Oregon Historic Landmarks: Willamette ValleyDaughters of the American Revolution. Oregon Society
History
Oregon Historic Landmarks: Willamette Valley
Daughters of the American Revolution. Oregon Society
Historic sites -- Oregon
In the mid-nineties the house was completely renovated and, to a great
extent, rebuilt. The roof was raised to give space for a large attic.
Rooms and porches were added. The position of the entrances and chimneys
was altered. In all, there were now seventeen rooms. Miss Ellen
Chamberlain, Mrs. Alice Applegate Peil, Miss Antoinette Bruce, Miss Rose
Bassett, Miss Lane, and other members of the Normal faculty lived there
around the turn of the century. It became quite a center of college
activities. Miss Cassie B. Stump had inherited the property from her
father.
There was a good-sized barn at the east end, occupied by a Jersey cow
and chickens and ornamented in Autumn with the glowing red of Virginia
Creeper. There were a berry patch, a large vegetable garden with morning
glories twining the corn stalks, and a row of huge sunflowers. Mrs.
Stump and her daughter were great lovers of flowers. They had a small
greenhouse for chrysanthemums, smilax, cacti, and various exotic plants.
A gnarled Gravenstein produced great, juicy apples. There was a big
white fig tree, which froze to the ground periodically, but somehow
managed to survive. Directly behind the house stood two exceptionally
tall Black Republican cherry trees, a rare sight when in bloom and by
July covering the ground inches deep with an over-abundance of ripe
fruit. There were madonna lilies, amaryllis, the spike of a yucca, and
roses in profusion. A sweet Mission rose, brought to the farm from
California, then transplanted to town, was by the front door. Inspired
by a visit to the poet, Longfellow, during her student days at Wellesley
college, Miss Stump had planted a hedge of lilacs modeled after his in
Cambridge.
Not long after Miss Cassie Stump’s death in 1941, the property was
acquired by the Oregon College of Education. The old house, by now in a
state of disrepair, and the once lovely garden, neglected and overgrown,
were removed to make way for the handsome, modernistic library building
and the appropriate landscaping with which it is surrounded. A Jack pine
and the great maples across the front are about the sole reminders of
the former occupancy of the land.
A collection of pictures, records, and mementos of early days at the
college is housed in the library. It seems eminently suitable that this
particular site should become a permanent part of the campus of the
school, in the founding and support of which the Stump family had had
such a large share and in which the members had maintained a vital
interest over so many years.
Christian College—Oregon Normal School—Oregon College of Education
_David Campbell_
[Illustration: (uncaptioned)]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account