Doris Cox Remembers School Days

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The following article first appeared in the Camas Courier.

DORIS COX REMEMBERS SCHOOL DAYS ON THE CAMAS PRAIRIE

Doris Cox grew up on the Camas Prairie, and has lots of good memories of the old days. She and husband Don raised five children, four of whom still live here. They have 13 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren. Every year at fair time, the Coxes host a family reunion at their home on the west side of Fairfield. Both Doris, 79, and Don, 90, have a keen interest in history. Doris, recently shared some of her memories with the Camas Courier.

Doris was born July 4, 1928 in the home of her grandparents, Ben and Belle Painter, near where John was working north of Bliss. A doctor was called in from Gooding. Doris is the only one of John and Nellie Hobdey’s four girls who was not born on the Camas Prairie. She is also the only one who stayed on the prairie as an adult.

When Doris was in first grade, she and her sister Virginia, the oldest, attended summer school at Washington Avenue School. Because it was five miles from their home on Base Line, they had to ride their gentle horse, Penny. “We didn’t think that was too bad,” Doris said.

When the girls got home from school, there were chores to do. Doris, young as she was, had to ride Penny out to get the milk cows, which were pastured quite a way from home. One time at the pasture the saddle slipped, and Doris was too little to put it back on and cinch it up. She removed the saddle, climbed a fence post and mounted the horse bareback. She took the cows home, then came back later for the saddle.

The following year, the family moved so the children could attend Corral Creek School. The Washington Avenue School didn’t get out until around Halloween, so it was too late to start the school year at Corral Creek that winter. The teacher, Jessica Anderson, lived near the school. Her husband also lived there part-time. He cooked a hot lunch for everyone on the school’s stove using whatever provisions the children had brought that day. “I just remember how good it smelled,” Doris said.

She attended Camas County High School, graduating in 1946 with her class of six. She has kept in touch with her classmates over the years.

Doris’ youngest sister was one of the last to graduate from eighth grade at Corral Creek. The school closed about the time Camas County schools were consolidated in 1948, and Doris’ parents acquired the teacherage, built in 1939. The building now stands on Don and Doris’ property to the west of town.

The house the Coxes live in was the old Daniels schoolhouse, which Don moved to its present location a year before their wedding in 1948 and renovated over the years. The couple met at a rodeo at the old rodeo grounds south of town.

Doris likes to keep busy. She was Fairfield’s postmistress for 25 years, starting in 1965. Now, among other hobbies, she collects scraps of local news for the Camas Chatter. Sometimes it’s hard to fill the column since, as she says, “Not too much happens on a dead end street,” but Doris has kept at it for eight years. She enjoys talking to everyone and keeping in touch with the goings-on.

Doris has always paid attention to local history and is particularly interested in cemeteries. She also quilts, making keepsakes for family births, graduations, and weddings. “I’m a silent worker,” she said.