Note mention of Linfield’s Maxwell Field

Note mention of Linfield’s Maxwell Field

In this May 11, 2008, Oregonian story is the following:

“J.O., a staunch Baptist, donated land to McMinnville College, later known as Linfield College, and today the athletic field there is called Maxwell Field. The school was chartered as a Baptist college in 1858 by the Oregon Territorial Legislature, and its name was changed in 1912.:

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1210380905179330.xml&coll=7

Ranch's 19th-century fence preserves story of an early Oregon romance

James Oliver Maxwell's pride in his work attracted Nancy Hand, and the rest was history

Sunday, May 11, 2008

RICHARD COCKLE

The Oregonian

HAINES --

M iles of splintered split-rail fence still crisscrosses the Maxwell Ranch in northeast Oregon, a relic of a long-ago romance between a beautiful girl who lived under a bridge and a frontier cattleman.

James Oliver Maxwell began building this tamarack rail fence in 1880. He was a good-looking bachelor who rose at 4 a.m. daily, hitched up a team, and split and loaded rails before starting his other ranch chores.

He had no family and nobody to pass the ranch on to. But fate took a hand, literally, in the form of 18-year-old Nancy Hand.

Nancy was so poor in the summer of 1886, according to one story, that she lived under a bridge with her mother and five brothers and sisters.

"They were stranded," says her great-grandson, 67-year-old Tommy Moore of Portland. "Her mother was widowed, and they didn't have a breadwinner."

According to family lore, one golden morning, passing by J.O. Maxwell's fenced fields with her mother, Nancy said, "Those haystacks are beautiful. Whoever owns this ranch has a lot of pride."

Her mother said, "That ranch is owned by some old bachelor."

"How old is he?" Nancy asked.

"He's 33 years old," replied her mother.

The teenage girl pondered the vast gulf between their respective ages, and said, "I'm going to marry that man."

"She measured the man's character by the pride in those haystacks," said Tommy Moore.

History fails to record how Nancy and J.O. met. Their granddaughter 90-year-old Alta Rose Moore of Union thinks it might have been in church. J.O. had organized and built the Haines Baptist Church, and they were married there during the first month of 1887.

He ran the ranch, and she took charge of the garden and orchard, the cooking, and a growing tribe of youngsters who ultimately numbered six sons and four daughters. Mondays on the Maxwell Ranch were washdays for Nancy. The work lasted from dawn to dusk.

Joann Bond Boyer, a neighbor and former schoolteacher of several Maxwells, described washdays during an Oregon Historical Society century farm award ceremony in 1980. She wrote that Nancy was a perfectionist who ironed everything from socks to sheets. She used three ironing boards and numerous flatirons that she heated on a wood stove.

"On summer days, it must have seemed hot enough to be standing over hell," Boyer wrote.

During harvest season, meals were eaten at a table that seated 18. Threshing crews were so large that Nancy fed the workers in three shifts per meal at that table. Emptying a 48-pound sack of flour daily wasn't unusual. One rainy autumn, the crews remained for six weeks until the crops finally were in and they had consumed two full-sized beef cows.

"Every woman who grew up on that ranch can bake cakes, pies, cookies and cobblers," said Tommy Moore. "They can smoke and cure meats, make ice cream; they can can any fruit or vegetable, make jams and jellies, make sauerkraut, pickles and sausage, and never look at a recipe."

Nevertheless, 40 percent of everything produced on the Maxwell Ranch was consumed by the 19th century's equivalent of diesel-guzzling farm equipment: 20 draft horses.

Raising 10 children tried Nancy's patience. Son Glen once was pestering his sister Olga as she dried dishes and was cut when he ventured too close to the butcher knife she was wiping. She cried, "Oh, I've killed him."

A weary Nancy is said to have finished washing the plate in her hands before saying, according to the family, "Go ahead, kill each other if you have to."

In 1901, their home burned, and they built an impressive two-story house with a southern exposure and view of the Elkhorn Mountains. It cost $2,000 and still stands, but the house never had an indoor toilet in J.O.'s and Nancy's lifetimes.

J.O., a staunch Baptist, donated land to McMinnville College, later known as Linfield College, and today the athletic field there is called Maxwell Field. The school was chartered as a Baptist college in 1858 by the Oregon Territorial Legislature, and its name was changed in 1912.

In 1917, after 30 years of marriage, the Maxwells' love story ended. Sixty-four-year-old J.O. succumbed to an influenza epidemic.

"It was hard on grandmother when she lost him," said Alta Rose. "But she carried on. She just took over that ranch. She did all the books and the hiring and firing of the men, and the cooking."

Nancy bought a half-interest in the Rock Creek Reservoir and oversaw construction of a dam and a 280-foot tunnel for irrigation water. On Saturdays, hired hands and family lined up, and she wrote them checks so they could go to town, Tommy Moore said.

"She was a gentle, brilliant manager," he said.

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, jobs evaporated and money was scarce. The Maxwell clan came home to the ranch. Alta Rose said it wasn't unusual for 30 people to sit down to Sunday dinner. Nancy and her daughters and granddaughters spent all day cooking and washing dishes.

Nancy died on Christmas Eve 1937 at age 71.

Today, four or five miles of J.O. Maxwell's original split-rail fence still stands, says 75-year-old Gerald Maxwell, a grandson of Nancy and J.O.'s and current owner of the ranch with his wife, Farrell. A son manages the farming end while a daughter oversees the cattle.

The Maxwells and kin number at least 200, and there is always something visually striking about family gatherings, Tommy Moore said.

"The women all look like Nancy Hand," he said. "It's amazing what happens when two people fall in love."

Richard Cockle: 541-963-8890; rcockle@oregonwireless.net