Catherine Fine and Ted Campbell will take their thrones Saturday, June 13, for the Pioneer Day festivities

Queen Mother Catherine Fine

By Lauren Brown
Burns Times-Herald

“It took me 86 years to become a queen,” said Catherine Fine, who was named the Queen Mother for the annual Pioneer Day celebration to be held Saturday, June 13, at the Harney County Senior and Community Services Center.

Fine hails from Frenchglen and has lived there for the majority of her 86 years. She and her brother, Finley, spent their childhood helping their folks, Joe and Jennie McDonald, run the Frenchglen Hotel. “Things were very primitive in the hotel in those days,” Fine said. There were no flush toilets. She remembers when it cost $.75 for a room, $.50 for a family-style meal and $1 to board your horse.

Fine attended grade school in Frenchglen and high school at St. Francis in Baker City. She lived in a dorm and rode the train back and forth from school to home, though students were only allowed to go home for holidays. While in high school she played basketball but noted that “there wasn’t much stuff for girls to do in those days.”

After high school, Fine wanted to go on to veterinary school. “But they wouldn’t accept women, so I got married. Next best thing, I guess,” she said.

She and her new husband, Jack, worked for Roaring Springs Ranch until they saved enough money to buy their own ranch.
The couple had four children, Annette, Joe, Susan and Ross.

Jack died in 1963 in a gun accident, and Fine chose to raise the four children and ran the ranch herself. Both daughters grew up to be registered nurses. Joe works in mining and Ross was in the Marines.

With her children grown, Fine turned her attention to creating a new business, Joe Mamma’s, an espresso stand in Frenchglen. Her son Joe built the drive-thru building, and Fine said the original idea was to help her grandsons (she has seven and one granddaughter) run the small business. “Then they grew too big and grew out of it. It was just me,” she said.
When she’s running Joe Mamma’s, Fine drives the 70 miles to Burns about once per week for supplies. Occasionally, she’ll get requests for odd coffee drinks. “Some of them I don’t know, but I just tell them (customers) to tell me how to make it, and I’ll do it,” she said.
Joe Mamma’s offers a wide array of espresso drinks, but that’s not what draws in the locals. “Hamburgers is what we specialize in. Big ones,” she said.

When she’s not running Joe Mamma’s, Fine enjoys watching the Portland Trail Blazers (“They finally shaped up and got their heads out of their butt this year,” she said) and once in a while likes to visit the casino.

Fine looks forward to seeing her family and friends during the annual Pioneer Day festivities on June 13 at the Harney County Senior and Community Services Center.

 •••

Pioneer President Ted Campbell

By Randy Parks
Burns Times-Herald

This year’s Pioneer President Ted Campbell’s history with Harney County actually began before he was even born.

Campbell said his grandparents were living in Missouri when they hired a “land locator” from Silver Lake to find them a place to live in Oregon. After rounding up the money to purchase the land, Campbell’s grandfather sent it off to the land locater, and the family headed west.

When the family, including Campbell’s father Edward, arrived in Burns, they discovered that the land locater had received their money, as well as money from others, and then had fled the country.

With no land and no money, the family went to John Day, where a rancher gave them a place to live.

Campbell’s mother, Ruth Winn, and her family were  living in La Grande at about the same time, and her parents decided to try their hand at homesteading in the Catlow Valley. “People told them there was water near-by, but what they didn’t tell them it was 300 feet down,” Campbell laughed.

The Winns then moved to Voltage, where Ruth’s father  freighted wool for the sheepmen.

They decided to move back to La Grande, but made it only as far as John Day before their stock wore out. As luck would have it, Edward Campbell would meet Ruth Winn and the two married and moved to Seneca in 1926 to work for a rancher.

The early years

Ted Campbell was born June 15, 1927, in Prairie City with a midwife present. “My birth certificate has Seneca listed as my official birth place, and Seneca wasn’t even a town until 1932, I think it was,” Campbell said.

While in Seneca, Campbell’s father drove a tie-truck for the railroad. “But he wanted to be a hunter,” Campbell said. “His friend Sam Wade had a cabin, and the two of them went hunting coyotes.”

His mother, however, decided cleaning coyote hides was, “no way to make a living,” and wanted them to get their own place. Campbell said his parents contacted Milt Davis, who lived near Drewsey, and leased some land about three miles past the present-day Pine Creek School.

In January 1928, Campbell’s family loaded up their Willys Knight touring car, crossed a snow-covered Bear Valley, and moved into a two-story house on Davis’ property, where they lived for more than six years.

After deciding to homestead on nearby property,  the Campbells lived in a tent while building a log home. “I was 7 years old and was peeling the logs,” Campbell said. “Back then, if you could get to the table to feed yourself, you could work.”

Campbell’s brother Jack was born when Ted was 7, and two sisters, Virginia and Charlotte, came along in 1937 and 1945, respectively.

For elementary schooling, the Campbells rode about 10 miles on horseback to Wolf Creek, and in 1941, Campbell enrolled at Crane. “My junior year my dad pulled me out of school,’ Campbell said. “He thought that once a kid was educated, they wouldn’t work.” Campbell did eventually return, and graduated from Crane High School in 1947.

“Two years later, my dad and I had a disagreement, so I loaded up my car, had $20 in my pocket, and went to Portland to seek my fortune,” Campbell said.

It was a tough job market in 1949, but Campbell was able to land a job with Superior Cheese Co., a subsidiary of Safeway.

Campbell said the company had just one opening and there were a number of applicants. “I went in for the interview, and the guy asked me when I could start,” Campbell stated. “I told him I could go to work right now, and he said, ‘You’ve got the job.’ He handed me some keys and told me to open in the morning.”

The military calls

Hearing the Forest Service had a job opening, Campbell moved back to Harney County, and married Jeanette Frost in June 1950. Later that year, Campbell went to work at a ranch near Prineville.

“In 1951, with the Korean War going on, the U.S. military decided they operated without me for as long as they could,” Campbell smiled. He went to Portland for a physical, and then signed up for the Air Force before his draft notice could show up.

Campbell went through basic training at Laughlin Air Force Base (AFB) near Del Rio, Texas, was sent to Wichita Falls, Texas, where he graduated from aircraft and engine school, and then received orders to go to Korea. “Korea must have a lot of diseases because when I was told I was going there, I got I don’t know how many shots,” Campbell said. “But I was No. 11 on the list of those trained in our field to go, and they only needed 10.”

So rather than making the trip overseas, Campbell was sent to B-36 bomber school, and received orders for Korea a second time. “But there weren’t any B-36s in Korea, so they asked me where I wanted to go. I said, ‘Home?’ ” Campbell joked. “They gave me a choice of Spokane (Wash.) or Rapid City (S.D.), and because I wanted to be closer to home, I told them Rapid City. They did what I expected and shipped me to Spokane.”

Campbell arrived in Spokane in October 1951, where he served as Crew Chief, and was later promoted to Staff Sergeant.
In July 1954, his son Bruce Wayne Campbell was born at Fairchild AFB, and a year later, Campbell was released from active duty, and he returned to Burns.

Campbell worked as a police officer for several months until he got an offer from his dad. “My dad bought a bigger outfit and wanted me to help run it,” Campbell said. “He said if I helped, when my brother, Jack, got out of the Navy, he’d sell the place to us, which he did.”

Moving on

In 1966, Campbell sold the ranch to Buck Taylor, and moved to Seneca, where he took over the Standard Oil dealership. After he and his wife divorced, Campbell moved to Bend and went to work for Mid-Oregon Iron as a pre-fab man.

In December 1973, Campbell married Lavonne Mattis, and then took the manager’s job at Fort Rock Ranch, where he stayed for 10 or 11 years.

Looking for some long-term security for he and his wife, Campbell bought a home in Payette, Idaho, and began driving truck for Ore-Ida.

After two-and-a-half years in Payette, Campbell landed a job with the Bend Park and Recreation District, where he remained before retiring in 1993.

Campbell and his wife then purchased their home in Burns, where they reside today.

“That’s the quick version of my life,” Campbell said. “I can tell you a whole lot of other stories, like the time in 1966 when we were roping horses and one of them rolled over on me. I had a skull fracture, broken leg and numerous lacerations, abrasions and contusions.”

Campbell is honored to have been selected as Pioneer President and is ready to share his tales with everyone. “I’m at that age where there’s very few left that can contradict me,” he laughed.

•••

PIONEER DAY

WHAT: Annual event that honors community pioneers with a program and potluck.
WHEN: Saturday, June 13; registration begins at 10 a.m., the potluck at noon and the program at 1 p.m.
WHERE: Harney County Senior and Community Services Center, 17 S. Alder