CATHERINE LOUISE BLANKENSHIP
Louise was born the second child to Elmer and Claretta (Lurchin) Blankenship on October 6, 1912, in the tiny mining town of Cornucopia, Oregon. Cornucopia, located in the Wallowa Mountains, and once the site of rich ore deposits, has for many years been a ghost town. Her father was a miner and also worked as a blacksmith in the mines. He was an affable and somewhat irresponsible man. The children included Harold, born in about 1910, Norma, born October 19, 1914, Velma, born in January, 1918 (Velma died in November, 1924. When Louise was very young, she along with her two sisters, two brothers and mother, would often be destitute. Food, clothing and shelter were in short supply. They lived in numerous different isolated mining camps such as Bourne, Homestead and rooming houses in Baker when jobs were scarce. (One time when they were living at the Crown Point Mine, Louise was skiing on an old pair of hand-made skis when a cougar started trailing her. She had a small dog with her who got between her feet cowering in terror. The cougar stayed just uphill from her as she made her way back to the camp. She and the dog finally made it safely home.) They would often move in with Claretta's mother, Mollie (or Dammie, as the family called her) in order to keep from being homeless. In the mid-1920's, Elmer and "Etta" separated. Etta worked as a waitress or at some other menial job, while the kids were cared for by Dammie. Louise completed the eighth grade at the old Central School in Baker and then quit school.
On June 2, 1930, at age 17, she married Alton Davis in Weiser, Idaho. They moved into a rented house at 7th and Place Streets in Baker for a few months. In the fall they took a job as caretakers for the Crown Point Mine, which is located up Silver Creek, about 9-10 miles from Sumpter. They spent the winter in about 10 feet of snow with the temperature well below zero. (Occasionally, Alton had to ski to Sumpter for supplies. It was downhill all the way, but the return trip was all uphill. Darkness caught him at a cabin called "halfway house" (located near the junction of Silver Creek and Cracker Creek. He went into the little two-room cabin, built a fire in the old stove and then bedded down in the back room. In the morning, he opened the door separating the two rooms and saw a cougar in the front room. He shut the door and waited several hours before he peeked out again. The cougar was gone and he continued his ski trip back to Crown Point.) During the next few years, they lived in a dozen or so cold and drafty rentals in Baker. Often they had no running water and no lights. Heat was from a wood stove in the kitchen. Alton sometimes crept out at night and stole wood from some handy wood pile in order to keep heat in the house. He worked in sawmills, box factories and did cooking for construction camps, or whatever odd job he could find. He was a very talented artist and finally a sign painter in Baker taught him the art of sign painting. Eventually, he became the main sign painter in Baker. Alton was a serious alcoholic and this prevented him from ever earning enough money to support a family. On July 24, 1931, their first child, Preston Lee "Pogy", was born in St. Elizabeth Hospital in Baker. On December 1, 1935, their second son, David was born at home at 940 Resort St. After living in a series of rentals, the family bought a home at 1556 Chestnut St. one block from Louise's mother and step-father, Etta and Merle "Booty" Perry, who lived at 1630 Chestnut St. This was about 1939. World War II commenced December 7, 1941 and shortly thereafter, Alton enlisted in the U.S. Navy SeaBees. Their relationship had become strained beyond the breaking point prior to his enlistment and in 1944 they were divorced. Louise took a job cleaning house and cooking on an isolated ranch out of Baker near Washington Gulch. The house was owned by a very old man named Entermill. Louise received no pay, but was given room and board for her and David. Pogy was staying in Baker with friends. In the fall of 1943, she took a job as cook for the Ellis Mining Co. at Bourne, Oregon. She and David moved into the cook shack at Bourne and spent the fall, winter and spring at Bourne. The miners and the mill owner were very good to her and she was very happy during this time. The next summer, she took a job as cook for the large sawmill at Pondosa. The hours were very long and the work was hard. She and David lived in a small boxcar near the boarding house. It was a one-room affair with a wood heater, one table, two chairs and an army cot. A single light bulb dangling on a cord over the table provided the lighting. Louise used to "lift" one orange before leaving work in the evening for her and David to share at night. In the late fall, she moved to a rental at the extreme north end of 4th Street and worked as a maid in the Geiser Grand Hotel. She made 35 cents and hour. She was able to get a job in a sawmill in Baker, the work was very hard and she suffered a great deal during this time. In the winter, with news of the Sumpter dredge due to re-start, she moved to Sumpter and rented the only cafe in town. It had a bedroom in the back for her, while the barroom adjoining the cafe became the bedroom for Pogy and David. She was suffering severely from Arthritis and was on crutches during this period. She later brought a log cabin on Main Street in Sumpter and opened it as a cafe and boarding and rooming house for men working on the dredge. Over the next few years, she moved to two larger homes where she ran boarding and rooming facilities. At some point in between moves, she moved back to Baker to a huge old house located on the NW corner of Second and Church Streets. She opened a cafe near the west end of Broadway called "The Checkerboard Cafe". It was adjacent to a lively tavern which was a favorite hang out of Alton's. It was a dreary time for her. In 1948, back in Sumpter, she married Leslie Ted Hixson. Ted was a mechanic on the Sumpter dredge. Within a year or so, they moved to Unity where Ted was mechanic for Ellingson Lumber Co. Louise worked as a cook at a tavern/cafe called, "The Water Hole". Pogy had married by this time and was living in Unity. David stayed in Baker with Louise's sister Norma. Over the next years, they moved numerous times. They finally settled in Mist, Oregon and, late in life, she gave birth to a son, Henry Hixson. After a number of moves, she and Ted were divorced in 1970 and she moved back to Baker with her sister Sue. Sue owned a small grocery store. Later, they moved to Pendleton and then Astoria, where Sue again had a store with living quarters on the second level. Eventually, the store was sold and they moved to a house in Union, Oregon. After several years, Louise moved to Meadow Brook Retirement Center. Near the end of her life, she moved to an assisted-living facility in LaGrande. She passed away March 17, 1999, at age 86, and is buried next to her son, Pogy, at Sumpter.
Louise had many trials, tribulations and heartaches during her life. Possibly the three things that cause her the most sorrow were her breakup with Alton, the ne'er-do-well life of her son, Pogy and the rejection she suffered from her son, Henry. Her happiest moments were catching big trout at Olive Lake, playing pinochle with the old miners at Bourne and, best of all, having a big family feed with lots of food and lots of laughter and stories about the old days.