Frontier Teacher
Told by Isabel Palmer

We inherited our house on the ranch from Fred’s family, not mine.  We’ve lived here twenty years and raised our children without my having any idea that my own family had a connection to this place.  I happened to be reading about the schoolhouse that is now on the ranch but used to be where South Century and Spring River Road intersect.  There was town named Harper there that has since disappeared and the school was called the Harper School.  I read that the teacher for one year in the mid 1920’s was named Josephine Olmstead.  I had an ancestor by that name and I wondered if she and that teacher were the same person. 

I went through multiple boxes of papers my mother had given me and I found over twenty letters Josephine wrote to her younger sister, nicknamed Lala, in Seattle.  Some of the letters were written when Josephine did, in fact, teach at the Harper School  

It turns out that if Jo, as she signed her letters, hadn’t lived here that year, I might not be here telling you this story.

Jo was very well educated for her time.  She had gone to college back east and she earned a masters in history from the University of Washington.  In this regard she was overqualified to teach grades one through six in a one-room schoolhouse.  But she had no experience teaching and very little experience with young children. 

I have a photo of her as a young woman.  She is short and trim.  The clothes are not fancy but they fit her well.  Her hair is gathered neatly but not tightly around her head.  Her eyes look perceptive, insightful, but guarded, as though she were seeing the world clearly but wanted to be sure she hadn’t missed something.

Jo’s father worked for a company in Seattle that made logging equipment and he knew people at the Shevlin Lumber Company in Bend.  Children from the Shevlin logging camp went to the Harper School.  When they needed a new teacher one year, Josephine’s father recommended her.

She took the train to Bend and the stagecoach to Harper.  Her first letter was written from the Harper Hotel.  This was before she started taking turns living with the families of her students, as rural schoolteachers usually did in those days. 

In the letter she gives Lala a lengthy report.  The school’s water comes from a hand pump.  The school only has outhouses.  It has no electricity and will be heated in the winter by a single wood stove.  Jo will be teaching twelve children from first grade through sixth.  She admits she is nervous but she is determined to succeed at this, to show she can achieve something in the real world independent of her parents.  She wants to show her father, whom she obviously admires, that she has the talent and fortitude to succeed as he has.  Regarding her mother, however, Jo is just glad to be away from the “constant criticism” and “sighs of disappointment”.

The next few letters are mostly about teaching.  Jo is concerned she won’t have enough material to keep all the students occupied.  The minute she feels the students have understood something, or perhaps just before the minute is up, she moves onto the next thing.  She challenges her pupils to listen, learn, and pay attention every second of every day.  The older students are impressed that she “moves right along” from one thing to the next.  The young ones are sometimes confused until Jo learns to take more time with them.  All the students are well-behaved and motivated.  Their parents are paying for this school.  One or two students, she thinks, are every bit as bright as the smartest students in the private school she went to. 

Jo wants to bring some of the sophistication and refinement of the outside world to the children.  She spends more time on geography than she probably should, and definitely more time on important cities – Seattle, San Francisco, and New York, where she has been.  Also London, Paris, and Rome, where she has not.  She walks though the classroom showing paintings from art books she has brought from home, careful to skip the paintings of naked ladies and cherubs. 

I don’t have the letters that Lala wrote to Josephine but, judging from Jo’s replies, Lala is still living with their parents.  She is reporting at length on their friends.  Apparently there is a young lawyer in Seattle with a promising career ahead of him.  His name is Matthew Cary.  When Jo lived at home Matthew asked her every day to marry him.  He comes from a poor background and his father died when he was only fourteen.  But he put himself through college and law school.  Lala must have thought Matt would be a good catch.  Jo acknowledges how intelligent and kind he is.  She even enjoys matching wits with him.  But he lacks worldliness, an air of sophistication.  And Jo is determined to prove herself independent of any man.    

In November, Jo’s letters turn to the families who are taking turns housing and feeding her.  This can be a challenge.  Her room is always small or she has to share it with a child.  The food doesn’t vary much and sometimes it isn’t very good.  One woman wants to treat Jo like a servant.  When one man is friendly and solicitous of her comfort, his wife pouts and Jo has to move to the next family early.  She takes refuge in reading and she goes for a walk everyday. 

But she loves the Vandeverts.  It’s a lively house with nice people.  The family raises cattle but they believe in education and they believe in being smart.  One older son is away studying to be a doctor.  The father, Bill, is not well-educated but he has seen a lot of the west and tells the most interesting stories.  It is the mother, Sadie, however, who is most exciting for Jo.  Like Jo, Sadie was a teacher.  On the rare warm days in November they sit on the back porch overlooking the river.  Often they talk in the kitchen while helping the resident daughter-in-law prepare dinner.  They talk mostly about how to get the most out of the children, from the brightest to the most struggling.  A teacher has to deal with each student as she finds them.  Any intellectual deficiencies are blended with the family background and personality of the individual to make a unique child.  But some of Josephine’s students seem a great deal like students Sadie taught forty years earlier.  It’s amazing to Jo how quickly Sadie understands exactly what Jo is describing and how often she suggests an approach that works.  Even when the only strategy is patience and persistence it gives Jo confidence she is doing all she can.

Also like Jo, Sadie was brought up in genteel, civilized surroundings.  She chose to teach in rougher, newer, and more primitive surroundings.  For Sadie it was the cattle towns of Texas.

“Why did you ever give up teaching?” asks Jo.  She recounts this conversation word for word in a letter to her sister.  On a sunny but brisk afternoon the women are walking up the hill to the rockpile.

“I married Bill,” says Sadie.  “He was my best friend.  I loved him.  I couldn’t imagine living the rest of my life without him.”

“But what about teaching?  Didn’t you love teaching as well?”

“I did love teaching,” says Sadie.  “And I kept teaching until we had our first child.  But the students change every year.  They grow older and move on.  They are not your own.”

Josephine writes that she thought carefully about how to frame her next statement so it wouldn’t be offensive.  They had passed the lone ponderosa halfway up the hill when she spoke.

“In teaching you are using your knowledge and your best skills to contribute to the wider world.  It seems to me that so much of raising children is just providing the basics – food, shelter, and a reasonably safe and clean environment.”

“There’s also love, the sense of belonging to a family, and a dose of ethical and moral guidance that no one else can give them.  These are even more important than school.”

“I agree they are important and children need a good family,” says Jo.  “But education allows people to reach the height of their capability and to contribute the most to the world.  Where would we be if everyone had a happy childhood but never learned anything beyond the work their parents knew how to do?”

“I agree,” says Sadie.  “How would history progress if people didn’t contribute to the larger community around them? But for me it is more important and rewarding to contribute to the people who are close to me, who are related to you, who are going to be part of your life as long as you are on the earth.  It is human nature.  At least it is true for most people.  And I am pretty sure, in spite of your current thinking, it is true for you.”  They are standing by the rockpile at the top of the hill now, looking out over the Homestead to the hills and single snow-covered volcano beyond.

“My family isn’t like that,” she says.  “At least my mother isn’t like that.”

“Then you can do better,” says Sadie, “if you want to.  Look at how much you have accomplished already.”

Jo writes her sister that she doesn’t know if Sadie was right, at least not about Josephine herself.  But she doesn’t have to decide anything now.  She has committed to teach for a year.  She is getting better at it all the time.

Jo goes home to Seattle for Christmas.  I presume she sees her friends and goes to parties with them.  I wish I knew about the family’s Christmas celebration but Jo didn’t write about it.

After college in the east, winter in Central Oregon is not a shock to Jo.  She goes skating and skies down some small hills.  She is impressed how fast the children are maturing, both physically and intellectually.  She tells her sister she is becoming quite proud of them.

Matthew comes to visit for a long weekend in February.  Jo has not exactly invited him.  She “allows” him to come and suggests he bring one or two of their mutual friends along.  He brings another young lawyer whom Jo has known for many years, named Tom Clay.  Matt and Tom stay at the hotel in Harper while Jo is staying at the Vandeverts.        

When Sadie hears the men are coming, she invites them to dinner.  Jo has made very clear to the Vandeverts in advance that these men are among her friends and she has no special interest in either one of them.  They arrive in the late afternoon.

Jo is afraid that Matt will ask her again to marry him in front of the entire Vandevert family.  He has the good manners not to.  He plays the part of a friend perfectly.  He speaks about many of their mutual friends in Seattle.  He is so cordial that it almost seems he has come to see the Vandeverts rather than Jo.  Jo had no idea he knows so much about cattle and farm machinery.  Jo has never seen Bill Vandevert and his sons have such an animated discussion.  They walk Matt and Tom up to the barn to examine the horse-drawn mowing machine used to cut the rye for winter feed.  By the time they get back, the discussion has turned to timber.  Shevlin had offered to harvest some of the larger trees on the ranch and pay Bill for them.  With Bill’s approval Matt writes in some changes to the contract Shevlin has asked the Vandeverts to sign.

Dinner starts with trout that Bill’s grandson has caught that day in the river.  The main course is lamb from the ranch.  Matt’s friend Tom regales the table with stories of his undergraduate and law school days at the University of Oregon.  He says he received an excellent education, perhaps every bit as good as Harvard or any other school in the country.  The University was founded while Bill Vandevert was growing up, not very far from where he lived in Cottage Grove.  The two compare notes on what has changed and what is still there.  As the dinner ends Bill breaks off the conversation to rise and speak.

“To our favorite guest and the best schoolteacher ever seen in Deschutes County, I’d like to express our joy and gratitude to Josephine Olmstead.  All the children are learning so much they will certainly be a credit to themselves, their families, and their teacher.  We also convey our thanks to Jo for bringing Tom and Matt to our house.  To Jo, our heartfelt thanks.”  Jo can only manage a whispered but sincere thank you for the sentiment and for the family’s hospitality. 

After dinner Matt investigates the piano, poking around on the keys and playing a scale or two.  Jo knows he can play but she doesn’t say anything.  Bill’s daughter-in-law asks if he could play a tune.  Matt obliges with “Pagan Love Song” to much applause.  He smiles and plays “Button Up Your Overcoat”, and “You’re the Cream in My Coffee”, two lively tunes that bring smiles to lips and sparkles to eyes.  Some of the younger people know the words to “Ain’t She Sweet” and sing along.  Then Matt plays a very snappy song that no one has heard before but applauds wildly.

“It’s called ‘Honeysuckle Rose’ and it’s by a man named Fats Waller,” says Matt.  Then he plays “Ain’t Misbehavin”.  Finally he plays “America the Beautiful” and everyone sings.

The entire family has a wonderful time.  Even though it is a cold night, everybody but Bill and Sadie goes out on the porch to see Matt and Tom drive off for the hotel.  When Jo goes back in Sadie is waiting for her.

“You better marry that man,” says Sadie.

“Which one?”

“You know which one.”

“Well, I know he’s very entertaining.”

“He’s a lot more than that,” says Sadie.  “And he came all this way just to see you.”

“It’s a little trip for him.  He would have had a wonderful time with all of you if I hadn’t even been there.”

“He isn’t here to please us.  He wants to impress you.  You’re a lucky girl.”

The next day is warmer.  The two men and Jo drive over to the Deschutes near Lava Butte and walk to Benham Falls.  Tom walks on to find the next set of falls.  Matt and Jo sit on a rock under the pines and watch the formerly calm river plunge down a sharp canyon.  She anticipates he will ask her to marry him again.  She will say no but she is looking forward to it, counting on it to round out the occasion.  It is a comforting ritual.

“I’m more impressed with you than ever,” said Matt.  “They are fortunate to have you.”

“Thank you, Matt.  I don’t think what I am doing is so special.  Anyone could do it.  They just have to apply themselves.”

“It’s often very difficult for people to ‘just apply themselves’.  It takes a lot of courage to come out here and teach where you don’t know anyone.  You’ve not only kept with it, you are doing it very well.”  They could see Tom a quarter mile away, making his way back up the river.

“Thank you.  And thank you for being so nice to my hosts.  You were the perfect guest last night, Matt.  Everyone adores you.” 

“Well Jo, today is a special day, different from all other days we’ve been together.”

“I know.  We’ve never been here before.”

“More important, today is the day I’m asking you to marry me.”

Jo laughs.  “Oh Matt, you’ve done that before.  What’s so different about that?”

“I’m not going to ask you anymore.  I hope you will say yes once and for all.”

“Humph,” she says.  She regards Matt for a moment and then stares off in the direction of the falls.  Jo remembers all of this in her letter. 

Matt speaks further.  “I feel it’s fair to press you now.  You have an alternative you didn’t have before.  You’ve proven you can make something of your life on your own.  You don’t need a husband or a family.  But I want you to decide.”

“You are a good lawyer, Matthew Cary, but we are not in court.”

“We are in courtship.  The stakes are higher.  Perhaps we are making progress.  Today your answer seems to be maybe.  When do you think you can let me know?”

“If you must have an answer, the answer is still no.”

“For now?”

“For now.  And don’t count on my changing my mind.”

“I think you will have a good life if you don’t marry me,” said Matt.  “I imagine you will go to graduate school and earn a doctorate in history.  You will be a professor of European history at, say, The University of Oregon, for over forty years.  Your students will praise you and you will win awards.  But if you don’t marry me you will never find anyone else you like half as well.”

“It’s still an attractive picture you paint.  An interesting life full of challenges.”

“You have found a challenge here in this school, Jo.  You will find challenges no matter what you decide.  There are challenges in friendship, marriage, having children, and living with other people.  You may still find the time read, study, and even teach.”

Jo gazed again at the falls.  Matt was right.  And, she recognized, there were forces inside her that were stronger than her careful calculations. 

“So, Jo, will you marry me?” he asked again.

“Yes,” she said, still looking at the falls. She turned to Matt and smiled. "Yes I will."  

She told Lala that she was sure she had made the right decision. Personally, I think she chose well. With the decision to marry Matthew Cary she became my great-great-grandmother.