Earl Gregg Swem Library, College of William and Mary
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Rena E. Gilkison Diaries, Special Collections Research Center, Swem Library, College of William and Mary.
The materials were acquired by Special Collections Research Center on 05/27/2009.
Accessioned and processed in June 2009 by Ute Schechter.
Information about this individual or organization may be available in the Special Collections Research Center Wiki: <a href="http://scrc.swem.wm.edu/wiki/index.php/Gilkison family">http://scrc.swem.wm.edu/wiki/index.php/Gilkison family</a>.
Diaries, 1929, 1931-1934, of the Gilkison family who lived on a farm in Broadbent, Oregon. The mother, Rena Gilkison (1894-1984) wrote most of the entries, others were done by one or several of the children, Donald, Clemmet and Kathleen. The name in the front of the diaries is given as 'Ralph E.' or 'Ralph Eugene Wilkison and family'.The diary labeled '1928' was kept for the year 1929 and corrections to the year and sometimes weekday were made inside the diary.The following description of these Depression era diaries was provided by the seller:"These books are records of daily life, settling a home, farm and ranch in the Southern Oregon coast area. There are accounts of cooking, baking, building, hunting, berry picking, gardening, caring for livestock, traveling by horseback, illnesses, logging, splitting shakes, forest fires, building a school, fishing, celebrating holidays, traveling, shopping and lots of visiting of friends and neighbors. Some of the towns mentioned are, North Bend, Powers, Marshfield, Bandon, Coquille, as well as trips to Bend, Eugene, and Klamath Falls. Some of the names of family friends are Barkley, Lawson, Hillis, Shepard, Dosse, Garret, Smith, Laird, Herman, Derment, and Brown. These depression era diaries contain fascinating references to “hunting steelhead at night”, cooking fish eggs, hiding a button in a birthday cake, finding “bee trees,” etc."