Dowrick+(via+Laurence+Pratt)

There are a local few books that describe the history of Forest Grove, such as a book called //An Oregon Boyhood by Dowrick////, As told to Laurence Pratt// (Portland: Worthylake Press, 1969). Mr. Dowrick L. Pratt was born October 22, 1889 in Jetmore, Kansas.

Beginnings: //An Oregon Boyhood// and //Journey to Impermanence//
By the time of the 1900 census, Dowrick was 11 years old and a resident of Forest Grove, along with his sisters Henrietta (21yrs), Ina (16yrs), and Margaret (14yrs), and brothers Judah (8yrs), and Allen (5yrs). His older siblings Alice (22yrs) and Ross (23yrs) were already out of the house on their own. His mother, Alice H. Pratt, and his father, William "W.D." Pratt, were both born in the 1850s in the Midwest (Ohio and Iowa, respectively). According to the 1880 census, they married in 1875, and moved to Lincoln, Iowa, where W.D. farmed and ranched while Alice kept house. In June of 1890, the growing family headed west by train to the Pacific Northwest, following the departure of Dowrick's father to seek out a place to live (Pratt, 12, 15). Before arriving in Forest Grove, the Pratt's lived in Kalama at the end of that year, and Vancouver, Washington and Troutdale, Oregon in 1891 (16). W.D. had established a local newspapers in Kalama, Troutdale, and after their move to Astoria, in Grand Rapids (near Jewell) (17). These local papers assisted the new land owners under the Homestead Act, because each new American settler "was required to publish notice of his filing a certain number of times in an established newspaper of the area within a specified number of months" (19). Thus, the family made their living by setting up local newspapers, as well as ranching the cattle W.D. could not easily afford.

Moving to Forest Grove: //New Town, New Life//
"...The next move was to Forest Grove, Oregon. Forest Grove, lucky town, recieved us probably in 1893. There my well-remembered life began as a self-contained individual, for I was practically grown up -- I was four years old. How did we arrive? I have the impression we came in a horse-drawn wagon piled high with household goods and children. I wonder if we drove all the way from Jewell, perhaps fifty miles on dirt roads. By my sisters' account Father noticed a little house vacant at the edge of town and suggested we stop there. But Mother said absolutely no. So we rode on. My memory says we first lived in a house in the northeast part of town, then in one on Ash Street which still stands. It is the third house on the east side of street after you cross the railroad tracks as you go south from the business district. It is old, and has a bay window with small squares of blue and brown glass around the large middle panes" (23)

Dowrick and his family also lived on Main Street, across from the historical grammar school where Central School is now. Mr. Pratt "aquired an established newspaper, //The Washington County Hatchet//, and later the rival paper, //The Forest Grove Times//, and combined the two" (24).

//Early Childhood//
"...all my experience centered about a little house in the southwest corner of Forest Grove. Ezra and Henrietta Strain, Mother's mother and step-father, sold their Iowa farm, came west, and bought the tiny house at the south end of Ash Street, and we all moved into it. This is where and how we lived as I remember: A wooden sidewalk in the front of the yard, like all other sidewalks in the town. A picket fence across the front...Wooden sidewalk from the front gate straight in to the small front porch....So ten children, Mother, and two grandparents had to bed down in the other three tiny rooms. Eventually the Strains bought a ten-acre tract at the little tow of Dilley two miles away, and moved there" (35).

Dowrick remembers that there were grassy fields where they picked bachelor buttons, with oak trees "both slim and huge..a few were four feet through" (36). The family attended the Congregational Church.

//Food and Play//
Dowrick remembers Forest Grove as a place of wonder and natural beauty. He walked to Gales Creek and found anemones, erythroniums, and trillium, and calypso on the "brown-leaf floor of the grove" and climbed trees (38). He foraged and harvested hazelnuts, gooseberries, and dandelion greens nearby (43). The children purchased bread from the Krieders' for 5 cents, or day-old for 3 cents, and rounds of steak from the butcher for only a "few cents a pound" (44).

//Getting Milk// "Margaret, Love and I each carried a brown lard pail. Walk carefully. Don't spill it. Someway I remember only the winter days when it was dark. The wooden sidewalks didn't go all the way so we skirted the puddles of water and picked the least muddy spots to step. As we approched each crossing the street light at the corner high overhead would be reflected in the water on the ground..." (44).