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Saturday, August 1, 2015

Sepia Saturday 290: 2015 August 1: The White Pelican Hotel, Kamath Falls, Oregon

When I first looked at the prompt for this 290th Sepia Saturday, I knew immediately that I wanted to highlight the White Pelican Hotel in Klamath Falls, which was under construction when my grandparents, Frank and Agnes Laura Sigford had moved to the town.    The grand opening was held on December  2, 1911 with a formal banquet, which drew not only Klamath county notables, but people from San Francisco, California, to Portland, Oregon.

The grand hotel burned to the ground just seventeen years later, but it has lived on in the memories of my mother, and now me.  Not because we ever saw or experienced it's elegance, but because my grandmother, Agnes Laura Sigford did.

The Sigfords were of modest means in 1911, and certainly weren't on the guest list for the dedication banquet, but my grandmother did have a meal in the hotel.  She  would tell my mother and my Aunt Gail about the hotel and how magnificent it was -- and later she would also hold me enthralled with her memories of the White Pelican Hotel.  She had a treasured wine glass engraved with a pelican.  This treasure she kept in her trunk and was one of the few things that she saved from a fire that destroyed the only home they would ever own.  The wine glass survived move after move, and even the grinding poverty of the Great Depression.  Later, when I was a child,  we would go visit her every summer. I remember her bringing that precious wine glass from the glass-fronted book case, where she kept her treasures. After her death that the pelican engraved wine glass graced my Aunt Joyce's china hutch, always bringing back those memories of Grandmother and me.  Her precious wine glass from White Pelican Hotel hauntingly disappeared after the death of my Aunt Joyce.

Even without the wine glass, the White Pelican Hotel lives on in my memories, imprinted by my grandmother's rapturous memories of going into the the grandest hotel between San Francisco and Portland, sitting down to a fine meal and being presented with  - or perhaps purchased -  a pelican engraved wine glass.

In 2004, I put together a book for my mother, A Saturday In October, Memories of the Sigfords and Their Homes in Klamath County, in which I described the White Pelican Hotel.  Because a variety of computer problems over the years, I have lost the original photographs that I purchased from the Klamath County Museum.  So as a fall back position, I have had to photocopy the pages from the book that I wrote for my mother.  The quality does not do justice to that grand hotel of my grandmother's memories, and for that I am sorry.


A Saturday In October, p.v,  by Joan G. Hill
Courtesy of the Archives of JGHill and Roots'n'Leaves
and
The Klamath County Museum


A Saturday In October, p.v,  by Joan G. Hill
Courtesy of the Archives of JGHill and Roots'n'Leaves
and
The Klamath County Museum



 Now stroll on over to see the wondrous places found by our fellow Sepians




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 © Joan G. Hill, Roots'n'Leaves Publications

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20 comments:

  1. Sad that both the hotel and your grandmother's own house were burnt down. Were they wooden buildings? Candles were probably to blame for a lot of fires before electric lighting became widely used - or smoking, or fireplaces. Great to have preserved your grandmother's memories of the hotel, if not the pelican glass,
    .

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    1. I don't know what caused the fire at the White Pelican Hotel, but my grandparents had purchased a piece of land that had a small wood framed house on it. The house was small and in those days, what with cooking and heating with wood fires, chimney fires were not uncommon. My mother was young enough that I question whether she actually remembered grandmother rescuing her precious trunk with her small treasures --- or that grandmother told the story often enough that it was embedded in her memory.

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  2. Hello Joan, I got completely engrossed in your story and still feel sad about the loss of the Pelican wine glass. I’ve never heard the expression ‘china hutch’ before – I would expect to find a rabbit in a hutch. :-) I guess it’s the same as a china cabinet?
    We've still got our china cabinets, but they seem to be becoming a thing of the past. None of our younger relatives go in for that sort of thing, referring to our treasures as clutter.

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    1. Oh, how we do collect things. I now have my Aunt Joyce's china hutch -- it's not a glass fronted china cabinet, and she always referred to it as a china hutch. I now wonder why. In my grandmother's time, her treasures were few so they were sequestered behind the glass-fronted book case that her son, my uncle Clem, made for her when he was in high school. My son now has that bookcase, which he has refurbished. My grandmother would be pleased.

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  3. It must have been a very special dinner that gave her so many happy memories

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    1. I don't know if the dinner was so special, but certainly going to the White Pelican which was known throughout the Pacific West coast as one classy place, was definitely special to my grandmother. I am sure that her memories of the grand hotel far surpassed the elegance of the hotel itself.

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  4. Even with just the photocopy of the original book it is still a pleasure to see those photographs and to read the fascinating story.

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    1. Thank you, Alan. I went through a couple of days of chaos looking for those photographs, and finallly trying to find similar ones on the internet. I found a couple, but didn't highlight what I wanted, so I settled for the photocopies of the book. Glad you enjoyed it.

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  5. I wonder whether it would be possible to find another wine glass like that now.

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    1. Now that's an interesting thought. I had never considered that option. I might check into it;. Thanks.

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  6. I've been to this town, Oregon is a lovely state! We stayed at Cannon Beach but we made the tour of so many places, and even crossed the bridge into Washington State! Lovely old hotel this is,and nice to read about your grandparents too.

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    1. WoW, I rarely hear from a blogger friend that even knows where Klamath Falls is located, much less been there. And for your surprise -perhaps, I made a trip back to Wisconsin and Minnesota a couple of years ago, and was close to Minneapolis. Had made plans to visit a cousin of sorts, but ran out of time. The distances look close on the map, but our zig-zagging throughout those two states took a fair amount of time.

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  7. I like this little piece...what do you think happened to the White Pelican wine glass?

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    1. I don't have a clue. By the time, I realized that I had no idea who had the wine glass, there was no one left to ask -- Loise, Joyce, Gail and Clem were all gone -- and gran definitely did not have the wine glass. Glad you liked this little bit of family history and your great-great grandmother would be pleased that another generation now has memories of the White Pelican.

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  8. Did Aunt Joyce have a family? The special wine glass may have wound up with one of them who, not knowing the lovely story behind it, gave it away without a thought - which would be rather sad. As for the pictures, I assume you've tried finding some online to replace the ones you lost? It's amazing what you can find online these days!

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  9. Gail, none of my aunts had children, and no one in my uncle Clem's family is close enough to have obtained it. It may have been in a box or something after my aunt died, and got thrown away or sent to Goodwill -- or some other fate. Sad. I can go back to the museum in KIamath Falls and get copies of the photographs -- I just dinna have time before posting time. Thanks for reading.

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  10. In 1911 hotels had a more important social purpose for the local citizens than they do today. Our family has a similar collection of hotel souvenir treasures that are special memories passed down over the generations.

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  11. Mike, that's probably true, especially in the backwater country places like Klamath Falls. To me the real story is how important that little bit of elegance was to my grandmother. Makes me curious as to what little snippet of memory about my life and times that my grandchildren will pass on to their children and grandchildren -- if indeed, they do so. Where were you grandparents or great-grandparents from, if you don't mind me asking?

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  12. I enjoyed hearing about your grandmother and the Pelican Glass...and the hotel. But I also want to commend you for having self published that book about where the Sigfords had lived. It's a great idea, especially since you had pictures of the homes. I've lived many places, but mainly have pictures of relatives!

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    1. Glad that you enjoyed this little piece of my history. And I thank you for the kind words about the book. It was a fun project to do -- a bit of sluething, dectective work on some of the places they lived -- as well as sorting out mother's memories.d

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