TOLD by the PIONEERS - Washington Secretary of State

Told by the Pio'neers
newspapers. The cattle sheds were roofed with marsh grass and are
still in use today.
Shingles came from Spokane and were rafted down the Columbia,
then fetched on horses to the Coulee. 'Ve had the first store door in
valley. There was some discussion as to which end was meant for
•
the top, whether the long or the short panels belonged at the top.
Anyway, it was the first door of its kind and all the Coulee paid homnge
to the inovation.
I could ride, but as a lady should, I rode sidesaddle. The bodice of
my habit buttoned tightly from throat to waist, from there on it gave
play to all the whims of the wind. Riding out the first morning I wore
it, with the cattle bunched in the Coulee, and the wind blowing a willo'the-wisp
gale, my riding skirt inflated like a balloon. The wild eyed,
white-faced, long horn steers took one look at something they had
never seen before, milled a minute and then stampeded. Immediately,
I found my smart eastern riding togs were unpopular around the place.
The two Osbornes, Charles and Oscar, lived down the way. The long
legged southerners liked to dance. Girls and women were scarce. It
was their idea that a man bringing one girl to a dance got a free ticket
and if a man brought two he got 25 cents to boot. .
Texas Jack was a cattle killer and horse thief who liYed in Rattlesnake
Canyon a canyon now being filled by the overburden cOllyeyed
and dumped there in the construction of the Coulee dam came to the
Lange house. He had a woman "ith him. She was dirty, her hair
straggled in her eyes, and who she was or how she got that way we
neither learned nor cared. It was ill the winter. The woman's hands
were covered with stockings instead of mittens. Texas Jock's woman
had never seen a carpet on the floor. She thought carpets were made
to be rolled up and stood ill a corner. A distant aunt of hers once had
a carpet, she said, but it stood in a corner to be unrolled and looked upon
as a treat.
Forty years ago I organized the first Sunday school in the Coulee.
A minister from Coulee City came and preached in the Lange grove.
There was no church. For years all the summer gatherings were held
there. The grove lies at the foot of the knoll where the new house is
built. To this day, it means fun, mosquitoes and lemonade.
The Fourth of July was always a big day. Everybody went to
town. The little taverns were crowded. Mothers took their children
and all took turns in staying with them in a separate room while the
others danced.
When I was married I brought with me an elaborate trousseau.
163