WPA Interviews

Dodele, Martha (Miller)

INTERVIEW, July 3, 1938, Benton County, Mark Phinney.

Mrs. Martha Dodele (Miller) July 1938 (pronounced 'Dudley')

(Mrs. Dodele lives with her sister, Mrs. Rose Banks, at 1118 East 2nd Street, Albany, Oregon. She was interviewed as of Benton County because she and her husband lived in Benton County until 1916. Her memory seemed good and was reinforced by reference to the family bible.) My father, John S. Miller, came from Illinois and settled in Benton County, one mile south of where Wells Station now is, in 1852. His parents were Isaac Miller and Martha Stover Miller. My mother, Vienna Rodgers (also spelled Rogers), came with her parents, John and Margaret Rodgers, from Indiana. The Rodgers claim adjoined the one father had taken and it was not long until my parents married. They lived on the farm near Wells until 1884, when they moved to Kings Valley.

Our folks had no unusual difficulties in making the trip but they had hard times later. Their first house was a two-room log cabin. One hard winter most of their stock died. Often wheat hominy was a staple article of food.

We hulled the wheat by the use of lye which we leached from wood ashes. We used this same lye to make all of our soap. Mother spun the wool and knitted all our stockings. Some of our neighbors wove cloth for all their clothes.

In 1873 I married Felix Dodele. We have no living children. We farmed near Wells until 1916 when we came to town. Now my husband is gone and my sister and I are living here together.

I often visited the old town of Tampico when I was a girl. There was nothing much there but a store, a saloon, a blacksmithshop and a schoolhouse.

I went to school in the old Gingles schoolhouse,--first, in the old log building, and then in the larger frame building that replaced it. The log schoolhouse had only one room and was heated by a fireplace in one end. My first teacher there was Thomas Armstrong. A Mr. Bowersox and Dr. Hill and my uncle, Simeon D. Earl, used to preach at the Gingles schoolhouse.

We had lots of good times with dances, play parties, singing schools, and church.

The old family Bible shows that my father's brothers and sisters were:

(Miller) Elizabeth, born in 1816

Mary, born in 1818

Thomas B., born in 1820

Sarah, born in 1823

Isaac P., born in 1828

John, my father, born in 1831

Jane, born in 1831

Malinda, born in 1834

Samuel, born in 1837

James, born in 1839.

I know there was a brother Henry, and also Newton, but I do not know the dates of their births. Father also had a sister Alcinda who married a man named Rhinehart. Aunt Elizabeth married Hiram Hardy who died on the plains. In Oregon she married Richard McCully. Mary married a man named Wm. Moore and lived someplace in Eastern Oregon. Father's twin, Jane, married Sam Rice and Sarah married Gingles for whom the Gingles schoolhouse was named and who served several terms as County Commissioner.

My father's children were:

William H. Miller, born 1854

Martha E., (myself) - 1855

John Isaac - 1857

Mary Elizabeth - 1859

Taylor Johnson - 1862

Albert - 1864

Frank Luther - 1871

Charles Bruce - 1873

Jacob Beard - 1875

Rose Belle - 1880

Daisie Maple - 1885.

Copyright © 2000 Patricia Dunn. All rights reserved. This transcription may not be reproduced in any media without the express written permission by the author. Permission has been given by the Transcriber to publish on the LGS web site.