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For state senate:
George, Franzoni
Looks like Newberg police will stay
on Dundee streets
| May Holzmeyer: A century in Dundee |
The oldest of 10 kids, in a family with little money, she
remembers the first time she saw a car; her family didn’t have one |
By Schellene Clendenin, Newberg
Graphic Reporter
E-mail Schellene at sclendenin@eaglenewspapers.com
|
May Holzmeyer
didn’t grow up with running water, indoor plumbing or electricity. She remembers cars
first coming to Dundee, telephones being installed and what it was like during the
depression – she just has trouble remembering when.
“That was a long time ago,” she said, her hazel eyes sharp and focusing
instantly on everything she sees. As of Oct. 8, Halzmeyer will be 100 years old. Her
daughter, Florence Bradley, will host a birthday party in Holzmeyer’s honor on Oct.
10.
“Can you imagine living without running water or indoor plumbing?”
Bradley asked.
The oldest of 10 children, in a family with little money, Holzmeyer was born Oct.
8, 1904. Back then Teddy Roosevelt was president, postage stamps cost 2 cents, and
Arizona, New Mexico and Oklahoma were territories.
When she began school, roads were rural routes, teabags, instant coffee and
cornflakes had been invented, and the first Model T had been sold. To conserve water drawn
from the nearby river, as many as 10 people would use the same bathwater. Clothing was
scrubbed on a washboard. She recalled the first car she saw.
“It was down by the river,” she said. “We didn’t have
one.”
Until she graduated from Dundee High School and married in 1925, Holzmeyer lived with her
parents in the small town. Her last sibling was born when Holzmeyer was 20.
“She helped raise nine children,” Bradley said. “She was the oldest
and her mother was always pregnant.”
Holzmeyer has trouble hearing, and depends on a hearing aid. About the size of a
deck of cards, the speaker box connects to a wire that leads to the hearing aid in her
ear.
When Julie Spoonemore, a CNA at Friendsview, asked her if she wanted her batteries
changed so she can hear better, Holzmeyer insisted it’s not the batteries –
“It’s just old age.”
Thinking back to when she was 14, Holzmeyer remembered World War I. “We were
very interested in the war.”
During World War II, she had a brother in the U.S. Marines and a newborn in her
arms. Between the two wars she married Fred Holzmeyer and the couple moved to a prune
orchard on the hill where she remained, moving only when her third child, Bradley, was
born and the family of five needed a bigger home. The family remained on the property.
Bradley said when she was a child she remembers her mother as active in a
woman’s club and a member of a bridge group with a lot of friends.
“She helped my father, who started with prunes and went to filberts.
(Mother’s) job was to keep the fire going and dry the filberts.” Her rolls,
Bradley added, made in a wood stove, were well known and loved in the area. |
|
From Oct. 2,
2004, Newberg Graphic
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