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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 .. . RESTRICTIONS ON THE USE OF ORAL HISTORY MATERIALS 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 care must be taken to insure that the collection is used to its fullest potential but protected from abuse. Researchers are urged to listen to tapes of interviews instead of relying on transcripts. Transcripts should contain all of the information given in an interview, but characteristic expressions, voice inflection, and the personality of the narrator --all important elements of an interview --do not appear in a transcript. In addition, some transcripts in this collection have been typed in rough draft and edited, but the final copy has not yet been prepared. These rough drafts have been stamped "Rough Draft --Use With Tape." Researchers should also be aware that transcripts are typed from the recorded interview with only minor editorial changes to improve readability. It is the responsibility of the researcher to verify information and dates against other oral and written sources. Oral history interviews are protected by the 1976 copyright law. Both interviewer and narrator must sign a release before the interview may be used by anyone; however, the signing of a legal release does not open an interview to unrestricted use. Legal releases obtained by interviewers for this collection stipulate that the information in the interviews may not be published or used in a public presentation without the written permission of the 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 11 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. 12 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 13 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 14 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 15 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 16 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 17 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 18 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, 19 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- 20 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, 21 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 23 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. 26