PART SEVEN Oral Histories and Family Memoirs - Mountain Light ...

had practically everything that was needed. They would also take things like berries to trade for what
staples might be needed. Uncle Yost and Aunt Katie lived just north of Endicott over the hill from Uncle
Adam‟s (Lust) place and they visited a lot back and forth and went rabbit hunting and the like.
The Lusts had a pan filled with oil of some kind like cottonseed. A wire was bent over it and the
cotton wadded up to form a sort of wick laid in the oil. The cotton was lit and used for light before
kerosene lamps. We went back to Adam Lust‟s for spring work, harvest, and fall work and this went on
for several years until Adam built a small house across the road where we stayed until we bought a house
from Henry Fisher between Endicott and Winona in the fall of 1912. We leased the Fisher place for sixty
years and never had a written lease. We still harvested with Adam Lust for years.
If the first people who came to the United States would have had the money, they would have
returned to Russia. Some walked to Colfax to work in the sawmill for 80 cents a day. There were two
mills in Colfax at one time but only one was operating when I came in 1907. In Russia we worked for 60
cents a day plus board and room. We moved to Colfax where I worked on the railroad section crew in
1908 for 15 cents an hour--$1.20 for an eight hour day. I went back to Endicott for harvest and then came
back to live in Colfax. We lived next to Kotta Schmick in Russia Town in Colfax, across from Lydia and
Jake Helt‟s house and beside the Lufts and Weitza Klonnas. There was a big flood there in 1910 that split
John Gerlitz‟s parents‟ house in two. George Appel‟s place also washed away. Just a small part of it was
left on an island and they lived in that until they could fix up their place. A Jewish family ran a grocery
store in Colfax and without any question let us charge groceries until payday even though they didn‟t
even know us.
We then moved to Coeur d‟Alene and Carl was born there in 1909. Two years later we went back
to work for Adam Lust and worked there until 1912 when we moved out to the Fisher place when Lydia
was about six months old. As we were moving Lydia was in her baby buggy out in the yard and a hog
came by and tipped it over. It grabbed Lydia by the arm and started across the yard before someone
noticed and went after her. Fortunately she only had a small place on her arm where the skin was broken.
When folks came to America they weren‟t always able to find out where others had settled. So
every time someone would go from one area to another, they‟d ask if they knew or head of so and so until
they finally found each other. Phillip Litzenberger and Alex Litz came to the United States at different
times but all wound up fairly close to each other out West. Phillip Litzenberger, Lusta Boh (Henry Lust),
and the Benners all came as far as Kansas and were out of money so they stayed there temporarily until
they could come west later. Pete and Jake Litz came around 1911-12 after Phillip Litz and settled in
Colorado. I left Russia two or three days before Adam P. (Morasch) but he stayed in Colorado because he
ran out of money. He stopped at a Bafus‟s and wired for money from C. P. Morasch and waited about a
week until he got the money. He told Phillip Litzenberger that his brothers were back there. Adam Lust
also ran out of money but Schmicka Honnasie (H. H. Schmick‟s dad) backed him so he could come to
Endicott.
Yost [Scheuerman] got his education from a schoolteacher who stayed at Henry [B.]
Scheuerman‟s. Deela Vess [Aunt Kate] worked out in Colfax as soon as they arrived. I would have gone
to school here if I didn‟t have a family but money wasn‟t that plentiful. Phillip Ochs said there were six
youngsters in their family and two pairs of shoes. The first two up got the shoes and the others went
barefooted! They lived in a one-room house so the children had to sleep out in the barn. If it snowed they
would have to run through it barefooted in the mornings. They lived in the colony down on the Palouse
River. When they‟d see Indians come they would run and hide in holes dug in the riverbanks. Phillip
Ochs‟s family came from Oregon by ox team before the railroad was finished. Plenty of meat was
available in the early days as homesteaders let them have what was needed. Flour was packed home on
their shoulders from Colfax at first. Later came horse and carts for groceries but people still often walked.
The pioneers settled near the rivers for water which was boiled for drinking. There was also plenty of
wood along the water.
Homesteads here were for 160 acres and if you planted ten acres to trees for a timber culture you
got the deed for another 160 acres. Since some families were also able to preempt as much as a quarter-
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