Biography of Pearl Eleanor Carlisle

Written by Katherine Farr

This project has helped me feel much closer to my Grandma Pearl. I have determined that she was a very talented individual and she was always cheerful and smiling. I have loved seeing the similarities between her and family members, and I have made some of those comparisons in this paper. The information I used for this report was compiled from many sources including my mom Rebecca Jean (Griffin) Farr who is Pearl’s granddaughter, my Grandma Betsy (Smith) Griffin who is Pearl’s daughter and my Aunt Grace who is Pearl’s granddaughter.

Pearl Eleanor Carlisle was born June 20, 1889. It has been listed that Pearl was born in Cripple Creek Colorado and Denver Colorado but no one knows which of the two places she was actually born. Pearl believed it was Cripple Creek but was never quite sure. John Edward Carlisle and Lily Ann (Horner) Carlisle were her parents and she was an only child. When Pearl was only 2 her mother died. Eventually John re-married a “German lady” named Matilda Ann (Wood) who he had hired as a nanny after Lily’s death. Pearl grew to love her step-mother very much. Matilda often helped others by doing house keeping chores for them. John was a miner and often left town for a while leaving Matilda with the children. Five additional children were born to John and Matilda: Frances, Edward, LaVerne, Olein and Etta. Matilda worked trying to earn enough money to hold the family together while Pearl stayed home and baby sat the kids. Pearl’s brothers and sisters loved Pearl and treated her with love and respect. The family often moved around.

When Pearl was very young the little town in Cripple Creek, where her family lived, burned downed. Pearl recalled to her daughter Betsy how she remembered at night “people streaming past their door, many in their night clothes and some with sheets wrapped around them.” Grace traveled to Cripple Creek and discovered it was located in a valley surrounded by hills, but was un-able to determine where the Carlisle home would have been located in the valley.

Pearl was also very young when she was baptized into the Baptist Church. Her attendance was regular until her health slowly went downhill. Pearl contracted a disease called St. Vitus Dance which is closely associated with epileptics and caused her to have nervous involuntary and jerky movements in her body. The disease caused her to be bed ridden for 9 months. After this period she had to learn how to walk again. Pearl returned to school but her balance was affected and the children at the school mocked her. On one occasion some boys sent a dog after her and it chased her until she reached home. Pearl was very upset and her father went to the school with a pistol to make a threat. The time was very tense and Pearl’s parents did not allow her to attend school any longer. Pearl had only reached about the 4^th grade.

When Pearl reached adulthood her family was living in Oregon City. She worked picking hops to help with the family finances. Many families in that time would earn money by picking hops. One memorable day Pearl was picking hops and a young man on the other side of her row kept winking at her. According to Betsy “In those days that was a pretty brazen act, openly flirting.” This event caused me to laugh because Rebecca has recalled events to me of when she was younger and picked berries to earn money for a trip to Europe. Rebecca often flirted with the young men picking berries across from her on her row. Eventually Pearl and this young man named Lester Lee Smith were married on October 23^rd, 1909. Lester was born in Canemah Oregon on April 23^rd, 1889. Pearl and Lester raised 10 children including 7 daughters and 3 sons. The first four children: Martin (aka Mutt), Margarette, Jessie and Ada, were born in Oregon City. The other six children: Clarinda, Ethel Grace (aka Toddie), Marion (aka Moke), Henry, Betsy, and Inez Ruth (aka Sandy) were born while the family lived on a remote homestead near Waldport Oregon on Drift Creek in an additional home on Eckman Slough. All the children were delivered at home by a midwife, and Clarinda was a breach birth. Also according to Betsy “Pearl was a very patient and soft spoken lady. She left the disciplining to Lester.”

Since the event from her childhood when the town burned down, fire made Pearl nervous. It was a very sorrowful day on March 23^rd, 1943 when Pearl and Lester’s little home in Waldport burned down. The cloth diapers hanging on a rack in front of the fire place were the cause of the fire. One of the only artifacts that was preserved from the fire is a cedar chest that was very treasured to Pearl. Pearl dragged the chest from the burning house causing herself to receive severe burns on her back and shoulders. The chest had been given to her from her brothers Lavern and Eddie. Because of this event Pearl forever had a fear of fire. The reason Pearl was so determined to save the chest was because of the value of the items inside. People in her time often kept their belongings in cedar trunks. Cedar kept away pests and Pearl kept all her artifacts in the trunk and special items that belonged to her parents. Some of these items are now being preserved in the home of Rebecca and are in a shadow box. I had pictures taken so they could be shown in this research paper. Some of the items Pearl kept in the trunk were pictures specifically of her mother Lily. Pearl was very fond of these pictures because she was only 2 when Lily died and the pictures were the closest items Pearl had to knowing her mother. The day of the fire Toddie had been looking at the pictures on Pearl’s bed. The pictures burned in the fire and Pearl was devastated. There are no pictures of Lily now existing. Fortunately some of the other items in the chest were a box of letters Lily and John wrote to each other close to the time of Lily’s death. In those letters you can read about the love Lily had for both John and Pearl. Lester had made a living for the family by farming and fishing. After the fire Lester went into a mill to work.

Pearl was very talented and one of her hobbies was working as a seamstress. One of her projects was making “kimonos” or flannel gowns for her grandchildren and some of her great-grandchildren. The pattern was a particular pattern that she saved for several decades. Sometimes she would embroider delicate flowers on the kimonos she made for girl babies. Pearl also loved to crochet and do beautiful needle work. She waited in anticipation for the mail when her books with crocheting, embroidery and tatting patterns would arrive. When she grew older she literally crocheted hundreds of necklaces and she enjoyed having her hands busy. She loved tatting using hairpin lace. Friends and relatives would receive crocheted chair sets with either flowers or horse heads, or she would give doilies and tablecloths. Sometimes Pearl created her own crocheting patterns on graphs. She was talented in making homespun quilts. She called this her “fancy” work while the old black tom cat slept on her lap. She often used colored thread to enhance her patterns. Between 1952 and 1953 Pearl also enjoyed creating beautiful wardrobes that her collection of dolls wore. She bought these dolls by the dozens and used beautiful lace and ribbons. The costumes were very fancy. These dolls were “kind of a precursor to the Barbie Doll craze.” One of her specialties was wedding gowns. Grace recalled “I remember a complete array of dolls fashioned to ‘dance’ around a Maypole. Each doll had a special dress, in one of the many spring colors of satin, with tiny beads, embroidered flowers, etc. The entire display became part of the open house at Siletz School in my fourth grade classroom, complete with Grandma there to explain how she made the costumes. I think it may have been her only ‘public appearance’. “ Pearl gave these dolls to many people who were important to her. She also loved collecting hankies. She had a huge collection and everyone bought her hankies. Pearl made some of her own hankies out of linen and other materials and embroidered the edges.

After the fire Pearl and her family moved to Logsden where Lester eventually built them a 5 bedroom house. Pearl lived next to her daughter Ruth and son-in law Jim. Rebecca recalled “it was so fun to see her and all the things she enjoyed collecting.” Pearl often carried water from the spring to their home because there was no running water. Sometimes she would heat the water in a fire pit which was in a copper boiler outside in the summer. An old fashioned wash board was used to scrub the cloths and eventually the children took on the task of doing the laundry. It was hard work. The house was lit with 2 kerosene lamps. The children had to share these lamps to do their school work. Pearl attended a ladie’s club in Logsden but eventually stopped attending because of a misunderstanding most likely due to her hearing problems. Also because Pearl had hearing problems she hated when people would sneak up behind her. Lester had fun with this and he enjoyed teasing Pearl. I love the account that Grace recalled, “I remember one day in my childhood when he (Lester) snuck up on her while she was getting ready to cook in that big cast iron frying pan. When she was scared she immediately threw her arm and hand toward the sound. This time the frying pan was in her hand and it came around and smacked Grandpa right in the forehead, knocking him to the ground. She was sorry, but said, ‘Lester, I TOLD you.’ He, as usual, said, ‘Now, Pearly.’ I doubt it stopped him from teasing her as it seemed to be his favorite hobby.” Rebecca recalls that Pearl would have dinner with her family almost every Sunday evening. “She was pleasant and smiled all the time. She liked to make us laugh.” Perhaps that is why I also laugh all the time because I got that from my Great Grandma Pearl. Pearl always made cakes for her grandchildren’s birthdays. It was always the same spice cake with thick caramel frosting.

Pearl loved to garden and always had a beautiful garden at each of her houses. Somehow she had a way with flowers and they always bloomed beautifully for her. She particularly loved planting dahlias and irises. Sometimes her friends liked to drive even as far as 4 miles to see her beautiful flower beds. Pearl would often give some of the seeds to her friends and each year that she lived in Logsden she had a huge dahlia garden. Lester prepared the ground for Pearl and would only allow Pearl to “touch that garden spot.” Lester only let people pick the flowers if they had Pearl’s permission. We have letters from Grandmother Horner who discussed with Pearl their mutual interest in flowers. They would often exchange seeds. Pearl often made sachets from home grown lavender and gave them to friends and family. She loved the color lavender which is also evident because her daughter Betsy shares a love for the color lavender.

One interesting talent that Pearl had was shooting chickens in their heads with a 22 rifle! Grace recalled “If she decided to have chicken for dinner, she’d just step out on the back porch at the Logsden house, aim that rifle at a plucking, singeing, etc. and soon that chicken was in the big cast iron frying pan on the old wood cook stove.”

One of Pearl’s joys was music. She couldn’t carry a tune but that never bothered her. Most of her children were also musically inclined. After Lester died, Pearl often played a piano or organ for her own enjoyment. Betsy remembers the plinking of the piano.

Pearl loved decorating her house for Christmas and sometimes would spend hours doing it. Christmas was a time for homemade decorations and glitter. Christmas was Pearls time. Although money was scarce Lester and Pearl always made sure that their children still living at home always received a gift. Some of these gifts included homemade doll cloths and Lester made each of the girls cradles.

A few random facts about Pearl are that she loved antique shops and her weakness was vintage glass. She lived across the street from an antique store, and she often bought vases, candle holders and many other beautiful items. Pearl would wait for her social security check to come in the mail so she could go to the antique store. Betsy and her husband Albert called the antique sore the junk store. Betsy and Albert also worried and believed that that the owners of the store took advantage of Pearl by charging her too much. Pearl bought Watkin’s Vanilla all the time when the Watkins man would come door to door. This was so she could collect the figurines given out from buying vanilla. These bottles accumulated and when Lester discovered them he gave her the nick-name “Vanilla Smith”. Pearl loved to can fruit and meat and canned hundreds of jars. She had a pet gray digger which is similar to a large squirrel and it followed her around everywhere. Pearl also had to have her eye removed because of a disease and she wore a glass eye. Rebecca recalled “once in a while it would be pointed in a funny direction and I would tell her so she could fix it. That would make her laugh! I remember that she was always laughing and she was fun to be around.” Pearl loved dressing up and loved wearing her costume jewelry.

Lester eventually passed away in August of 1952. After Lester’s death in 1960 is when Pearl moved to Bay City. Pearl passed away Christmas morning 1975 at age 86.

While doing research on this paper I found some facts intriguing. Grace was always very close to Pearl. After Pearl’s death Grace began to do research on Pearl’s life and discovered that an African American was buried on top of Pearl’s mother Lily’s grave and no one knows why. It is also interesting that Pearl’s father disappeared. Pearl saw her father for the last time in 1915 right after her daughter Jessie was born. Pearl was aware that her father worked on a railroad as a detective and she believed that may have had something to do with her father’s disappearance. A few unanswered question’s that Grace had were “How did her parents meet when he (John) was from New York state and she (Lily) was from Alabama? Why was her mother attending a school for African-American girls? Why was Pearl with her father in Cripple Creek when her mother died in Denver?” Grace stated that Pearl also had many un-answered questions about her own family story. These questions are very mysterious, but overall I’m very pleased how many new stories and information I have learned about my Great Grandma Pearl. Pearl was a very special Great Grandma!