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Robert Davis Recording 1 of 3
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RUSS: Testing 1 2 3 4 a b c d e f g t a b c d e f g testing 1 2 3 4. Let's see, let the record show that this is an interview with Robert A. Davis the Third who lives in Nampa, Idaho who was born in 1912. Whose name address and telephone number are in the phone book if you need to talk to him. This interview was done on the [00:00:30] 3rd of June 1985 at the request of Marguerite Brown. Bob, thank you for talking to me. I have talked to you yesterday and put together a little genealogy of the Dewey and the Davis families, and I'd like if you would to kind of go up this list. And make any comments that you feel like on any of these people, and then we'll take it from there.
RUSS: [00:01:00] Let me change my question a little bit Bob. I'd like to have you talk to us just a little bit about both your father and your mother. But your father Robert A. Davis Jr. was an early mayor of Nampa. And I'd like to have you give us, if you can, any recollections that you might have about him during the time that he was mayor or after.
ROBERT: [00:01:30] Well at the time when he was mayor, well early, it was around 1917 or 1918, or at the beginning of the war, World War One,that's it, I mean.
RUSS: Well, let's see. Now his that was when the old City Hall he had can you remember anything about his office?
ROBERT: No, not a thing.
RUSS: Not a thing about his...
ROBERT: I don't remember when he was in office.
RUSS: [00:02:00] I can remember when I was a little kid, my father was city engineer, but I don't think it was under your dad. Now what about what about your mother? Was she born here?
ROBERT: She was born in Silver City. And they moved to Nampa I believe in '98 or '99. I don't think ever went to school here. She went to Eden Hall, New Jersey, I don't think she [00:02:30] ever finished High School.
RUSS: Now Bob, tell me, just to get back to your father just a little bit, where did he come from? What were -- who were his people?
ROBERT: In New Richmond, Ohio. It's on the river about nine miles up from Cincinnati. My grandfather, great, was in insurance. [00:03:00] His father had been a merchant in the early days.
RUSS: Well, what brought your father out here can you recall...
ROBERT: A lot of people at that time came from Ohio and settled around Nampa. He helped clear land for the orchards. I think he worked for the Richards.
RUSS: That's the Richards orchard.
ROBERT: Mm-hmm, they cleared the land of sagebrush and things of that kind.
RUSS: Well now, were these the orchards that people sold stock in?
ROBERT: [00:03:30] I don't believe so, I don't know.
RUSS: He came out as a manager of some kind or as a worker in the orchard, okay now. Your mother had two brothers who are closely connected to Nampa history. And the first one, which was her full brother, was what we know as Colin Dewey, William Cornelius Dewey, and he was born in 1885 and died in 1964. And can [00:04:00] you remember much about him and his first wife, who was Juliet Hickey?
ROBERT: I can't remember much when they were married. I mean I knew her later on when she lived in California. Went to see her occasionally down there.
RUSS: Tell us just a little bit about the Hickey family.
ROBERT: Well, she was Sister to Charles Hickey, who was an insurance [00:04:30] man here and her parents had a little homestead down there about at the end of 17th or 18th Street along the railroad. It burned about 30 years ago or so. And I can remember going there and remember her mother. I don't remember her father. When I lived near the Hickey's, I think Charles Hickey lived in the old house. There [00:05:00] in the corner of, across from the hammock or 17th or 18th Avenue and Third.
RUSS: Kind of remember this now my right bomb...
ROBERT: It's still there.
RUSS: That Charlie Hickey brought Ed Ware to Nampa to help him in his insurance business. That ring any bells?
ROBERT: No.
RUSS: I think that was the case, that Charlie -- Ed Ware came out to work for Charlie Hickey Yeah, I should -- [00:05:30] we'll have to ask Ed. Now can you, can you remember -- and this brings up -- we're going to digress a little bit here. But this brings up what we were talking about yesterday about the beginnings of the first Carnegie Library, the building on 2nd Street. Tell me what you think about that.
ROBERT: I don't know if the Century Club was there then or not, but anyway she was very interested in getting a library in Nampa, so...
RUSS: Now, excuse [00:06:00] me, Sadie would been Ed's wife, Ed's wife -- that would have been your uncle. Yes.
ROBERT: He was a trustee for my grandfather's estate, that's why they know it was the Colonel, William Henry. So he gave the land for the library to the city I suppose for use only as a library, and then it was no longer used for those purposes, it's reverted to the family.
RUSS: Right, [00:06:30] and they got a grant from the well, I guess was the Carnegie Foundation in those days, to build the money. And I remember they had a certain amount of money, which is in the library records, which incidentally would be -- I hope somebody was pursuing that in connection with this Nampa history, because early library history was interesting. Now tell me then, what are your recollections of Laura McDermott? Who was your uncle Khan's second wife, do you have any of her time? She lived until...
ROBERT: [00:07:00] She died in '73 and I knew her very well.
RUSS: Okay now, now, Bob, what are some of your recollections of Ed Dewey, E. H. Dewey as he was known as, who died in 1943 and was married to, to Sierra Nevada D'Orsay Sadie. What's your early recollections of him? Can you think [00:07:30] much about that?
ROBERT: Oh, I just knew him and never knew him as well as Khan, used to see him regularly of course, when we were going up to his office when I wanted 50 cents.
RUSS: Now, tell me where his office was.
ROBERT: It was in the Dewey Scales building on the corner. Across from the north, or southwest corner of 2nd, 1st [00:08:00] Street and 13th Avenue.
RUSS: 1st and 13th. Oh, okay across the street from what was the Falks?
ROBERT: Oh, Falks Nampa D.
RUSS: Yes. Now, what was the building that was part of the Dewey Davis estate, or E. H. and W. C. Dewey investment company, that was over for a Napsinger banks or Napsinger stores. Now, can you think any remembrance of that building?
ROBERT: No, I'm not even sure they owned it. I know Ed [00:08:30] and Sadie and Geraldine lived up on the department on the second floor when they first came back to Nampa in '33...
RUSS: Of that particular building? Over, over, okay. The reason is that at one time I was up there and there was alabaster light fixtures in that building and in some way connected with Ed and Sadie Dewey.
ROBERT: I don't know if they ever owned them or not.
RUSS: Maybe not. But anyway, it was they were it was some way I identified it with. Okay now, [00:09:00] what can you tell me about Mrs. D'Orsay, Sadie?
ROBERT: Well, I saw quite a bit of her in the last few years, and she was a fine, fine woman. She'd tell us stories, and they moved here in the late '90s and built the, what they call the Park House there on the, it was a ranch at that time. I can't [00:09:30] remember much about the house then. Sadie was talking about they didn't have enough money for a heating plan so they had the Colonel and his wife come over and he got cold so he gave him one.
RUSS: This would have been Ed's, her husband's parents, and her husband's. Now, what can you remember about that, what we call the Park House, it's now known as the Park House and I have a picture of it, which I will put with this record [00:10:00] if anybody's interested, this is Russ speaking. I have a picture of the Park House and Lake Ethel which was in front of it. What can you remember about that? You remember being in it when you were a youngster?
ROBERT: Not that when I was that small. I must have been but I don't remember it. I wasn't in it really at all. Girl Scouts used to go there.
RUSS: This was [00:10:30] after it after the lake was gone. The lake was long gone, and it would became kind of city park, Park House. Yes. It's what is known as the Park House I can remember when the lake was still. The lake is where the gardens are now, aren't they? The lake was in there between 16th and the house.
ROBERT: Sadie used to mention that some of the Fundamentalist, religion, [00:11:00] religious people would go out there and have their baptisms in the lake.
RUSS: What about what about the name Sierra Nevada D'Orsay, that's an interesting name that...
ROBERT: Her father was French and he was a sea captain. In fact I believe that she and Mother Sarah D'Orsay came [00:11:30] west on his ship, the San Francisco and they were married there. And later lived at Celilo Falls. Sierra Nevada herself was born in Maine after her mother returned there. But it was named for his ship, which was one of them, a home by the New York Line. Vanderbelts or something of that kind.
RUSS: It's an unusual [00:12:00] name and she was known as Sadie. As I remember she was a friend of my grandmother's and was a friend of many, many people in Nampa. Now they had one daughter. Can you tell me anything about her?
ROBERT: Well, I knew that she graduated from high school when high school in Nampa was Kenwood. I was here at the Kenwood school and then she went to Stanford where she graduated in law. [00:12:30] And then good during the '20s up until the '30s why she and Sadie lived in San Francisco. I'll be turning early '30s when I first got to know her. She was a very impressive person.
RUSS: Very, I can remember a very charming woman. I don't recall if she ever practiced law.
ROBERT: No, I didn't think that she did.
RUSS: But that was unique in those days to find a woman from a little country high school like ours to [00:13:00] to become a graduate of Stanford. Now then, Sadie Sierra, Nevada died in 1962. 80, okay, 1880. She died in about 1962.
ROBERT: In December, she would've been 93 the following January.
RUSS: And then then Edward Henry, Ed the Dewey married...
ROBERT: [00:13:30] No, he was dead by then.
RUSS: Oh wrong, okay. That's right, so he was okay. So then that was the -- so Geraldine was the only survivor of… She was dead too, so that was the end of the of Ed Dewey's line wasn't it? Okay now going back further to [00:14:00] William Henry that we know in Nampa, and he's referred to as Colonel Dewey. He was born in 1823 died in 1903. What can you tell from your hearsay? What did you know about him? You obviously never knew him because you were not born. Well after...
ROBERT: Well, he was he was born in Massachusetts and left home when he was very young, was a boy on the [00:14:30] Erie Canal and then lived in Tonawanda, New York where he married twice and had a son by each wife. He started West in '49 and got sick crossing Nicaragua and spent the winter...
RUSS: Well now you say he started West so obviously went by ship then. He went instead of coming across the prairies as we think about the 49ers. He came by ship to Central America and -- go ahead.
ROBERT: And he went on the San Francisco [00:15:00] and arrived there in 1850 where he was a contractor until the early '60s, he then went to Virginia City and lost money, what money he had.
RUSS: This was Virginia City, Nevada?
ROBERT: And then the strikes in the Owyhee country had begun or had been made, and he went up there and was one of those who laid out Silver's -- [00:15:30] township of Silver City, because it was a county seat in '67 I believe. And he lived there, he was mostly a promoter I think and moved to Nampa.
END OF RECORDING
RUSS: [00:01:00] Let me change my question a little bit Bob. I'd like to have you talk to us just a little bit about both your father and your mother. But your father Robert A. Davis Jr. was an early mayor of Nampa. And I'd like to have you give us, if you can, any recollections that you might have about him during the time that he was mayor or after.
ROBERT: [00:01:30] Well at the time when he was mayor, well early, it was around 1917 or 1918, or at the beginning of the war, World War One,that's it, I mean.
RUSS: Well, let's see. Now his that was when the old City Hall he had can you remember anything about his office?
ROBERT: No, not a thing.
RUSS: Not a thing about his...
ROBERT: I don't remember when he was in office.
RUSS: [00:02:00] I can remember when I was a little kid, my father was city engineer, but I don't think it was under your dad. Now what about what about your mother? Was she born here?
ROBERT: She was born in Silver City. And they moved to Nampa I believe in '98 or '99. I don't think ever went to school here. She went to Eden Hall, New Jersey, I don't think she [00:02:30] ever finished High School.
RUSS: Now Bob, tell me, just to get back to your father just a little bit, where did he come from? What were -- who were his people?
ROBERT: In New Richmond, Ohio. It's on the river about nine miles up from Cincinnati. My grandfather, great, was in insurance. [00:03:00] His father had been a merchant in the early days.
RUSS: Well, what brought your father out here can you recall...
ROBERT: A lot of people at that time came from Ohio and settled around Nampa. He helped clear land for the orchards. I think he worked for the Richards.
RUSS: That's the Richards orchard.
ROBERT: Mm-hmm, they cleared the land of sagebrush and things of that kind.
RUSS: Well now, were these the orchards that people sold stock in?
ROBERT: [00:03:30] I don't believe so, I don't know.
RUSS: He came out as a manager of some kind or as a worker in the orchard, okay now. Your mother had two brothers who are closely connected to Nampa history. And the first one, which was her full brother, was what we know as Colin Dewey, William Cornelius Dewey, and he was born in 1885 and died in 1964. And can [00:04:00] you remember much about him and his first wife, who was Juliet Hickey?
ROBERT: I can't remember much when they were married. I mean I knew her later on when she lived in California. Went to see her occasionally down there.
RUSS: Tell us just a little bit about the Hickey family.
ROBERT: Well, she was Sister to Charles Hickey, who was an insurance [00:04:30] man here and her parents had a little homestead down there about at the end of 17th or 18th Street along the railroad. It burned about 30 years ago or so. And I can remember going there and remember her mother. I don't remember her father. When I lived near the Hickey's, I think Charles Hickey lived in the old house. There [00:05:00] in the corner of, across from the hammock or 17th or 18th Avenue and Third.
RUSS: Kind of remember this now my right bomb...
ROBERT: It's still there.
RUSS: That Charlie Hickey brought Ed Ware to Nampa to help him in his insurance business. That ring any bells?
ROBERT: No.
RUSS: I think that was the case, that Charlie -- Ed Ware came out to work for Charlie Hickey Yeah, I should -- [00:05:30] we'll have to ask Ed. Now can you, can you remember -- and this brings up -- we're going to digress a little bit here. But this brings up what we were talking about yesterday about the beginnings of the first Carnegie Library, the building on 2nd Street. Tell me what you think about that.
ROBERT: I don't know if the Century Club was there then or not, but anyway she was very interested in getting a library in Nampa, so...
RUSS: Now, excuse [00:06:00] me, Sadie would been Ed's wife, Ed's wife -- that would have been your uncle. Yes.
ROBERT: He was a trustee for my grandfather's estate, that's why they know it was the Colonel, William Henry. So he gave the land for the library to the city I suppose for use only as a library, and then it was no longer used for those purposes, it's reverted to the family.
RUSS: Right, [00:06:30] and they got a grant from the well, I guess was the Carnegie Foundation in those days, to build the money. And I remember they had a certain amount of money, which is in the library records, which incidentally would be -- I hope somebody was pursuing that in connection with this Nampa history, because early library history was interesting. Now tell me then, what are your recollections of Laura McDermott? Who was your uncle Khan's second wife, do you have any of her time? She lived until...
ROBERT: [00:07:00] She died in '73 and I knew her very well.
RUSS: Okay now, now, Bob, what are some of your recollections of Ed Dewey, E. H. Dewey as he was known as, who died in 1943 and was married to, to Sierra Nevada D'Orsay Sadie. What's your early recollections of him? Can you think [00:07:30] much about that?
ROBERT: Oh, I just knew him and never knew him as well as Khan, used to see him regularly of course, when we were going up to his office when I wanted 50 cents.
RUSS: Now, tell me where his office was.
ROBERT: It was in the Dewey Scales building on the corner. Across from the north, or southwest corner of 2nd, 1st [00:08:00] Street and 13th Avenue.
RUSS: 1st and 13th. Oh, okay across the street from what was the Falks?
ROBERT: Oh, Falks Nampa D.
RUSS: Yes. Now, what was the building that was part of the Dewey Davis estate, or E. H. and W. C. Dewey investment company, that was over for a Napsinger banks or Napsinger stores. Now, can you think any remembrance of that building?
ROBERT: No, I'm not even sure they owned it. I know Ed [00:08:30] and Sadie and Geraldine lived up on the department on the second floor when they first came back to Nampa in '33...
RUSS: Of that particular building? Over, over, okay. The reason is that at one time I was up there and there was alabaster light fixtures in that building and in some way connected with Ed and Sadie Dewey.
ROBERT: I don't know if they ever owned them or not.
RUSS: Maybe not. But anyway, it was they were it was some way I identified it with. Okay now, [00:09:00] what can you tell me about Mrs. D'Orsay, Sadie?
ROBERT: Well, I saw quite a bit of her in the last few years, and she was a fine, fine woman. She'd tell us stories, and they moved here in the late '90s and built the, what they call the Park House there on the, it was a ranch at that time. I can't [00:09:30] remember much about the house then. Sadie was talking about they didn't have enough money for a heating plan so they had the Colonel and his wife come over and he got cold so he gave him one.
RUSS: This would have been Ed's, her husband's parents, and her husband's. Now, what can you remember about that, what we call the Park House, it's now known as the Park House and I have a picture of it, which I will put with this record [00:10:00] if anybody's interested, this is Russ speaking. I have a picture of the Park House and Lake Ethel which was in front of it. What can you remember about that? You remember being in it when you were a youngster?
ROBERT: Not that when I was that small. I must have been but I don't remember it. I wasn't in it really at all. Girl Scouts used to go there.
RUSS: This was [00:10:30] after it after the lake was gone. The lake was long gone, and it would became kind of city park, Park House. Yes. It's what is known as the Park House I can remember when the lake was still. The lake is where the gardens are now, aren't they? The lake was in there between 16th and the house.
ROBERT: Sadie used to mention that some of the Fundamentalist, religion, [00:11:00] religious people would go out there and have their baptisms in the lake.
RUSS: What about what about the name Sierra Nevada D'Orsay, that's an interesting name that...
ROBERT: Her father was French and he was a sea captain. In fact I believe that she and Mother Sarah D'Orsay came [00:11:30] west on his ship, the San Francisco and they were married there. And later lived at Celilo Falls. Sierra Nevada herself was born in Maine after her mother returned there. But it was named for his ship, which was one of them, a home by the New York Line. Vanderbelts or something of that kind.
RUSS: It's an unusual [00:12:00] name and she was known as Sadie. As I remember she was a friend of my grandmother's and was a friend of many, many people in Nampa. Now they had one daughter. Can you tell me anything about her?
ROBERT: Well, I knew that she graduated from high school when high school in Nampa was Kenwood. I was here at the Kenwood school and then she went to Stanford where she graduated in law. [00:12:30] And then good during the '20s up until the '30s why she and Sadie lived in San Francisco. I'll be turning early '30s when I first got to know her. She was a very impressive person.
RUSS: Very, I can remember a very charming woman. I don't recall if she ever practiced law.
ROBERT: No, I didn't think that she did.
RUSS: But that was unique in those days to find a woman from a little country high school like ours to [00:13:00] to become a graduate of Stanford. Now then, Sadie Sierra, Nevada died in 1962. 80, okay, 1880. She died in about 1962.
ROBERT: In December, she would've been 93 the following January.
RUSS: And then then Edward Henry, Ed the Dewey married...
ROBERT: [00:13:30] No, he was dead by then.
RUSS: Oh wrong, okay. That's right, so he was okay. So then that was the -- so Geraldine was the only survivor of… She was dead too, so that was the end of the of Ed Dewey's line wasn't it? Okay now going back further to [00:14:00] William Henry that we know in Nampa, and he's referred to as Colonel Dewey. He was born in 1823 died in 1903. What can you tell from your hearsay? What did you know about him? You obviously never knew him because you were not born. Well after...
ROBERT: Well, he was he was born in Massachusetts and left home when he was very young, was a boy on the [00:14:30] Erie Canal and then lived in Tonawanda, New York where he married twice and had a son by each wife. He started West in '49 and got sick crossing Nicaragua and spent the winter...
RUSS: Well now you say he started West so obviously went by ship then. He went instead of coming across the prairies as we think about the 49ers. He came by ship to Central America and -- go ahead.
ROBERT: And he went on the San Francisco [00:15:00] and arrived there in 1850 where he was a contractor until the early '60s, he then went to Virginia City and lost money, what money he had.
RUSS: This was Virginia City, Nevada?
ROBERT: And then the strikes in the Owyhee country had begun or had been made, and he went up there and was one of those who laid out Silver's -- [00:15:30] township of Silver City, because it was a county seat in '67 I believe. And he lived there, he was mostly a promoter I think and moved to Nampa.
END OF RECORDING