One of the First Settler Families in Florence

Interviewed by a high schooler, this Eugene resident talks about their escape from Florence and the notoriety of their infamous family. 

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Transcript

[00:10] Leah Velez: You're listening to StoryHelix: intertwining stories past, present, and not yet imagined in Lane County, Oregon. What's up Earthlings? I'm Leah Velez, and I'll be your host. The story we're about to hear was recorded by a young interviewer at a Eugene alternative high school. They chose someone in their community to ask questions, and sent in their recordings as part of a class project. Some of them are folks that worked at the school. Some are community members they know, some are siblings, and some are friends. Let's open up our ear nuggets and give it a listen.

[00:50] Storyteller: So my family came to live in Oregon, well, frankly, a little over 100 years ago. We, though, settled on the coast in Florence. And my family was one of the original families in Florence. So it's a pretty well known family, you might call it notorious. And so they actually moved here along the Oregon Trail, but you can actually track our family coming into the country, at Ellis Island, and then watch us go all the way across the country until we hit Oregon.

 [01:29] My family hoped to find land, and to find opportunity. We were a logging and fishing family. So that's originally why they made their way to Florence. So I chose to move to Eugene to get away from the small town that I was in. I've chosen to stay here because my spouse is from here, and his family all live here. Also, I'm plenty close enough to my family if I want to see them. And there was opportunity here that wasn't present where I grew up. You couldn't go to college in Florence. In order to do that, you had to come here. There was more jobs available. And also just growing up with the people I grew up with. You've known them your whole life, there wasn't, you know, in terms of finding a suitable mate or, you know... you don't want to date someone you've known since they were two. For me, I was looking for something a little more exciting than the small town I wanted more to do. And I needed more opportunity. 

[02:31] Fishing was dying by that point. And it wasn't an industry I wanted to stay in. So I chose to move to Eugene to find college, to have opportunities for jobs, just generally to better myself, and to remove myself from the notoriety of my family in the small town. 

[02:51] It does feel like home. I've lived here longer than I lived in the town I was born in. So it is where my home is. That being said, there are some parts of going back to Florence that feel like I'm going home. Like going to the beach. I grew up on the ocean all the time. So there are certain aspects that make it feel like home when I go home, but it's not home anymore. 

[03:16] I have experienced many things since I moved to Eugene. One, I went to college and I got a college education. I've had both of my children in this town, raised them here. I married my husband and have established a pretty decent life having moved here. But I also experienced that despite moving from Florence to Eugene, it's not as big of a town as it seems. When I first moved here, there were five of us that all graduated the same year that lived within a four-block radius of each other. Because of where we grew up, it was cheap in Florence at the time, it's not now, but that was the cheap area of Eugene to live in. So we all kind of ended up in the same location. In fact, to this day, my arch nemesis lives a block away from me, because it's just not a big town. It seems like it, you know, but after you've been here 20 years you realize it's not. But I have experienced a lot of great stuff here, and it has been... like the best thing I ever did was moving out of the town I grew up in.

[04:27] Leah Velez: Thanks for listening. You can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts. If you've got your own Lane County story to tell, we'd love to hear it, at storyhelix.wordcrafters.org