Penned in celebration of the Fox farm in South Tillamook County turning 100 years old, May 16, 2022. Seasoned with lyrics from, ‘100 Years”, by Five for Fighting
Orra Baltimore married Jim Fox in 1893 when she was 18 and he was 21. They had a daughter almost a year later in 1894, and April 3, 1899, Royal Hobart Fox was born. Jim started drinking when Royal was a boy and by the time Royal was 16, his parents divorced.
“I’m 15 for a moment, caught in between 10 and 20, and I’m just dreaming, counting the ways to where you are.”
Orra then married Henry Rambo, a businessman of some means, September 1916. Nine months later Rambo was riding with a few others on a timber train out of the mountains to Mill City when the train ran away downhill. Rambo and one other man jumped. Rambo broke his neck and died, as the train reached the bottom of the hill, screeching ironically to a safe stop.
On June 12, 1920 Royal now 21 year-old, married 16 year old Velma Bailey, in Salem. A few months later, November 1, his mother Orra married Walter Williams, just a year older than she.
“I’m 22 for a moment, and she feels better than ever and we’re on fire, making our way back from Mars. At 15, there’s still time for you, time to buy and time to lose. There’s never a wish better than this, when you’ve got a hundred years to live.”
November 3, 1921 Royal and Velma had a son in Albany they named, Hobart Clyde Fox, or Hoby.
On May 16, 1922, at 47 year-old Orra bought a 96 acre property on the east side of Beaver Creek, a mile up the stream from Beaver. She loaded what she could in a five-year old Studebaker and drove from Mill City to Beaver, Tillamook County. The property was across Beaver Creek and though a bridge had been built prior, there may not have been one there when Orra bought the place. A foot-log worked for access off and on for decades while bridge after bridge washed out.
The property consisted of a nice home and a few sheds. Orra’s third husband, Walter Williams, was less than enthusiastic about establishing a farm, so Orra sent word to her son in Mill City; she needed his help. Within months of Orra moving to the coast, Royal came to Beaver in a buckboard wagon with his wife and year old son.
This home was built by Ike Hiner, who became the head cheesemaker at Beaver cheese factory, after his brother-in-law, George Merriman Foland, died in 1893. Hiner’s brother Leonard was part owner in Tillamook Lumbering Company, that probably provided doors and window sash. Ike’s wife, Lillian Ellen Jackson-Hiner and their daughters, Mida, Dolores, and Gladys can be seen in the picture, taken about 1905.
Just one and a half years after Orra purchased the farm, on a Saturday night, October 13, 1923, she passed away at 48 years old. Her husband Walt Williams was mentioned in her obit, but it isn’t clear if the couple may have already parted company before Orra passed. He was never heard from again.
Royal and Velma were divorced September 20, 1926, and Hoby remained with his father, on the farm. A month shy of 28 years old, Royal was married March 9, 1927, to Bessie Gitchell, 21. On May 31, 1928, the couple had their first child, a daughter named Lucille Marie. Three and a half years later, December 18, 1931, James Royal Fox was born.
“I’m 33 for a moment, I’m still the man, but you see I’m a “they”, a kid on the way, babe; a family on my mind.”
Jimmy and his siblings shared a happy childhood, on the farm their grandmother had bought. Their father Royal worked in sawmills to help support the family. When Jim grew into an adult, he followed his father into the local sawmills. Then in 1955 he married Laura Winters from Garibaldi, but whose family were pioneers to South Tillamook County since the early 1870’s. The couple lived upstairs in the homestead with Jim’s parents until they could afford to rent a place, a short walk south, on the hill opposite Beaver Creek. From these most modest beginnings, they began a family.
“I’m 45 for a moment, the sea is high and I’m heading into a crisis, chasing the years of my life.”
Royal developed heart problems that could have been corrected in later years, but could not by January 8, 1961, when he passed away in his son Jim’s arms. His death crushed my father.
“At 15 there’s still time for you. Time to buy and time to lose yourself within a morning star. At 15 I’m alright with you. There’s never a wish, better than this, when you’ve got a hundred years to live.”
Jim and Laura Fox had 5 children by 1969, and he had climbed from the ranks of sawmill workers, into owning a grocery store and gas station at the south end of Pleasant Valley. When the state highway was rebuilt, the store was taken by eminent domain, so Jim and Laura Fox bought the dairy at the end of Blanchard Road. In 1974, they bought Leta & Elton’s Grocery, in Beaver, and for two years they ran both. Laura and Jim lost their second child, a daughter named Dottie, to a car wreck in 1976, but thankfully her son Jimmie, a baby at the time, survived.
Jim Fox was 5’ 4” and the biggest man I ever knew. He was an example of what a man is supposed to be. He was a role model that I studied but never came close to becoming. I am his only son. He told me later, when I was born doctors saw my legs and gave my parents the opportunity to give me up, but they would have none of it; and they didn’t raise a crippled boy to be a cripple. As a young man I was a handful. By the time I was 23, he sold me the family store because, in his words, “You were so wild I figured you were gonna kill yourself. But I raised you, and I knew that if I heaped enough responsibility on your back, that you’d buck up.”
January 1, 1989, I began buying Fox Grocery. In 1992, I moved onto the Fox farm and lived in the homestead, using a wood cook stove and outhouse, and loved every minute of it. In 1994, money from timber on the property built a new barn. In 1996, Jim and Laura Fox built a home on the farm, then two years later I replaced the homestead with a new home. Jim Fox Sr worked as a dairy herd inspector from one end of the county to the other before he finally retired to the farm. He was, at heart, a farmer.
“Half time goes by, suddenly you’re wise… another blink of an eye, 67 is gone, the sun is getting high… we’re moving on.”
One summer evening at dusk I was digging a fence post hole and Dad drove up alongside me. He observed me working and sweating. Then he said, “This place killed your grandpa, and it’s killing me and someday, it’ll kill you too, James.” We grinned, then he turned forward driving on home; we both were content. We fought sometimes, about how to proceed with a project, or what needed to be done. It was a sad day when he grew so old, he quit arguing.
The latter half of 2010 saw Jim Fox Sr.’s health decline. By February 2011 his time was close. Two weeks before he passed, he got into my truck and I drove him up on the family property; that so many of our kin have lived their lives upon; That he cut hay with a scythe on as a boy and worked on with his father with a team of horses; that he taught me how to hunt, cut trees, and set chokers on. He pointed to spruce trees I needed to cut down and recalled how the woods looked there when he was a boy; where Grandpa had roads and worked his team. He pointed out, and talked about killing bucks here, and there. A few days later he never spoke again.
About two weeks later, February 22, 2011, our collective world changed forever, when that old man died.
“I’m 99 for a moment, and dying for just another moment, and I’m just dreaming, counting the ways to where you are…”
I kept the store for several years; only as long as I had to in order to live the rest of my life in these woods, on this farm on the side of the hill; The one place I’ve ever known to bring me such peace. As the seventh and last Oregon son of Benjamin Fox of Virginia, it is important to me to tell our story before I am gone. It is to that end, out of love that I document the past.
May 16, 2022 will mark 100 years of Fox family memories; of all the love, resolve, laughter, joy, and pride that a family can feel over a that long of a period of time. Despite failure, disagreement, endless seasons of sweat, bridge collapse, death, tears, grief, and costs in blood, that naturally accompany such a time frame; we made it. Small family farms are an endangered species in Oregon, for a million reasons. We beat the odds.
There are currently only 1247 Century Farms, in Oregon. We have applied for this certification, and should receive it at a dedication ceremony held at the Oregon State Fair, this August.
And it all happened on a south-facing hillside on Beaver Creek, in South Tillamook County, Oregon.
“Hey, there’s never a wish better than this, when you’ve only got a hundred years to live.”