Coquille High School - Laurel Yearbook (Coquille, OR)

Page 22 text:

which was very familiar to me. It was Cyril McCurdy. He was now a prosperous farmer and banker of Cunningham, he told me. He had gone to 0. A. C., made quite a record for himself, and then had come home to start a model farm. He had! It was one of the wonders of the U. S.; and thousands came to view its up-to-date methods. He told me that he had just heard that Pauline Lorenz was touring in Europe as the wife of a prominent English Duke. She had met this Duke at one of the Club Room dances, and, as usual with her, it had been love at first sight. Cyril still seemed to feel quite broken hearted over it. I visited for several days with my friends in Coquille and heard many astonishing things. One afternoon while I was walking down a street, I heard a great commotion and racket. When I looked around I found that the noise was being produced by a truck coming down the street, driven by a woman. Being naturally of a curious nature, I went closer to the truck. In the back were several hundred chick ens which were the cause of the noise. Turning to walk away, I saw the driver staring wonderingly at me. She seemed familiar but I could not place her until she spoke. She asked me if I wasn’t Margaret White, and told me that she used to be Julia Dondono. She was now the wife of Velorous Call. They were running a chicken ranch down near Lampa Creek. I also met Ingie Reynolds. She was a peaceful old maid teaching in the high school at Coaledo. I wras not surprised to hear from her that Teresa Clinton was now touring the country as a lecturer on the Orpheum circuit. Her publicity agent was her husband, Ted Bennett. Poor Ted! After concluding my visit in Coquille I went on to Ban-don by way of the elevated. While we were passing through the city of Riverton, I noticed several strange looking buildings. They were large and clumsy, situated directly over the river, and very curiously constructed. When I asked the conductor what the buildings were, he said that it was a whale farm. I decided to stop and look it over, never before having heard of such a farm. Upon inquiry at the depot, I found that the proprietors of the farm were a Mr. Trigg and

Page 21 text:

Sears, Roebuck Company. Maude Pierson had married a former C. H. S. graduate but had finally been divorced by him for cruel and inhuman treatment. She was now supervising the running of a hair-net factory. Nellie Morgan had conducted a beauty shop, specializing in the marcel wave until the wave went out of style. Since then she had became professor of elocution and debate at Yale College and was astonishing all the students with the tones of her majestic voice. The next morning I left on the aeroplane for Coquille. The aeroplanes were very commodious and with every convenience possible. Around the walls were advertisements. I noticed in particular one which announced in large red letters to “Chew Everlasting Gum. Made the Bell way. A secret combination of rubber and vanilla or peppermint. Guaranteed to give Basketball players fresh pep while playing.” Upon closer examination of the advertisement, I found that the manufacturer of the wonderful chewing gum was Charlotte Bell. Let me add that after my arrival in Coquille I found that she had a large factory situated on the waterfront. My trip to Coquille was very interesting and I certainly enjoyed myself. The trip took less than two hours, and because of the speed of the aeroplane and the changed conditions in Coos County, I did not recognize Coquille when we arrived there. If the conductor had not told me that I was at the end of my journey, I would probably have traveled on to Brewster, the next station. Coquille was a city now of about 250,000 inhabitants. It covered an immense portion of the valley, and had many suburbs. There was a large depot covering about an acre of ground. The aeroplane station also had a depot. One unique feature about the station was that the passengers descended from the aeroplanes, (which were anchored about one hundred feet above the ground to steel poles), by an elevator. There were two large parks in Coquille besides several small ones. These two were where the Myrtle grove and Patterson’s grove were formerly. The next afternoon, while I was standing in the lobby of my hotel, I heard the clerk address a man by a name

Page 23 text:

his wife. I soon found out that it was our own Bob Trigg and Grace Watson, his wife. They had a very large business and were kept busy all the time supplying whales for the markets. During my visit with them, Grace told me that Esther McGee was now running a large summer resort at her ranch in Curry County. What she told me of it was so interesting that I decided to take a trip down. The next morning I left Riverton in Bob’s aeroplane, arriving at the “Always Inn,” Esther’s road house, about ten o’clock. Quick work, I thought. Esther was still the genial, good-natured girl that she always was. We had a long visit together and I heard several stories of the times when the police had raided her place. Of course this did not bother me in the least, and so when we were raided that night, I was not frightened. During the rush of running from the police, I noticed a little, meek-looking man who kept calling continually for “Ann! Ann!” and saying, “Oh! can it be true ? Is it possible that I have lost that woman ? Oh, glory be! Now, I’ll be able to have a little game of checkers with some one.” At first I did not think much of the man, but afterwards when Esther told me that Mr. and Mrs. Albert Oerding were spending a few days at “Always Inn,” I remembered the poor man. It was Albert, of course. Esther told me that the poor fellow’s life was iust one missionary tea or church supper after another. His wife was none other than Ann Hooton, and she was leading Albert down the straight and narrow path. They say every dog has his day. I guess Albert had his during Senior days, in the English Class. The next day I went to Bandon and from there to Co-quille. During my trip there on the elevated. I beean thinking over the names of all my school mates whom I had met. There seemed to be one missing and I could not remember who it was. I racked by brain all the way back to New York and it was not till some time after I reached there, that the mystery was solved. It happened this way. One evening, in my official capacity of theater-scandal reporter for the N. Y. Evening World, I went to a play entitled, “Light Wines and Beer,” or, “How the News was Carried from Mabel to