July 15, 2011

Oroville Mercury Register
October 8, 1966
Gold Star Mothers Set Rummage Sale
A discussion of names of Oroville streets was held when members of Butte County Chapter, Gold Star Mothers of America, met in the Merced Avenue home of Mrs. Myrtle Adams. The streets discussed were named for sons of members of the chapter. These are Rhine, Morningstar, Worthy, Ashley, Stauss, Campbell and Rowe. Plans for the annual fall rummage sale were made. The sale will be held next Friday in the North Burbank Public Utilities District Building at 1960 Elgin St. Mrs. Maud Dasler was introduced as a guest.

Oroville Mercury Register
Gold Star Moms Entertained Two Times This Week
Members of Butte County chapter, Gold Star Mothers of America, have been entertained two times the past week. On Saturday, members and their husbands were guests at a barbecue cook out in the Forbestown home of Mr. and Mrs. Roy Rowe. Rowe acted as chef for the event. The dinner table was centered with an unusual arrangement of peonies in a burl of myrtle wood from Oregon. Those attending were Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Sampson of Biggs, Mr. and Mrs. Del Jenson. Mrs. Jay Brown, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Van Campen, Mrs. Grace Bradish, Mrs. Mable Henley, Mr. and Mrs. M.C. Tieck, Mr. and Mrs. Muril Waugh and Mrs. Pearl Sweeny. The afternoon was spent pitching horseshoes and visiting. Earlier in the week members were guests at a luncheon in the Biggs home of Mrs. Sampson. There were 11 Gold Star Mothers in attendance at the social meeting.

From Jim Hill: Stu this morning (July 1) you mentioned the listening post. While in Oroville High in the 1940’s I served as an observer. The listening post was located on Table Mountain. When you drive up Cherokee Road and reach the top, there’s a parking area on your right that still has some of the ground up asphalt right up to the fence. There was a small wooden structure with windows all around. It was just big enough for two people, a desk and an old-fashioned crank telephone which had a direct line to an office in Sacramento. (You could see the whole valley!) We volunteers had to pass an identification test on Zero’s, Mitsubishis, etc. And our own planes too. There was a man who transported us to our post where we served 4 hours. Four hours later he came with another crew and took us down the mountain. I think his name was Lyons. I don’t know how many trips per day he drove it.

Another Story, by Jim Hill: We built a house in 1936 on Canyon Highlands Drive (I still live there). My father was the local warden of the neighborhood. We patrolled at night to make sure everyone had drawn their drapes so we wouldn’t alert the Japanese. We had a siren on our house to alert the neighborhood. Our neighbors formed a militia group to protect us. I remember names like Richards, Pank, Wangelin Rhoades, Fleming, Roberts and Wallace. He even recruited “Charlie” from Tong Fong Low. Who like others, shouldered a deer rifle as they marched down the street once a week. How could we have not won that war!

Stu’s Notes: On my recent article about Mr. and Mrs. Morris Schurr, I received what I always hope to get, on every story, a phone call. I take e-mails, Lynn’s department from people who were there or know something about a story. My friend Jim Hill was involved with the listening post as was Norma McKillop who was working at the Dist. Attorney office for DA Jack McPherson. She and Louran Bass volunteered to work at night 6-10 pm. Their duty station was out on Chico Rd. Table Mr. Blvd now, at the top of a tower where they would record what they heard or saw. This was in the early 40’s and most of the phones in Oroville, as many younger people have seen in pictures and in collections in museums, were a rectangular box on the wall that had a crank handle on the side to ring up the operator. She would take the number you gave her and connect you. I remember my grandmother had a phone like this. I can see it there in my mind to this day it was on the north-east wall in the dinning room. My daughter Debbie lives there now. You held the piece you listen to in you left hand and cranked the phone with your right, brother Larry was left handed so I don’t know how he did it. and in our case as young boys stood on our tippy toes to talk into the mouth piece on the lower part of the box. As Lynn is typing this she will say “honey” or Stu, to get my attention, “your readers do not want to know what Grandma’s phone looked like.

Daryl Autrey also knew the Schurr’s, he would see them around town after the war and said although blind, Mr. Schurr could get around town quite well and that he had a snack bar at the Butte County Hospital. Daryl thought that he had lost his sight by a dynamite cap explosion. Daryl said his father, Argie Autrey, told him the Lion’s Clubs donated a Braille Typewriter to be used for Mr. Schurr to type what he heard. Many of the Gold Star mother’s names in this article have no connection to the Soldiers they lost, that we know of, also does anyone know of a Rowe Street or Avenue in Oroville?