Preston T. Pyeatt d. Sep 21, 1983
MOUNT VERNON--Preston T. Pyeatt, 84, Mount Vernon, died Wednesday.
He was born Oct. 26, 1898, near Ferndale and married Dicie Patterson on March 31, 1924, at Waterville. The couple lived in the Okanogan Valley where he was an orchardist in the Tonasket area. They moved to the Mount Vernon area in 1979.
Survivors include his wife, Dicie, Mount Vernon; two daughters, Mrs. Dick Sjorgren, Mount Vernon, and Mrs. John Zones, Waterville; one sister, Mrs. Esther Jeffers, Lynden; one brother, Paul Pyeatt, Bellingham; six grand-children; and six great-grandchildren.
Kern Funeral Home, Mount Vernon, is in charge of arrangements.

PRESTON T. PYEATT--Services will be held Saturday, Sept. 24, 1 p.m. at Kern Funeral Chapel. Burial In the Lynden Cemetery. Arrangements by Kern Funeral Home, Mt. Vernon.31

Emma Dicie and Preston Tennant Pyeatt were married March 31st, 1924 at the county seat in Waterville, Washington. They made their home in Omak, Washington, until about 1930 when they moved their family to Tonasket.
Emma Dicie and Preston Pyeatt, known as Dicie and Preston to their relatives and friends (Dad was known as “Uncle Doc” to some of his nieces and nephews), Mom and Dad to Eileen and I, Meme and Poppie to all their Grandchildren--due to the reluctance or inability of the first Grandchild to say Grandma and Grandpa. Preston and Dicie worked very hard all their lives. They were exceedingly honest and practiced good “down home” hospitality at all times.
Cooking was always an important part of their lives, hence in ours. There were many years in the early days that were very hard and lean. They went through the Great Depression with two little ones to care for and years of hardship afterward. During those times there was no money, so their gardens and the fruit from the orchard were very important, as was the cow, the pigs, and the chickens. These provided the meat, eggs, milk, fruit, and vegetables to maintain balanced nutritious meals through the worst times. They canned everything they could during the harvest season to ensure a good supply all year.
Times improved and they were able to afford to buy the supplies and things that they could not before, so more recipes were added to the originals in Dicie's cookbook. Preston had a “sweet tooth”, and enjoyed the desserts that were often made, in addition to the cookies he liked to bake.
Throughout the years the appreciation for good food and good recipes has flourished and has been passed on to succeeding generations.
Dad built a house on a 20 acre tract of orchard, two miles north of Tonasket. We lived there for several years. Eileen reminded me that Dad would make apple boxes there. In those days all the apple boxes for harvest had to be made by hand. Dad would set the box form near the house and make boxes all day, for days. Eileen and I would play out around the new boxes. Those were comfortable days for us, with the warm sun, Dad working nearby, and the pleasant smell of the new boxes.
One year Dad hired a neighbor, Lloyd Cook, to make the boxes. He was a patient young man so we still played by the boxes. Then we got what we called “wet-yer pants” dolls. We would feed the dolls, and then they would wet their diapers, then we would have to hang the diapers to dry. We had little wet diapers hanging everywhere, even on Lloyd’s nail stripper. How he ever got so many boxes made with our “help”, I will never know. Like I said, he was patient. He even took some sides and ends home one night and made a cute doll bed for each of us.
In 1933 or ‘34 or so, came a late hard freeze right at thinning season, that ruined all the little apples. Of course there was no crop that year, no income, so Mom and Dad lost their orchard. At that time the building of Grand Coulee Dam was getting started. A neighbor asked Dad if he would live on his place and take care of his orchard for a few years so that he could get a job at the Dam.
It was while living there, Eileen and I would visit a small swamp by the railroad tracks. We liked to catch the polliwogs. We discovered there were white polliwogs! We liked the white ones better than the dark ones. There were two kinds of white polliwogs. One was sort of pinkish-white, almost transparent, and the other was opaque, a pasty white like white clay. We preferred those the best, but there were not as many of them. Eileen and I would catch as many polliwogs as we could, all colors, and take them home to put them in an old round galvanized tub full of water, with rocks piled in the center. We fed them fish food pellets. They would soon grow legs, crawl up on the rocks, and eventually hop away to find their way back to the swamp.
Sometimes I wonder if there are still white polliwogs in that swamp...
Thanksgiving was always a special time for us. By the last of November, the hectic days of harvest were pretty well finished. The apples would have been picked and hauled to the warehouse. In those days, Mom and Dad both packed apples. By Thanksgiving it was time to slow down and relax a bit. There were always the four of us, though occasionally someone would be invited to share our Thanksgiving dinner. The rest of the weekend would be for relaxing and enjoying the leftovers.
Eileen and I remember our usual Thanksgiving Dinner when we were very young was actually chicken instead of turkey. Times were hard. It was the Great Depression. There was no money to buy things, but we always had chickens. Dad would go out and catch a big chicken, kill it, scald it, and pluck it. Mom would roast it with dressing, and that was our Thanksgiving “turkey”. Later when things got better, we had a real turkey. Our usual menu in those early days consisted of chicken and dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potato casserole, pumpkin pie, and lemon pie. We probably had beets and carrots, but they would likely have been under the edge of our plates. Neither Eileen or I remember anything about vegetables, (they were so common you know), but Mom and Dad grew lots of beets, carrots, turnips, and squash--which is what the pumpkin pie was made of. We don’t remember any salads either. Mom did make her own cranberry sauce, and I think Dad usually made some of his molasses cookies.
The first time I remember Thanksgiving as a holiday was when Eileen and I were very young, and the folks had invited some friends over for Thanksgiving dinner. Mom had cooked everything for the dinner, and all she had to fix was the sweet potatoes. She had cooked them whole in a big cook-pot. Mom had pulled up a stool to sit on while she sliced the sweet potatoes and put them in the casserole dish. When she finished one potato she would stand up and reach way into the pot and get another potato, then sit back down on the stool. The guests were sitting around visiting with her as she fixed the sweet potatoes. I was standing close by watching, Dad was extending the table, and Eileen was watching him. Just as Mom stood up to get the last potato, Dad started putting the chairs--some of which were apple boxes--up to the table. Little Eileen, not knowing the stool was being used, went and got it, because it was the stool that she always sat on when we ate. Mom didn’t see that, so when she got the last potato, she sat down, and down, and down. Kerplop! right on the floor. It was total silence for a minute or two, while everyone was just frozen in place watching Mom blink her eyes in great surprise. Eileen started crying because she thought Mama got hurt. Dad helped Mom up. She kind of shook herself to make sure everything still worked, then went over and sliced that last potato that she still had firmly on the fork. The guests could not contain themselves, started laughing, and laughed until they cried. Dad didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I was still just standing there first kind of scared, then wondering why everyone was laughing or crying, glad that we were going to eat after all. I was thinking that grown-ups are so strange sometimes.
Eileen says that all she remembers about Thanksgiving dinner when we were young was eating and eating until we could eat no more and only having room for pumpkin pie. Then we would go take a nap, and when we all woke up, we would have lemon pie for dessert. John (Zones) says now he knows where the saying, “Do you want dessert now or later?” came from.
In 1936 or ‘37, Uncle Ralph was logging in the Steven’s Pass area, so he and Aunt Evelyn were staying at Baring. We went up there and camped for a week. The adults picked wild blackberries and canned them on portable kerosene stoves.
The folks who owned the Baring Store had a white dog that had puppies. They let us play with those puppies and even let us take them to our camp site. Those puppies were fun to play with. We put doll clothes on them. If we laid them down with a cover, they would lay perfectly still for as long as we wanted them to. We weren’t particularly interested in blackberries at that time, but we sure liked those puppies.
One year when I was maybe five or six years old, Mom, Dad, and Eileen all got the mumps. I was the only one who escaped. They were very ill. Mrs. Charbonneau, a neighbor, felt so bad about their being sick, she made a batch of doughnuts for all of us. It became a family joke, because they could not eat the doughnuts. Dad put the bag of doughnuts in the closet to keep until they could enjoy them. Dad got better first, so once in awhile, he would go and get a doughnut to eat. Sometimes, Uncle Paul would get one. By the time Mom was well enough to want a doughnut, they were all gone.
During the times of the Great Depression, there were many “hoboes” traveling throughout the country looking for work. Sometimes one would come to our back door to ask for food. If Dad was not home, Mom would have the hobo sit on the back steps and wait while she went in and made up a plate of food, or big sandwiches. More often than not we were sent to the chicken house to gather eggs, then Mom would scramble up a pan full, serve it with big slabs of homemade bread, and homemade butter, and whatever fresh fruit was ripe on the trees at that time, topped off with a big glass of fresh milk. Mom never turned anyone away without feeding them. Mom and Dad were always very hospitable to anyone who came our way and always ready to feed everyone.
One year during the apple harvest, Eileen and I were deemed old enough to stay home alone for a couple of hours each day after school until Mom got home from packing apples. We were to do some chores around the house and get supper started. All was going well until there was a rumor that there was a crazy hobo traveling through. Mom and Dad told us it wasn’t likely he would be in our neighborhood, but just incase, we were to keep watch. If someone came that we didn’t know, then we were to hide so he wouldn’t know we were there and stay hidden until he went on his way. I’m sure their idea of go and hide was much different than ours. One afternoon we looked out the window and a man was coming down our driveway. “The Crazy Hobo! Hide.” Eileen ran out the back door. Slam! went the kitchen door. Slam! went the back porch door. Then I ran out. Slam! went the kitchen door. Slam! went the back porch door. We ran out behind an old overturned car and ducked down. We felt safe there, but we wanted to see what he was doing. So, we would take turns looking, pop up and look, duck back down, pop up, duck down. I am sure we looked like a couple of squirrels popping up and down. After awhile, the Crazy Hobo left. It turned out to be our neighbor, Mr. Mills. I am sure that he must have thought, “those Pyeatt kids are really crazy!” What we remember is our brush with the Crazy Hobo.
Mom told me once that this cinnamon roll recipe was given to her by a professional baker. I don’t know who he was, but I sometimes wonder if it was the same baker who during the Great Depression would regularly make a “mistake” in his bread recipe so that he couldn’t sell that bread. The baker would give the loaves of bread to the mailmen, and they would put a loaf or two in the mailbox of those on their routes who were having a hard time.
One time Mom was making cinnamon rolls. Dad had the day off so they decided to go for a short drive--one of our modes of entertainment at that time--while the dough was rising. Dad started driving east, and when he came to a little road decided to see where it went. It went up into the hills and wound around and around and came up and down and back and forth seemingly forever. Everybody began to worry about the cinnamon rolls, but the road just kept going hither and yon. It was getting dark and the lights on the car didn’t work all that well. The road had finally straightened out. Dad was trying to hurry when all of a sudden there was a curve that was so sharp, it was almost square. Dad wheeled that old Model-T around the curve on two wheels. Whew!
We finally got home, and the cinnamon rolls were raised so much they were lapping over the sides of the pan onto the table. Mom baked them anyway and they were the biggest, ugliest cinnamon rolls ever, but they tasted just fine. From that day on, “go for a short drive,” became a saying in our family.
Dad would also make puffed rice treats along with various other dishes. When people came over, there would be a foil lined box jam-packed full. It was amazing!
I was thinking that we had ice cream at Thanksgiving. On further thought and after consulting with Eileen, I am sure that we did not, not when we were young. In those days there were no freezers or refrigerators to make ice in.
Dad had a shed that was probably about 8 feet by 10 feet, and it was our ice house. In late winter when the river was frozen over with thick ice, Dad and our neighbor, Henry Colbert, would take the team of horses and the sled to the river. They would cut big chunks of ice with a special saw made especially for that, and haul the ice to the ice house. There on a thick bed of sawdust they would put a layer of ice chunks with plenty of room in between, so that the sawdust could be filled in around them on all sides. After putting a thick layer of sawdust on top, they would stack another layer on top of that, repeating the procedure until the ice house was filled with ice and sawdust. It would keep the ice frozen through the spring and most of the summer. Sometimes when Dad went to get a chunk of ice, he would let us go with him. I remember the smell of the wet sawdust and the coolness of the inside of the ice house. The folks used the ice to put in an icebox, the forerunner of the refrigerator. The best thing they used it for, as far as we were concerned was making ice cream for the birthdays through the summer months. The last chunk of ice each year would be used for Eileen’s birthday, on the 8th of August. Then there would be no more ice until late winter when the river was well frozen again.
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