Angelo Mandelas comes to the rescue for old typewriter

Received from reader Judy Spalding:

"Dear Dennis: Angelo's Office and Machine & Clock repair still operates out of his home. His number is 765-8443. I can't remember his address, but the last I saw him I took in a clock. And he always was great with typewriters."

Thanks for the info, Judy. Actually, Angelo is the person I had in mind when thinking about someone who could repair this typewriter.

He called shortly after the paper hit the streets last Friday. The typewriter is in his shop now. He said replacing the old ribbon may be the problem.

Angelo, thanks in advance for repairing the typewriter and, thus, helping to educate the visitors to the Grant County Historical Museum.

Reader: If you have old typewriter parts or ribbons, consider donating them to the museum. The parts may be used to repair this typewriter and others.

Grant County history

The Grant County Historical Society has compiled several volumes of Grant County history. The books are available for purchase at the Historical Society Museum gift shop in Ephrata.

I bought the series in 2009 and secured permission to relay some of the history through this column. Memories of Grant County, compiled from taped interviews by the Grant County Historical Society.

Today we continue the story of Wilson Creek by Cris Mordhorst, recorded Feb. 10, 1976:

We went out on a farm in 1909. Two churches were built in the town at the same time and we also got city water in Wilson Creek about that same year. My dad bought six old horses, he took the four best ones on the drill and he gave me one real tall, old mare (she was skinny because her teeth were bad), one cayuse, and a crippled mule he had bought for $25, for a harrow team.

I was so ashamed of them as a kid, that when I'd see a neighbor coming down the road, there was no gravel and it'd be dusty, I was harrowing back and forth, so I had to go to the fence really, but I'd turn around sometimes and go the other way, so I wouldn't be near the road when they got out there. Today I'd sure like to have a picture of them to show you people, because I'm not a bit ashamed of them anymore .

It seems when the Mickelson boys, they were farming northwest of us, they'd ride in to town to get the mail, they just wait at the fence until I'd come so there'd be no use f or me to turn around for them because they'd stand there and wait and talk. Of course, they never made fun of my team, but I was ashamed of that old crippled mule. He seemed to walk on the side of his foot and you couldn't take him out on the road because the ground was too hard, but out in the field he worked real good.

My father had taken up a desert claim in Montana and sold the right before he came and the good homesteads all were gone when we got here. We started on marginal land that others didn't want to farm, but a man by the name of Schrader had a half-section that he wanted my father to take.

He also owned a house in town and said they could move in to the house in town. They lived there the first year. We had to haul water out with us in barrels. Of course a lot of people hauled water in those days.

I want to call attention to my wife and her sister. They were the ones on the immigrant train, and my brother-in-law, Frank Knopp. I have a son here, Darrel Mordhorst.

The Finney house is still standing. It is kinda built around the old house and there is more to it than the original. It was there when the railroad went through.

The Finney's came in 1884; first George Finney and Zack Finney. Zach Finney lived right next to us for years until he passed away. They came in 1884 and they walked over the Cascades when they come out and the same year they walked back over the Cascades, then worked their way around The Horn and up through the Gulf of Mexico and up the Mississippi River to Missouri. Dennis note: This is presented here just as it is written. While walking over the Cascades is quite a trip, doing so in those days seems reasonable. However, all the other walking seems a little out of place and would take years. I'm wondering if they really did all of the walking stated.

They married their wives and came back the following year, in 1885. Zerck Finney settled next to us. They spotted that place and also one at Odessa. George Finney took the place at Odessa. They walked back over the Cascades and walked over that in April and in June Oscar was born. So you can imagine walking from Seattle to Wilson Creek sure must have been quite a trip.

My name is Cris Mordhorst of Wilson Creek. My father's name was Detlef Mordhorst. He came from Germany when he was 20 years old to skip from the military service in Germany. He told his stepmother he'd like to come to America and he paid the way for another brother and they took out for America.

My mother's name was Anna Heich. They were married in Clinton, Iowa and then came west to Montana and finally to Wilson Creek where my mother passed away the first winter we came.

I got married to a Hirschel girl, Clara Hirschel, one of those who came on the immigrant train. We were married on New Year's Eve in 1924.