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Whitman County
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The House on the Corner
by Myrtle Sattler Cunning
Submitted by Don Rivara
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Whitman County
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The House on the Corner
Introduction
Myrtle Sattler Cunning [1885-?] was a granddaughter of Jasper N. Matheny [1834-1893]. Her parents were Herman Sattler [1860-1892], who worked for the Walla Walla Watchman, and Kitie Matheny Sattler [1865-1899]. After Herman’s death from tuberculosis, Kitie suffered financially and then from tuberculosis, which later caused her death. She first gave up her yountest daughter Hermione to adoption and later her two older daughters, Myrtle and Mabel to the care of Sattler relatives. The House on the Corner is Myrtle’s account of her years with her parents and then the trying years with her Sattler relatives.
Myrtle’s son Patrick Cunning had a career as an actor, first in silent films and then the “talkies.” Her sister Mabel, known as Helen Langford, was a prominent Broadway actress in New York by the time she was twenty. Myrtle later found her sister Hermione, who had married William Hobbs, but there had been no bonding during Hermione’s childhood. The relationship never became close and the sisters later lost contact. Hermione’s children Carol, Emery, and Gertrude were residents of the Salem, Oregon area. This account is retyped from an original typewritten copy of Myrtle’s story in the possession of Gertrude Hobbs of Salem.
Here is the story of a girl—a funny little girl. Maybe you will know her.
I wasn’t so homely those first baby years, and until the age of five I remember little. My first remembrance is of a little house adjoining my father’s printing office, and of my mother and father perched on high stools setting type in a dark, ugly place, smelly and hot. I can faintly remember being sent for pails of foamy beer and seeing my father drinking of the coated beverage. I loved to go for the beer, for in those days plenty of bologna and crackers and cheese were free in the saloons. Nearly all men drank beer, and children tagged along after their dads. Mothers didn’t drink in those days; mothers only worked and cried.
So follow along with me—laugh or cry, but live with me the years from 1890 to 1903. Let me explain that Fear ruled my life—fear of things real and imaginary. Under other conditions I could have been a happy, carefree child. My live at five became a dingy one—from a sunshiney little place, we were suddenly moved to an ugly, weather-beaten shack in southeastern Washington, but it was in a beautiful little town with wonderful trees and streams, creeks and rivulets and flowers beautiful in the spring. Yellow roses in sunny corners and pansies turning their faces to the sun. Flowers then and now are my weakness. I hate houses on corners, that is, I did as a child. They always seemed nosey with so many windows on all sides. I hate drawn shades and shaded lights. I require sunshine and air, but here we are in this shack of an old house, our father and mother and Mabel and I. Our father was a young German [Jewish ancestry]—dark, curly hair with dark eyes and a thoroughly spoiled young fellow, adored by sisters twice his age. Our mother was a young thing of French parentage [??] and had been the belle of society [she left Salem at the age of seven—belle??] in a small town on the Willamette River [Salem, OR] where her father plied the ferry boats.
At this early age, I sensed that our parents were rather poor makeshifts as parents go. Children at five today think the same only they express themselves—we did not. I knew their weak points, every one. I was raised by a saying of my father’s sister, used when referring to my mother—you will notice I speak of “my mother,” whereas my sister as “Dad’s girl” –this saying went thusly—“Kitie has a sauerkraut purse and a cream puff appetite.” I understood that thoroughly, and I knew that out of little my mother produced much and in these days of drabness, she made our evening meal a thing of beauty. She gave to the lowly dandelion a place of honor—as a centerpiece—today I cherish a dandelion dearly. Later we had buttercups and birdie bills yellow bells and wild violets and after these came forget-me-nots and sweet briar wild roses. Many times since then I have wanted to take a pail and knife and search for buttercups.
However, flowers didn’t keep our little tummies full. There was never enough food and as I became older, there was less. Just at this time, fear came to us. I had been a cheery child, easy to please with a mind bent on make-believe. I could, up until then, see far away to the imaginary sheep and fairies in the clouds, but this old house was my undoing and fear almost crushed me. Life ceased to be beautiful and my childish mind was clouded.
Mabel was a sullen child. Two years younger than me, she remained sullen through the years until she was able to break through these shackles and get away. She was a clever child and learned early in life that by screaming and scratching she could attain what she desired—and she could SCREAM! [Mabel grew up to be the Broadway star Helen Langford.]
Our parents were above the average in intelligence, that is, they were well read. They were busy folks too. Our dad was assistant to his eldest brother in a progressive newspaper of the country and my mother was adept at typesetting. But this extra work added to home cares, made her irritable and unreasonable. Mealtime was hellish-- you will pardon this term—but it was correct. My sister, always in a temper, her cloudy little face and brooding eyes enough to frighten anyone, was nicknamed “Cloudburst.” Our dad was always overtired and sullen or tanked up on lager beer, our mother ready to flare up at a minute’s notice. I have seen Dad throw a lamp in his rage. And then there was me, Myrtle by name, too cowed and afraid to open my mouth, but I profited some from this, for I got my share of food.
Great appalling fear overtook me at five and left me weak. It came at once in a queer sort of way and through something that should have brought delight. Root beer was a treat in those days and also a luxury. I can see my dad now, mixing gallons of it in a washtub and bottling it and tying corks in. What a thrill it was to hear one pop out. Then it had to be aged three weeks. Our town had two great breweries—the mayor owned one and a huge fat woman the other. So beer was easy to get at five cents a pail, but I am sure that had it been forbidden, my dad would have made that too. Under the floor of this horrid old shack [their home], was a dugout cellar, a mildewy place, dark and damp. A trap door about two feet square in the kitchen floor led down to it. In broad daylight I expected that door to fly open and something grab me and at night it terrified me. No ladder led down to this deep , dark place; so my father led me down by the arms and then handed m e bottle after bottle to store away. I could feel the dampness on my bare feet. Imagination filled the place with terrible animal life. I am sure there were more things in that cellar than exist today in the whole world. When I was lifted up again, there was the fear that my arms might come off and my mother, young and unfitted as she was, felt my distress and to distract me told me of Cinderella and Snow White. This didn’t help much, for in my mind, I knew that in three weeks the terrors of that dark pit would get me.
Then I saw into the another child’s home life and envied her. She was a pretty little girl of seven. She wasn’t wizened and puny like Mabel and me; she was like a little fairy in my child’s mind. A cry of pain from her brought the neighbors—a fish hook was imbedded in her hand. Some one cut off the hook and the rest was easily removed. I would gladly have suffered the pain she did just to be soothed and gently rocked to sleep as Elsie’s mama rocked her. I craved love and only once in my life did my mother put her arms about me.
Days of terror followed fast now and in the early twilight of a summer evening, Elsie’s papa was missing. I had heard talk now and then of defaulting, but that was beyond me. I was inquisitive and tagged along after the neighbors hunting Elsie’s papa, and in almost no time there appeared before me his body hanging from the rafters of the barn, a saggy, heavy load for a weak rope, and here was something else to fear. I was completely done up between the deep hole under the house and a haunted barn next door and not a window pane in the house so one could hide away. Now, even the wild flowers and streams and the periwinkles in the creek bed—did you ever hunt periwinkles? —all these ceased to comfort me. I became quiet and sullen, and sullen children are dangerous to themselves.
These were days of mob violence and about a half mile from our home and on a straight road to the cemetery was an estate. An eccentric old man lived there. Great open spaces spread out all ways back of this big old estate and lynchings took place right there. A tall poplar tree still stands where many a horse thief was hanged, but past this place we had to go to get eggs and milk. Our only solace was a dear old lady who lived there. She would take us children into the cool milk house and feed us cookies and give us great glasses of solid milk. Did you ever see great pans of milk set to rise in a cold milk house? The cream is all wrinkly and wiggly and sometimes that dear old soul let us taste it and sometimes gave us a little pat of butter. She was very old and tottering, leathery like, and she had lived across from that dead man’s tree all her life and h ad suffered too when she heard the commotion set for a hanging. Then she would tell us where the first wild violets could be found in the pasture and make us forget our distress. God bless her.
We were entirely too young to be sent for watercress, but children had to be useful; so we started out. We found a great patch all green and lovely. Mabel, a determined child, climbed the fence first and stepped down onto what seemed to be solid earth. Just like a flash she disappeared—it was bog land. Help came at once and she was dragged out. I must have had a really wicked mind, for I felt some relieved when she disappeared, and many times in the tempestuous years with her screaming and scratching, I often wished she had stayed in the watercress patch. That was childish but human.
Right at this time it dawned upon me that we were charity tenants in that old house, and after the suicide next door, I think my mother fought it out with our dad and relatives, as she was very much affected by these nearby calamities and was cross all of the time. And so we moved. There was never very much to move. Even now I cannot remember ever seeing us move. We just seemed to go someplace. I can’t remember any furniture at all, only an old stove and a rickety table. We must have had beds then, but I can’t remember them at all.
To my last day I will remember this move. “The House” Oh! Such a homey place in a great spreading yard, a rambling, sprawling white house with honeysuckle all over it and a lean-to kitchen with an apple tree at its window and a little creek in its yard. It was the coolest little creek, all gurgling and on the banks tumbling over themselves were candytuft, forget-me-nots, wild roses, and a syringa tree. Here we were all happier, and when we visit this place now after many years, our children can gather roses, lilacs, and snowballs planted by my dad many years ago. Here Mabel and I lived as far away from each other in thoughts as could be. Fear dropped like a cloak from me at this point in life. I became happy, romped and played. Big boys and girls played hide and seek. I was little and could hide in the tall grasses. When the children called “Here I come,” I popped out anxious to be found.
Fairy dreams became realities. For hours we would weave wreaths of white clover and pick great boquets of red clover, and then from nowhere at all came a baby. God was supposed to look after his children. He, even then, was terribly imposed upon. There wasn’t enough food for the four of us. They named her Winnie. She only lived a short while, and then I knew what sorrow was. My mother was so happy with this baby, and to me she was like a little doll. She died suddenly, and with her going a great new thing entered my life. Right here I learned that when folks die, all the relatives come from far and near and bring food, good food and plenty of it. And there were no restrictions, just eat and play. It was something like a picnic, but I didn’t know what a picnic was then. My sorrow was soon over, and again I played and became a dependable child but spoiled and petted by the neighbors.
Life was rosy indeed. Why shouldn’t it be, for along the creek were chokecherries, great trees of them and when dead ripe, they were delicious. What what did I care if my mouth was all puckery. There were also elderberries and mulberries and, best of all, an old apple tree, a bellflower, and the nicest apples fell into the stream. It was great fun to fish them out. There were apples for all. The first ones gave us stomachaches, but we ate the green apples just the same, and without salt too. There were also currants and gooseberries. Did you ever gather currants grown on creek bed soil? They are deep red, every berry a picture. Only one thing is more beautiful to me and that is a bunch of red radishes. The gooseberries were not so good except the wormy ones. Worms weren’t so bad in those days. Life was so sweet. I had forgotten my grief and it was summer again. We would catch grasshoppers and make them spit tobacco and send lady bugs on their way to their children.
From the outhouse we looked out upon the Blue Mountains, and here imagination had full sway. God pity the child who is unimaginative. Ice cream was a luxury then, and on Sundays a wagon made the rounds of the little town and I am sure that all the children believed as I did, that this wagon came down from t he snow-capped mountains with ice cream made of real snow. This illusion was magnified to me when far in the distance could be heard the tinkle of the bell. I was a big girl when I realized I was wrong, but I can cherish that dream today and believe, as of old and find joy in it. My mother would go to the wagon when she heard the bell and take a soup bowl to get the ice cream in. I never saw the exchange of money so did not know that it had a value. Those were happy years.
