Dorothea Lange: On transportation outskirts of a small Oregon town
on the Columbia River. Arlington, Gilliam County, Oregon (1939)

"Those churches held the records."

My second great-grandparents were mostly late arrivers in Oregon. Those who weren't late arrivers found their farm after lengthy delays. Somewhere around 1885, Alonzo Kenaston and Maria (Seward) Kenaston finally returned to Oregon after their thoroughly discouraging honeymoon trip in 1865, this time by train. They'd homesteaded in the Nebraska Sandhills after dropping four children in Illinois and Missouri, including my great-grandfather Luther, in 1875. Four more in Nebraska, only two of whom lived, left them with five kids ranging from twenty-one to two by July of 1886 when Alonzo finally died of His Troubles, the effects of the Rheumatic Fever he'd contracted while marching barefoot in the snow during the Civil War. They'd finally realized their dream, acquiring acreage on Buckhorn Road just West of Mayville, Gilliam County, Oregon.

Another set of second great-grandparents had recently acquired the land next to the Kenaston spread. Andrew Jackson Mayfield and Mary Rhea (Ray) Mayfield left their place east of Oregon City to take up dryland wheat cultivation. I do not understand what attracted them. By then, they had eight kids ranging in age from fifteen to one, when Mary also died in 1886, leaving AJ a single father.

Twenty-odd miles north and east of there, Evan and Sara (Parker) Wallace were just building their cabin on Hail Ridge. They would live there for the next decade or so until just after their son Nathaniel Parker Wallace married Clara Van Schoiack, who would give birth to my grandfather, Elza Franklin Wallace, in 1896.

You probably already guessed it: Andrew Jackson Mayfield married Maria Seward (Kenaston) in April 1887, creating an instant blended family featuring about thirteen kids. Another set of great-grandparents were in that mix, my great-grandfather Luther Ovando Kenaston and my great-grandmother Cordelia Mayfield, step-siblings who would marry in 1895 and raise their family on those ranches. Cordelia was said to be able to ride anything with four legs, saddled or not. I remember her rocking me in her lap. She used to send fresh rolls in a cab on holidays after becoming too infirm to attend celebrations in person. My grandmother Ruby was born in Gilliam County in 1900. Elza would marry Ruby and produce my mother, the product of all those Sewards, Parkers, Kenastons, Mayfields, Van Schoiacks, and Wallaces.

In 1909, AJ and Maria, after bringing two more children into the world, built their dream home in a gully along the Breaks of the John Day River, near where they'd met and settled. It had been their mutual aspiration to retire in some comfort after decades of pioneering and displacement. AJ had lumber milled and built the house himself. They planted a small peach orchard and kept a large garden, with grandchildren living nearby and visiting. My great Aunt Dora said it seemed like the Garden of Eden. AJ died in 1916 and was buried in Clackamas County, Oregon. Maria lived with her family through the remainder of her long life, finally dying in Pomeroy, Washington, in 1940. She's buried in Walla Walla. The Muse and I visit her each Memorial Day.

There's no predicting where the more powerful convergences will occur. GilliamCounty seems less likely than most, especially considering those involved parties resulted from remarkable travels and truly unbelievable adventures. I have not yet considered my father's Fambly history. It might well be fuzzier than my mother's if only because much of it happened in Germany, not a country until the mid-eighteen hundreds, and the scene of much religious strife and many church burnings. Those churches held the records.

©2024 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

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