I am Suzi Terrell with the La Center Historical Museum

Today is March 22, 2024

Suzi – I’ll be chatting with Will Carter who will be talking about his time spent in La Center along with a very special friendship he developed with a neighbor – a very amazing lady named Mettie Sheldon.

Will – Hi Suzi, it’s nice to meet you.

Suzi – Nice meeting you also William. So, tell me about your time Mettie.

Will – Well my family came to La Center in 1975 and we lived directly behind Mettie’s filbert orchard.

Suzi – Oh, I didn’t realize there was an orchard there.

Will – Yeah, they’re just homes now.  But there was the gas station and just north there was a big filbert orchard and we lived in the second house up.  There were just a few houses then on the 7th St.

My parents were older, my siblings were much older than I am.  I had a sister who was 18 years older and a brother who was 8 years older.  So, I had always grown up around older people.  I had been born in 64 and from then to 1975 I lived in Portland.  My grandmother lived a block away, so I spent a lot of time with her, across the street were my sisters-in-laws and grandmother, so I just visited with a lot of old ladies.  That was my thing.   So, it just kind of almost instantly happened when walking home from school, I met Mettie. I don’t necessarily remember exactly how or when but a friendship just sort of happened immediately. So, at that time Mettie had a roommate, Alice was from the UK and was not in great health.  She had a cane, had some trouble getting around and she was a little heavy, and then there was Mettie who was you know maybe 100 lbs running.  You couldn’t get her not to run.

Suzi – I’ve only seen one picture of her and that was an article from when I believe, she was at least 85 when they interviewed her. And it’s not a wonderful picture you know, just an old black and white out of the newspaper.  So, at this point when you first met, was her husband already gone?

Will – He was already gone so I think that was one of the reasons her kids said “you know mom you need to have someone staying with you” and I think maybe there was also a little bit of a financial reason too, but I think a lot of it had to do with having someone around. But Alice was very very bossy and Mettie would just kind of roll her eyes and do whatever she wanted to do or just say OK Alice and go about her business.  So it was a very interesting relationship.

So, I would usually kind of say hi to her when going by, but actually later in life I definitely always stopped in the morning to check on her.  But my initial friendship was definitely just in the evening, I would go down and sit to watch The Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy.  So that just kind of became the thing that I did, and my parents knew where I was, and I would you know just snake down through the orchard to her house.  She had a kind of a front porch off of this little sitting room with a sliding door where she could sit and watch the gas station and you know as I got a little older it became almost every evening thing, sitting at her house.  But Alice, my memory isn’t great on that, but I think she went back to the UK or she moved someplace so Mettie was alone.  So, at that point I definitely was stopping on my way to school checking on her to make sure everything was OK.  And then I would come home from school sometimes and would have brought something from the store that she had requested.

She started to have a signs of like angina and when she’d walk down to the bank, she would take the money from the gas station and back then most of it was cash – when she got paid by her customers, and so she would walk down to the bank which was you know, I think there’s still the bank there down kind of near the bridge, and she was starting to have chest pains coming back.  And so, I started to run to the bank for her in the afternoon, and then it was still kind of that hour that I would sit with her and we visit.  Then a little bit later my mom started to cook dinner for her.  We realized she was not eating correctly and yeah, it’s hard to cook for one and so mom would make extra of whatever we were having and so I would bring down a dinner and maybe sit while she ate part of her it and there was usually enough that she said “oh I’m gonna have this for lunch tomorrow”

Suzi – Ah that was awful nice.

Will – So right behind her house there was a good-sized plot that did not have an orchard on it, and she had a very small garden that was getting to be too much work for her.  So, my dad wanted a big garden but we had just that normal size yard with no garden spot, so we ended up tilling that good size lot and we would pull hoses from our house for the most part to water and she would water a little bit by her place. But really it was a very large garden and then of course she took what she wanted out of the garden.  She loved looking out her kitchen that looked out where she could see the garden and she thought that was fun, so she was also good to us in the sense that we had a place to garden.  That was you know the early 80s and the economy was horrible. But so, my dad moved there because he took a job in Woodland. He headed up the Landline Fishing Rod manufacturing and he had been in sporting goods all his life but then he tried his hand at real estate, which was the worst time in the world to ever try to do that, so the garden was a way to feed our family and you know we had a good time out in the garden. 

So, you know she really was my best friend, we hung out a lot, we shared a lot of stories and I got to know her family somewhat.  When I got to college, I graduated in 1983 came back just a little bit you know to visit here there, was in Portland going to the university of Portland so I wasn’t far, but I was in college I didn’t want to be at home right. But I definitely missed Mettie.  But her family had actually said you know we’re gonna need to move Mettie, she can’t be here without someone.  They had really relied on me checking in on her and at this point my mom had also gone back to work, so she wasn’t around much.  My grandmother was living in our home, so my mom had her hands full there, and so I felt guilty but ok, at this point Mettie was I believe 96 or 97 – I have to kind of sit and do the math, but she moved out to Hillsboro because one of her sons lived.  So, she lived in an apartment or more like duplexes but there were numerous duplexes and I think they were all for senior living, and so I go out there and visit her every so often.  And then I got a call that she had fallen and broken her hip and pelvis.

Suzi – Oh no!

Will – And the way she did that was she was helping a neighbor move a couch!

Suzi – Oh my Lord!

Will – She’s walking backwards with the couch and there was a curve, and she didn’t navigate the curve and fell. So you know I went out and then the family and the doctors were saying you know at her age it’s very painful and it’s very unlikely that she will make it through this, that they often get pneumonia at that age because you’re not moving around etcetera … well she proved them wrong!

She was definitely laid up for a while, but they also said she would never walk again, that with a broken pelvis that just wasn’t gonna happen.  She was so frail anyway and she was just tiny, and I don’t remember how long it was but she wanted to walk.

Suzi – Wow that’s amazing!

Will – I don’t remember her walking with a cane or a walker. I think she was able to walk again on her own and she came to my wedding.  I’m trying to remember if that was before or after she broke her hip. I want to say it’s after that she was able to be there, so you know I don’t remember.  I need to go back through, somewhere I have a scrapbook that I have more stuff and if I can find I will donate to the Museum. Do you know how old she was when she passed, I think it was like 100 or 101.

Suzi – You know I seem to recall 101 but I’d have to look at my records for that.

Will – OK well I think 101 is correct.  Yeah, it’s incredible and from there she did move into, if I remember correctly, more of a care type facility or in with a family member. I don’t remember exactly what happened there.

Suzi – OK so when she was telling her stories did she talk about being a midwife and the fact that she helped 121 babies into the world?

Will – Yeah it would often be I’d be sitting with her in you know the afternoon in her little sitting area where she could see the gas station, and I remember her vividly – she sat in a rocker and she never sat still, she was always moving.  And so, I remember her sitting in her rocking chair and she used to do this – raising her arms up and down like pumping on the arms of the chair.  She was just always moving.

She had one of those bells, you know that they’d run over the hose, and it would ding-ding for the gas or she’d just kind of watch and listen for the car.  But she’d jumped up and she’d literally pop up and run out like 3 or 4 stairs to get down and she’d run out, pump the gas, and she would come back and sometimes she would say “you know I was there when she was born.” She just always had stories about people who came for gas and but yeah, she did talk about that. And I want to say she had five kids I think, a good-sized family herself, and she just kind of knew everyone. She had a big kind heart and if you came in and said you know I don’t have any gas money, but I need to get somewhere, she would fill your tank, or she’d say well you know come back and of course a lot of people didn’t.

And I remember she was shocked at the price of gas and she on average was making a penny to two a gallon, so it was really something more ‘to do’ and so it was not making her money.

And then when gas went over a dollar, her pump only went up to two digits and that’s when if I’m remembering correctly, it was not financially feasible for her to have the pump redone with a new system.  So, if I remember correctly, she was able to change it so it pumped in half gallons so she could marked it at $0.58 for the half gallon and covered that for a while.  And then there were additional problems with the pump and stuff and so eventually she had to just close the gas station which was really hard on her because it was her way of visiting with people.  She was an institution! Yeah, and on the side of her garage she had two big clematises that people would want to always come and see because they were you know just giant very old specimens and she was so proud of those.

But I missed the monkey years!  I came in after the monkey but Alice was there then and Alice hated the monkey, so she was glad the monkey was no more.  

So, because we lived in town most of my friends in high school or middle school lived outside of town, so she was my pal, person to chat with and hang out with and I learned how to make apple butter from.  She had this old apple tree that we helped kind of prune and take care of and it produced huge amounts of apples yeah so lots of apple butter was made.

Suzi – Nice!  I’ll bet she just really cherished your friendship too because you know when you’re that age and especially when the gas station had to close down that that would have been hard on her, and she would have gotten very lonely I think.

Will – Yeah.  She read a lot but a lot of it was reading the Bible, she did that every day,  she just kind of always had it next to her and I’d go down and knock and she was you know reading the Bible.  I do remember for a while people did come and pick her up and take her to church on Sundays, so I do remember that.  But she just kind of had a great history of the town. She was born in eastern Washington, but I forget which town.

Suzi – Yeah all I know is  from that one article I found and it was mainly about the gas station and you know they mentioned her husband and but they never mentioned all the babies or her doing anything else and I thought boy that’s just wrong, you know she didn’t get credit she didn’t get to have her name on any of their birth certificates and you know it was the Doctor who was over her.

And you know I we have a lot of kids that come through the museum, we now sponsor a scholarship and one of the stipulations on getting this scholarship is that you have to come into the museum and you have to learn about something and write an essay on it, so I always cheat a little bit because I always pull the girls aside and I said OK you’ve got to help me write this wrong because Mettie did all this stuff and she cared for all these babies and she didn’t get any credit.  And so we’re getting more and more, this is going to be our third year doing it and we we’ve gotten about four or five different essays that had Mettie you know featured and so that’s been kind of fun. I love doing that.

Will – And I’m going to correct you on her name ok, it’s Mettie with MeTT so like Nettie but Mettie.

Suzi – OK I think I just I’m so used to pronouncing it wrong, but I’ve got it spelled right!

Will – But OK she would never correct people kind of afterwards you know it’s an unusual name.

Suzi – OK good.  So, I don’t wanna take a lot of your time but do you wanna talk about your time in high school and anything significant that you remember about the school or the town?  And I don’t mean to put you on the spot but …

Will – Yeah, I moved from Portland when I was well let’s see I guess grade school and that was a hard move because I think my family has been in Portland forever, all my siblings grew up in Portland.

Suzi – And then you come to this hick town.

Will – Well yeah, it was a good place to grow up but looking back it lacked for me a lot of diversity and some opportunities, at least not until my second year in high school or third year. They didn’t even offer any language I mean like Spanish or any other languages so those are you know things that I missed out on.

I will say I had a great teacher, and I know you know her – Sharon Bryant.

Suzi – Oh yes!!

Will – She was a game changer for me as someone who you know pushed me in and encouraged me and we’ve remained dear friends since graduation.  Sharon was a pretty influential teacher. 

Then when I graduated from high school my parents sort of gave me keys to a house. I had an opportunity to take care of my sister’s home in Portland because they were musicians going out on the road for a year and so I was 18 years old, and my parents gave me the keys and said you know get back to the city and so I’ve been back in Portland really ever since. 

But you know La Center was a good place to grow up uh but it I mean it’s grown so much since I don’t recognize it.  You know I remember they built the fire station kind of down the street when we were living there.  And the poor volunteer fire department you know had the alarm would go off and they get in those trucks, and it never failed, the poor truck would you know crap out down the street, and you know all the while the house is burning.  It was a tough time; the economy was not great and there wasn’t money to buy the equipment.

But you know I also remember we had the old roller-skating rink that turned into a hot air balloon manufacturing type place. I got to go there for a couple of years of hot air balloon races. I got to be a spotter for them.

Suzi – Did you ever get to go up?

Will – I did … and there was a bit of an accident!!  The balloon hit some power lines over the Lewis River, and we came down into the river!  No one was hurt and I have been up in one since.

Suzi – Oh man, that was a bit scary!  Did that make the news?  I mean I haven’t seen any kind of articles on that.

Will – I don’t know if it made the news … it was like out at Daybreak Bridge and there was a big dairy farm there right and stuff.

Suzi – I mean wow … how exciting – but that’s scary!

So let me back up for a minute, can I ask since you knew Sharon and what a character she was, I got to interview her and Don Landis McCullough together – so were you involved in Don’s drama department when they got together with the history department and did a tour around La Center where they would go and stand in front of an old house and this character in full costume would come out and read the part of, you know like “I am John Timmons” or you know whoever he was portraying, were you by chance involved in that?

Will – I was not and that’s actually the first I’ve heard of that.  I don’t know what year he started at La Center, but it was after I had graduated.

Suzi – Oh OK. When he told me that during the interview I was like oh my gosh, I want those stories that they wrote up but he naturally he didn’t keep the records of that, and I haven’t found anybody who either portrayed the character or helped write it up.  I would love to have those, so yeah, I’m always on the hunt.

But I’m so glad that we got together because I’ve reached out to a couple of Mettie’s family members and not had a lot of success there.   I forget what her maiden name was but there’s a museum in Idaho named after them that has a bunch of her family history in it, but they’re only open during the summer and there’s very few volunteers and so I haven’t actually gotten info on them.  I guess I’m gonna have to go on a road trip to get over there and actually see it, but I really appreciate you taking the time to tell me about her.

Will – I do have just two things about her to tell … I remember one thing that Mettie loved to talk about was going to Vancouver, which was pretty much a day’s trip. And she had a picture of her old Model T or whatever it was, she witnessed the Columbia River totally frozen over and that they drove across the river with other cars, that it was that frozen.  And she had this old picture of her standing by this car not on the river, but you know that was just one of those amazing stories that it’s like wow.

Then the other family that I remember a lot growing up is Elmer and Tilly Soehl of Soehl’s Market. For a short period of time my mom worked as a cashier helping out a little bit and Elmer was the meat cutter, and a super nice guys and Tillies was up front.  She had a beehive hairdo and was very strict, very very strict and watched the kids like hawk when they came in. 

Yeah, there were two stores there, but they were more than mom and pop kind of market.   My mom said Tilly was a little kind of bossy or something, but my mom enjoyed her, and they became kind of friends.  In my mind they had a very fancy house just by the old high school.

In those days I walk to and from school and I was at that point where I was drinking about a gallon of milk a today and I could just stop in and get whatever we needed, and they just had a little form that they’d fill out and mom and dad came in and paid the bill.  Yeah that was the good old days!

Suzi – What was your mom’s name?

Will – My mom was Betty Carter.  After I left, she did some volunteering up at the schools and a family, a Hispanic family built a house right across the street from my parents next to Mettie’s orchard.  They didn’t speak much English and so my parents’ kind of took them under their wings and mom got all the kids enrolled in school and every year helped make sure that they were getting to where they needed to go into school grades and all that.   My dad helped Oscar and so Oscar and Teresa I believe they still live there and in fact came to both my parents’ funerals.  I remember Oscar really didn’t speak much English, and worked at the bulb farm and if I remember this story he bought a car and like got really taken by whoever sold it because of his English and alone.  My dad went down there and straightened it out and said Oscar anytime you’re doing that I’m going with you.  I will make sure you’re getting the right deal.  But I believe they still live directly across from my family.

Suzi – So do you remember any of their kids’ names because I believe there is one of their kids did some work for the museum and actually here at my home helped with doing some landscape work. His name is eluding me right now.

Will – It would be interesting if he remembers my parents, yeah if I’m not mistaken too my mom might have done a little bit of tutoring like reading because my mom had done a little bit of that that her earlier life so yeah that’s interesting.

Suzi – Yeah, I’ll look that name up and send it to you, just so that it might ring a bell.  But yeah, interesting times.  That’s real hometown stories you know, I love that, people helping people.

And so back-to-back to Sharon for a minute, did she roast you at graduation?

Will – Oh yeah!  I know she put out her book on all her speeches and I you know hadn’t thought about what she said in years and so I went back and read that, and I’ve given her a bad time “Really Sharon, that’s all you said about me … that’s all you said about me!”

Suzi – When she published all of her stories, I was amazed that she got away with some of the things she said and did and I can’t imagine that being able to happen nowadays.

Will – Yeah, you’re probably right!  But she was such an amazing teacher and cared about her students, knew how to challenge you and have fun.  And another teacher, Terry, oh I should know her name, she started the same time as Sharon but then left.  She wasn’t there my senior year, so I guess she was just there three years.  Martin, Terry Martin was her name and a teacher you know I still credit for where I am today.

Suzi – Now did you by chance get in on the Rainy Days Magazines that Sharon helped put out where the students went …

Will – No

Suzi – That’s another thing I would love to see regenerated but students would never be able to do that at this point, you know go on your own to interview people in their barns and their houses and no chaperone.  Those were incredible times!

Will – I was yearbook editor one maybe two years and on the yearbook staff I think for three years. That was a big part. But I decided I’m still the worst speller in the world and I usually blame that all on Sharon … but she had nothing to do with that she tried to correct it.

Suzi – Well thank you again so much for your time and the stories.  It’ll be fun to you know write up some kind an essay on her myself.

Will – So I’ve got the old trunk full of stuff that gets kind of buried in my storage room but when I get a chance I’ll go in and see if I can find any of this stuff and if I can, I’ll definitely donate and bring it out to the museum.

Suzi – That’d be great we’d love to show it off!

Will – If you have any other questions you know feel free to reach out.

Suzi – Well thanks again William!

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