine trees that get a growth on them. Say, like cancer in
persons or something --it kills the trees finally, but it makes
interesting shapes.
INT: Well, what happened to the Burgdorfs, because I remember currently the
Harris family. I never knew there was somebody called Burgdorf.
CD: They own it. Well, Mr. and Mrs. Burgdorf came from Europe somewhere and
built this place up and had a resort there and their name was Burgdorf
which was highly appropriate.
INT: It couldn't be more. Well, then the Harris's, Tom Harris and his wife,
or wives, lived in Burgdorf, the old general store. Now who's up there,
Charlie?
CD: Well, Hazel Harris. I think it's Bill Harris's wife, and they're
separated. They have two adopted children, and the place is in trust
for those two children. People are trying to buy it for a resort, and
my wife tried to buy it a few years ago and offered, I think, a pretty
good sum. But now she says she's getting offers of $200,000 instead of
$30,000, or something.
INT: Oh, my goodness. I hope she doesn't sell it.
CD: I don't know what's going to happen to it. There's some development
going on at Warren and up in that area.
INT: Charlie, we used to go up to Warren with Dad, and Cood Carrie and Brad
Carrie would pack us in to Pilot Peak, and that's where we went deer
22
Davidson, Charlie and Myra (September 28 and 30, 1974)
hunting.
CD: Oh, yes. And the fishing up in there was fantastic.
INT: I suppose Warren would be just about like it was when we were there.
CD: Very similar, only the Pure Food or the State has gone up and closed
both Burgdorf and Warren, saying that there aren't enough sinks to wash
the dishes --all sorts of health reasons --which seems perfect folly
because the place is very clean and well kept, and you can't have all
the civilized things up there now. I'm very upset about it.
INT: Now that we have early history, I just wanted Charlie to tell us how
Sylvan runs now. Is there a corporation of some sort?
CD: Present day Sylvan Beach is just banded together. They have a water
supply in common and a sort of watchman and garbage collector paid by
the year, and he comes twice a week to collect garbage and in the winter
when the houses are mostly closed. There's several now that are open in
winter, but the corporation has the right to the water and owns the
water lines and they have them all drained. We don't run it in winter,
and they're thinking of winterizing. It could quite easily be madefrost
proof, but in the meantime it isn't. People who come in the winter
either get their water out of the stream or out of the lake, pump it
out, because the lake only freezes certain depths. And it's a small
group. I think there are about forty or fifty cabin owners in Big
Sylvan and Little Sylvan.
INT: Well, hearing this current thing sort of winds this up, Charlie.
CD: That's good. [tape turned off and on]
INT: Well, this is I, and I'm actually sitting in my own house in Mill
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Davidson, Charlie and Myra (September 28 and 30, 1974)
Valley. It's October and I've just returned from the lakes and the
reason you're hearing me broadcast at the moment is that the latter part
of this particular tape which I taped up there simply didn't come out.
I must not have had something mechanically right about the time of
dictating. I'm going to try to make a little summary of what it was I
had hoped I had recorded on this tape of Charlie. It makes me awfully
mad, because what I had taped was directly from the old registers that
Mary Davidson keeps in her cabin from the early Charlie Nelson days.
And those records are really priceless. The way Charlie kept them,
Charlie Nelson, is just amazing. His old handwriting is in these black
ledgers, and he not only has recorded the price of eggs and the winter
temperature, but the first snows and the little gossipy bits. One time
in the winter he saw a woman go by with a .22 rifle and boots on, and he
described her, "I see this woman go by with rifle, boots, and leather
jacket. I said hello to her, but she did not respond. I think she is
crazy." And then the next entry is, "The woman I saw earlier I hear is
trapper Martin's wife. She is not crazy."
Not just these little homey entries, but along with this is the
registry of all of the guests that have ever come to Payette Lakes, plus
Charlie's diary, the winter when they still had just the tents there,
and the musical Martins were coming up to play and a few hearty souls
stayed in their tents from time to time but also groups of people like
Hosea Eastman. I guess that must have been Ben Eastman's father and
Bishop Funstone and some old timers came up for meals --for dinners on
Sunday --because it was delicious food. But in one of the most
24
Davidson, Charlie and Myra (September 28 and 30, 1974)
fascinating parts was when Charlie was beginning to think that what he
wanted to do was develop the beach beyond just tents, and his whole idea
of beginning to build a few wooden frames and a cook shack and to begin
to take children is in that old registry, and it's just fascinating. I
looked through it very carefully and the first families that we knew
about --and it's the year before we came up --were the Davidsons. Charlie
had been waiting tables and the Davidsons made their first trip up in
1918. Now in that same year, in Dad's beautiful handwriting, you see
that he came to the lake with a party --I assume that he stayed
overnight --but who probably came for meals and the people who were with
him were Mr, and Mrs. W. V. Regan, Dr. Hill and wife, Jack Adelmann.
Gosh, I can't quite remember who else, but all the way through the
registry, well, you saw the Davidsons and the Oremsbeys. And, in 1919,
was the first entry where the season --Charlie always put down who opened
the season, who were the first ones there. And in one season, 1919 or
1920, it said, "The season was opened by W. V. Regan and family." Then
in the registry, you saw, "Mr. and Mrs. W. V. Regan," and in 1919,
"Master Billy Regan, Monie Regan, Kathleen Regan, Timothy Regan,
Margaret Regan."
END OF SIDE 1
SIDE 2
INT: I don't think Johnny was, I don't know, I don't think Johnny was there
at that time. But the first people that were with us as nurses, there
was a Jessie Bradley and, then at one time, Mary McKoskey. They
registered along with us, and in the same year was old familiar names
25
Davidson, Charlie and Myra (September 28 and 30, 1974)
like Holbrooks and Tellers, and there were a few Hawleys and then came
the Snows and, of course, there were a lot of Davidsons. Then it
peppered through that year and then next year were the Blackingers,
Helen Blackinger who had come up with Miny Moe. And evidently Dad had
taken Miny Moe and Aunt Lil and Aunt Helen up at one point. Then you
saw our whole family registered again and at one point we had Renie
Anderson, one of our nurses along with us. And then, of course, the
addition of Johnny as a baby, so our first years up there were 1919,
1920, 1921, and 1922. Those four years are the years that Mother was
with us there, and I think the registry goes right up through 1922,
1923. It would be another guide. But it's just fascinating to see all
that documentation and to see the various handwritings. You could see
who was courting who. I was interested that you would see Frank
Davidson and Mary Dayley with a party of--R. M. Davidson, that must have
been when Frank and Mary were courting. And then you'd see Donald
Davidson with Catherine Moore, who is, of course, Cathy that he married.
So, if you're ever at the Lakes, do look in on Mary's and ask if you can
see Charlie Nelson's old registers because they really are full of
history and a lot of interesting lore of oldtime bookkeeping in diary
form. I'm going to sign off now.
END OF INTERVIEW
Transcribed by
Audited and corrections entered by Linda Morton-Keithley, September 1, 1993.
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