Hazel Frost

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Hazel Frost Oral History Interview

Interviewer : John Morrison, Crater Lake National Park Historian

Interview Location and Date: Oregon, August 4, 1987

Transcription: Transcribed by Cheryl Ryan, September 1997

Biographical Summary (from the interview introduction)

Wife of park ranger W.T. “Jack” Frost who served at Crater Lake National Park from 1936 to 1943.

My predecessor, John Morrison, conducted a total of seven interviews during the four months he served as park historian in 1987. Hazel Frost was among the former park employees or residents he interviewed, but a backlog of tapes and no funds for transcription meant that processing of the interview did not take place until a decade later. Unfortunately Mrs. Frost died during that time, so there was no way to release the edited transcription. Her son Charles, however, has been kind enough to extend us the courtesy of a release almost six years after Cheryl Ryan prepared the final draft.

Materials Associated with this interview on file at the Dick Brown library at Crater Lake National Park’s Steel Visitor Center

Taped interview; Some related information is in another interview conducted by Morrison on the same day in 1987 with O. W. Foiles.

 

To the reader:

My predecessor, John Morrison, conducted a total of seven interviews during the four months he served as park historian in 1987.  Hazel Frost was among the former park employees or residents he interviewed, but a backlog of tapes and no funds for transcription meant that processing of the interview did not take place until a decade later.  Unfortunately Mrs. Frost died during that time, so there was no way to release the edited transcription.  Her son Charles, however, has been kind enough to extend us the courtesy of a release almost six years after Cheryl Ryan prepared the final draft.

What follows is a brief account of life at Crater Lake from 1936 until 1942.  Some related information is in another interview conducted by Morrison on the same day in 1987 with O. W. Foiles.

Stephen R. Mark

(Crater Lake National Park Historian)

July 2003

Hazel Frost Oral History Interview

This is an oral history Interview with Hazel Frost, wife of W. T. (Jack) Frost ranger at Crater Lake from 1936 to 1943.  Interview data is August 4, 1987.

My name is Hazel Frost.  Our first move to Crater Lake was in 1936.  Jack went up in February but I waited until after the baby was born and he was born in April.  I came up in June, moving to a log cabin with a new baby.  It was some rather primitive conditions compared to what I was used to.  A wood stove to cook on and DC electricity only.  So if we went out and got the motor started on time, we had lights for the evening.

There were two houses in the same neighborhood.  We lived at Annie Spring in a log cabin. (1). There were two others there for permanent people but not occupied at that time, I think.  Later on the Finches moved to the big house (2).  The Ordwines were in the little house on the canyon (3).  Peter and Becky were never in that house I think.  Anyway they came after the Ordwines, I think.

The second permanent ranger was Breynton Finch.  You were [ she is talking to her husband Jack] the first permanent under Chief Crouch.  Then George and Helen Fry came up about that same time.  I don’t know the exact data.  So there were three permanent rangers in addition to the Chief.  Then, of course, the summer rangers.  You didn’t have much to do with the ranger naturalist, even though that is what you would have preferred.  [ Jack responds]:  Yes.

But they did assign you as wildlife ranger.  I don’t know if you were wild or the animals were.  Anyway, you were the wildlife ranger for a while.  You did some bird banding and kept records about some of the mammals and that sort of thing (4).  You also had an assignment in photography for a while.  I found that in one of the letters I was reading.

I had to get used to more intermittent shopping.  Didn’t run to the store very often since one store was 57 miles away and the other was 75.  We didn’t go shopping very often.  It meant planning  ahead a little more then I was used to doing.  Cooking meant you had to plan ahead.  Chop the kindling, start the fire, wait until it got hot enough.  Meals were not very dependable when the ranger was out on patrol.  I’d get a meal ready and it would site and wait two or three hours before you would get there.  Occasionally we would entertain the summer rangers to get to know them a little better, over a meal.  They mostly ate at the Mess hall.  So they did not mind a home cooked meal.  We lived at the Annie Spring and the Mess hall was up at the Headquarters area.  I remember one Thanksgiving they invited us up to dinner at the Mess hall and I think the CC boys were they.  They had sort of a southern dressing in the turkey.  It was a cornbread dressing, not the kind we were used to.  But it was very good.  The CC camp was not very far from us but the boys worked with you (Jack) somewhat, I presume.  We got acquainted with one of the boys, Jim Lockhart.  He would occasionally baby site our children while we would go to town or if we went to visit somebody.  I remember now, and this happened very seldom, but once in a while we would leave the boys and go over to the house next door.  We leave the windows open in case one of them would yell. That was after they had gone to bed and was sound asleep.  Supposedly.  One night we had company and were sleeping downstairs on the hide-a-bed.  I heard Charles scream upstairs.  So I went up and as I went past that little window, we could see out on the field of snow, was a marten loping across the field from our window out toward the woods.  When I got up to Charles room, I had a wind shield (blanket) tacked around his bed.  That had been pulled down and I am sure that marten had been in the house and had pulled that down ant that is why in screamed.  I didn’t find any foot prints or anything.  Anyway that was scary at the time.

The same marten, or I am assuming it was the same one, tried to get into our cooler.  There was just a space between the window and the screen.  That is where we kept our meat, since we did not have refrigeration at the time.  He was not easily discouraged.  The only way I could get rid of him was to move the meat.  The refrigerator we had for awhile was a coal-oil one.  You had to fill it and we had to light it.  It did seem to keep things cool, but it wasn’t very efficient.

One time, about the second year we were there, we were on vacation in California.  When we came back here, there was a beautiful new electric stove in the kitchen.  The wood stove had been moved and they had installed an AC current so we could use our iron and washing machine and that kind of thing.  It was a real boon to have real electricity.  We didn’t have to go start the motor in the garage to make it go, [something] which was a little bit undependable.  I mean, sometimes it went and some times it didn’t.  It made quite a change in our water heating and our cooking, lighting and all that sort of thing.  Even the record player couldn’t operate on the DC current,  the kind we had.

I remember one year I had gone down to the dentist to have some worked done and he decided that one of my wisdom teeth needed to be pulled.  So he dug away at that for awhile  and couldn’t get in out.  This was down in Klamath Falls.  So finally he said

“ Well, you’ll have to go down to San Francisco.”  I didn’t have a bag with me and I had one little boy.  So I got on the train.  The porter I guess thought I was a little bit wacky because I was going without even a suitcase, down to San Francisco.  First I phoned and made an appointment.  Went down to have a tooth pulled out.  It wasn’t always convenient living up there to have [our] medical needs met.  Fortunately, my family lived in the Berkeley area so I wasn’t really stranded.  

Where did the kids go to school? 

Well, they were not ready for school until we left the lake.  We moved in November I think, and Charles started school in September or October.  We got down to the Medford area and we rented a little cabin out toward Oak Grove area, I think.  I wanted to be sure that this very precious son of mine had the right kind of a teacher.  So I inquired of the principal, “What kind of a first grade teacher he would have?”.  He said “ I think she is pretty good.”  I didn’t learn until later on that she was his wife.  Anyway, she turned out to be a good first grade teacher.  So it worked out all right for us too.

I don’t know if being isolated made me a little more concerned for the welfare of the children or not.  But maybe it was my particular personality.  I know the kids had been affected by being up there in the long winters, as I said before.  When they got down to Medford they would stroke the grass and things like that.  Things they had not had contact with for months.  They found it something good to remember.

I  remember when Pete came.  That was before he was married.  He was bringing his bride and we were particularly thrilled to have Becky there too.  I remember when the Ordwines.  She was also a bride.  I got a little mixed up on her name.  We had come from Glacier, where I had known some Sourwines.  And I introduced her as Mrs. Sourwine, and she didn’t really like that very much.  But I think I could be forgiven since I had not known any Ordwines before.  We still keep in touch with them.  And the Armentrouts, and the Foiles and the Crouches.  Breynton Finch has been gone for quite a while.  I don’t know if Amy is still living or not.  Ethel [Wilkinson] would have known.  I haven’t heard from Amy for a couple years now.  She lived next door to us for a while. I remember we were having a tea over there.  A very elegant tea over at her big house and we had to carry dishes back and forth.

Anyway, it was very nice party.  We had planned it for quite sometime.  Of course, we had just our neighbors because people we lived with, and the people we worked with and the people we played with were all the same people at Crater Lake.  It was small community, probably smaller then the it is now.

I remember one of the work (maintenance) men there thawed plumbing if the plumbing got frozen.  He would come and thaw it out.  What was his name.  His name was Cliff Hazel.

Then I remember Ferdie Hubbard and Eleanor.  Ferdie was a ranger.  He was at the East Entrance for awhile.  They were from Medford.  So when we moved to Medford and they were also down there.  We saw them often.

Who was the man that was the mechanic?

[From Jack]  Doug Roach?

I don’t remember. Anyway he was very good.  Of course all of the equipment as well as the trucks had to have proper care.

The bears were a problem for a while. They actually let them feed at the garbage dump (6). Then kind of discouraged that, and tried to get the bears a little further away.  I remember when they got into Jean Steels house.  Jean Steel was, do you remember.

[From Jack] She was Will Steel’s daughter.

Yes. They [bears] got into the Roach’s place or tried to get in there one time.  Sadie and Doug Roach.  We’ve seen them in Medford not too many years ago.  I am trying to think of the man who was the naturalist.  Oh, John Doerr.  I don’t remember where he went.  To Colorado, did he?

He went to Rocky Mountain then later he went to Olympic.  His wife lives up at Port Angeles.

Yes, I think we contacted her several years back when we were up that way.  People spread around a bit.  The Fryes went to the East Coast.  George and Helen.  They are retired now of course.  We hear from them, around Christmas time.  We like Christmas letters because they keep us informed about what people are doing.

Crater Lake is special to all of us that have lived there.  It is partly the place and partly the people and the memories and experiences.  It all goes together to make up a part of our own lives.  There are many beautiful places at Crater Lake.  I mean you go up Garfield and get an over all view of the whole lake and the park.  The Castle Crest (Wildflower Garden) where the flowers were in bloom in early spring.  Little places like, the Lady of the Woods.  That canyon where you were looking for the man that was lost (7).  That is an interesting place to explore if you don’t have to, and to look at from above.

The wildlife at Crater Lake.  Our cabin was right under the flyway for the geese, as they migrated either north or south.  That was always a thrill.  You could hear them before you could see them.  But you could see great V’s of the geese flying overhead and hear them honking.  Then the animal life.  We had a fox we fed little scraps of meat out of the window regularly.   He got so he would come and expect food.  We even had some good picture opportunities.  Our fox got his picture in LIFE.  When a “LIFE MAGAZINE” photographer was up there.  He made a good model.  The boys wanted me to see if I could get him [ the fox ] to come into the house.  So I kept putting meat further and further and sure enough he came in and he didn’t come very far and he didn’t come very willingly.  He scooted out in a hurry.  The other animal that wanted to come in the house one time, we weren’t  particularly thrilled about.  That was the bear.  By the time he got the screen door open, it slammed once.  He was out too.  He didn’t like that noise.  I was just walking across the street and I couldn’t do anything about it except yell.  It wasn’t very long before that when he bears invaded the house over on the canyon and made a shambles of it.  He got into her kitchen, her new cupboard of jam, and the refrigerator.  Anyway, I did not want that to happen to our house.

One time in the winter I was watching out the kitchen as a marten was chasing a squirrel.  It was a life and death matter for both of them.  The squirrel was up and down the tree and the marten was up and down after him.  Each of them trying to win.  It was food for the martin and life for the squirrel.  The squirrel finally got up the top. What he said to that marten wouldn’t bear repeating. He talked down to him in no uncertain terms.  Anyway, he was free.

We used to go huckleberry picking west of the park towards Union Creek (8).  We canned huckleberries to make pie out of.  It just makes my mouth drool thinking about it now.

Shopping was never easy.  In the fall we would stock up on cases of vegetables and many cases of canned milk for the boys.  It was 75 miles to Medford to shop and 57 miles to Klamath Falls.  Either trip wasn’t exactly easy.  We would have to get somebody to sit with the boys or take them along.

The doctor that attended us was in Klamath Falls so it got to be easier to go that way.  Haven’t  seen or heard of him for years.  He was a very fine person.  Very fine with they boys.  We could always phone him.  Well, almost always.  Sometimes the lines were down and the men would be out patrolling the telephone lines so that we would have contact with civilization, shall I say.

I don’t want to emphasize the hardships at Crater Lake because the were secondary.  The privilege of living in a place like that was paramount.  It much outweighed any of the hardships that were there.  The people that we got to know there have lasted a lifetime as friends.  We wouldn’t give that up for anything.  It takes a big chunk out of your life.  How many years were we there?  Six or Seven years.  It is one of the important segments of our life.  I mean, I can’t think of any other six or seven years that were that important.  Or that have that much meaning to us.  I suppose that is one reason why I feel special about Crater Lake.

We did have one memorable experience that I mentioned before, but it wasn’t on the tape.  The time that we went down to the lake.  With Wayne Karschner, wasn’t it?  We took a boat and went over to Wizard Island, fished on the way and got some fish.  When we got up to the top of Wizard Island, we cooked our meal and found enough flat spots that we could roll out three sleeping bags.  That wasn’t easy in that little crater up there.  We spent the night in a crater within  a crater.  That was an interesting experience.  This we could do because my family was visiting and minded the children so we could do this on our own.  We didn’t have too many opportunities to do things without the family.  There was one CC boy that looked after the children occasionally  when we were on an errand or visiting friends.

There was no church at Crater Lake and we didn’t contact the church down at Klamath Falls.  We didn’t have any church life while we were up there.  Though we were accustomed to it when we lived in town.  We were always a part of a church community and still are.  I don’t know if they have a church up there now or not.

They have services. (9).

In the spring when the boys could run across the snow and I couldn’t.  I would sink in up to my knees.  They could get away from me in a hurry when they could run and I couldn’t.  They enjoyed the snow.  They also played in the pumice dust come summer.  Made little colored boys out of  them.  They would play with that pumice dust and it stuck to their faces and hands.  There was no tub.  You had to bathe them in a shower.  We didn’t  have a shower in our cabin.   Thing, I suppose, seemed difficult but for the time worked out.  We did not have mail delivery very often.  I don’t remember whether the mail came up regularly in the summer time.  I guess it must have.  They must have brought it up.  Our mailing address was Fort Klamath.  We went down there for mail.  Had a box number.  I suppose they have a post office up there now. 

Yes, in the summer. (10).

I don’t know how many residents were there then compared with now.  But in the winter time there weren’t maybe five families at the most.  Also a few single men.  I think the Superintendent and the Chief Ranger both moved to Medford in the winter.  You (Jack) were in charge part of the time up there.  Of course the snow plow crews were pretty important in the winter time.  There also had to be someone to come thaw your pipes when they froze up.

I can’t think of anything else unless you have some questions.

Foot Notes:

  1. Building 125, erected in 1928 and demolished in 1956.
  2. Building 128, constructed by Superintendent W. F. Arant in 1905 and taken down by park employees in 1952.
  3. Building 129
  4. This was because the park made annual reports to the Washington Office during the 1930’s and 1940’s about the condition of wildlife, something which included census figures.
  5. She was resident in Medford when Steve Mark interviewed her by telephone in 1989.
  6. Located at what is now Steel Circle at Park Headquarters.
  7. Annie Creek Canyon, where the search for Alfred Goetez took place in 1939.
  8. On Huckleberry Mountain, probably near the campground.
  9. Through Christian ministry in the Parks. Summer only.
  10. Crater Lake has had a post office at Park Headquarters since 1905.  It was summer only until after World War II.
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