Women of Substance

Nora Rumley (Nanny) c 1908 w youngest son Lynn

Nora Rumley (Swiger)

The year was 1888, she was young, very beautiful, 18, and head over heels in love.  Jack Rumley came from Indiana, to seek his fortune in the West.  He was strong and handsome and 23, he claimed to be a butcher.  Nora Swiger was from a well respected family in Union County, Oregon, an area called High Valley.  Her parents had a ranch and cattle.  She married Jack Rumley on Christmas eve, at the Centennial Hotel in Union, Oregon in 1888.

Jack Rumley  c 1898

She was soon pregnant and delivered babies about every two years. They had 7 children, three daughters, Dolly, Elba and Ada, and four sons, Richard, Roland, Paul and Lynn.  Elba, my grandmother Momoo, was her daughter.

Her father and mother, Nathan and Polly Swiger, gave the newlyweds some cattle from their ranch as a wedding gift to get them started.  The story goes that Jack Rumley butchered the cattle and opened a butcher shop to sell the meat.  The profits were soon gone as Jack Rumley, being a bit of a rogue, liked whiskey and women.

Nora Rumley (Swiger) was my great-grandmother.  She was born in 1870 in Oregon, just 5 years after the end of the Civil War and the assassination of President Lincoln.    My daddy called her Gramit and to me she was Nanny.  She lived with my grandmother, Momoo, off and on during my childhood.  For as long as I knew her she had snow white hair.

Momoo, Nanny, Ada  c 1942

  


She was a big part of my growing up years.  She wore bright red lipstick and lots of rings.  She smoked sometimes which was kind of shocking as my family didn’t smoke.  She was always nice and pleasant and the kind of older lady that little girls feel comfortable around.  Bonnie and I would cut up and be outrageous sometimes, even grab her cigarettes and puff, and she would always just laugh and say “oh you girls.”  I could fix her hair and give her permanents whenever I wanted to, she liked to be pampered.

 

Four generations: Nanny, Momoo, Daddy and me

She always wore beads and silky dresses with flowers on them, like she was ready to go out for the evening if someone would call; as far as I could tell she wasn’t getting any invitations so she always stayed home.  I remember my mom telling me that when she and daddy were going out, he took her to meet Momoo and Nanny, they both wore red lipstick and fur coats and she thought they seemed so sophisticated and rich.  My mother came from plain stock, a Nazarene, not too familiar with lots of jewelry or bright cosmetics.

There are funny stories about Nanny, one is that a couple of her sons (young men) got rowdy and were fighting one night and she called the cops and had them put in jail.  I think she had a hard life, seven children to feed and a husband who wasn’t always employed.  She worked at various jobs to make ends meet; in a hotel and sometimes as a cook, I could see the struggles of her life in the lines on her face.  She made the best of it, she was a strong and vibrant woman in her time.  She passed away in 1958 at age 88 and I was there.

Bessie Bell Chadd  c 1936

Bessie Bell Chadd (Woodworth) was my grandmother, on my mom’s side.  She was born in 1876, to Elijah and Frances Woodworth, one of five daughters. I remember my mom telling me the way to remember when grandma was born was that 1776 was the end of the American revolution when our country declared independence from Britain, and grandma’s birth was 100 years later. Grandma Chadd was mostly raised by her father and older sisters, her mother died when she was 6 years old.  She married Jack Chadd (c 1901) and had four children, Myrtle, John Hobert, Elmo and Naomi (my mother).  Myrtle died when she was a baby of only one year old.  Bessie’s husband, Jack Chadd, died in 1919 when my mother was 3 yrs old.  At that time the family lived in Virtue Flats, a mining community on the old Oregon Trail just outside of Baker.  Grandma had to gather her children (two teenage boys and a three year old) and move into Baker where she could work and raise her family alone.  She did housekeeping and other chores and took in ironing for wealthy people. 

Bessie Chadd and Naomi Chadd c 1940

 She read her Bible during daylight but when the sun went down she went to bed, she didn’t like to waste electricity or anything.  She walked to the Nazarene church every Sunday. She was a stern lady, a little bit snappy, she never drove a car, she walked wherever she needed to go.  When she went out she always wore a hat and sensible shoes.  Grandma didn’t laugh a lot and she wasn’t one to tell a joke or even listen to one.  I do remember a time when she had bought a wedding gift for my cousin, Marilyn, and I asked to see it.  She showed it to me and said; “I bought her a nightgown for her wedding night, but she probably won’t wear it!” and then she gave me a fierce look as if to say I had better not even think of such things.