Bagan Stories / John F. and Sadie Keenan Bagan

	Bagan Lines

John Francis and Sadie Keenan Bagan: Dealer and Doer...

by Jack Loughary

That is John driving and Sadie riding shotgun in Stanfield.

The reason for these nocturnal trips (to this day I do not know why we traveled by night) was to visit Mother's parents in Stanfield. The trips probably were summer rituals in a sense, with mother and grandchildren returning to the home place. I was fivish at the time, but as I try to imagine the circumstances, the visits could not have been joyous. Some sort of obligatory right performed by my mother, I would think.

The tiny towns of Echo and Stanfield are about 3 miles apart, some 18 or so miles west of Pendleton. Stanfield is located a mile north of Interstate 84, and Echo 2 miles southeast. Nowadays both villages are an easy and nearly necessary trip to Pendleton and its Safeway store. Both towns were essentially self sufficient early in the century. Hermiston (the larger of the three), Stanfield and Echo were tri-cities, as it were, and by 1915 people moved freely among the three.

Stanfield was originally part of a town called Foster, which had its post office established in 1833. Dr. Henry W. Coe laid the plat for a townsite in 1904 and it included Foster. Later, Coe named the town after Robert W. Stanfield, rancher and later U.S. senator. Senator Stanfield, near as any historian has ever reckoned, had little to nothing to do with developing the town of Stanfield. Dr. Coe, when it came to name the town, probably was fishing for political favors. Dr. Coe became interested in irrigation and with W. J. Furnish constructed the Coe Dam and Furnish Reservoir. Work was started on the ditch in 1907 but was later taken over by the U.S. Reclamation Service. Dr. Coe played a big part in encouraging settlement of the area. (UMATILLA COUNTRY: A Backward Glance, Umatilla Historical Society, 1980.)

Coe and Furnish didn't make the splash they promised at Stanfield, or at least hoped for. But they contributed to attracting new citizens and keeping hope alive for Stanfield and that's more than a lot of people can claim. The first Indian Agency in the area was called Utila, and was built across the river from Echo. It was burned by local Indians in 1855. The Oregon Volunteers immediately erected Fort Henrietta on the spot and occupied it until hostilities ceased. Fort Henrietta had a miserable if thankfully brief history and was abandoned in May 1856.

Commercial activities in the Echo area remained and in 1880 J. H. Kootz and W.D. Brassfield platted the east side of the Umatilla river and named the settlement for Kootz's 3 year old daughter, Echo. The town was incorporated in 1904, and "By 1907 the Commerce Club has put together a publication promoting the community"...predicting "that the population of Umatilla County will soon increase many times over its 1907 population of 30,000." A 1907 advertisement for Echo contains an impressive list of businesses, and proclaims, "In fact, every business and every profession and tradesman usually found in a western city are found n Echo." Another source indicates these included a whore house. Echo peaked out in the 1920s, never coming close to meeting the Club's expectations.

Both Echo and Stanfield have minimal resources today. In the eyes of a six year old, that also seemed to be true in 1936. It is not clear when the demise was complete, but it clearly was related to the realization that irrigation, at the time at least, was not what developers had promised. Nevertheless, Stanfield and Echo were centers of population and civilization for perhaps three or four decades surrounding the turn of the century. Good times were had by all.

John and Sadie Bagan moved to Stanfield in 1911 from Minnesota in search of irrigated land. They had four children: Tom 11, Jim 10, Margaret 8 in the third grade, and Irene, 4. John was a heavy and boisterous man. My recollection of him, based more on the vague memories of a child than on photographs, is of a substantial man, bald in front, dressed always in a pair of blue denim overalls. Sarah, known as Sadie, a graduate of Winona State Normal school, was thin as a rail, reserved and leaned toward the stern side of the personality spectrum. Due in part, one would imagine, to her desire to counter the hard living, often wishful thinking, impulsive Irishman she married. I was nearly seven when she died on July 3, 1937. She had fallen and broken her arm while visiting us in Eugene (for medical reasons, I think), and a few days later died in Sacred Heart Hospital.

In 1934 and 1935 Mother, Marilyn and I would visit Grandmother and Grandad Bagan in Stanfield for a few weeks in the summer. Dad would drive us down from Omak, return home, and then drive down to pick us up at the end of the visit.

My impression is that John Bagan could be counted upon to do the unanticipated, if not the unacceptable. He seemed to enjoy what people in those days would have referred to as teasing children, or at least me. For example, one time I had accompanied him on his evening milk run and we were returning home aboard his horse drawn cart. I suppose we were a mile or so from his place and I had what was becoming an uncontrollable need to urinate. After what must have been a lot of prancing, dancing, and holding myself, Grandad finally said, "Let 'er go, Jackie, right over the side." I must have experienced a traumatic conflict between his permission to relieve myself of my current discomfort, and the longer term consequence of both my mother and grandmother finding out what a horrible spectacle I had made of myself. With his permission, urging more likely, I unbuttoned my fly and made the spectacle with great relief, and remember Grandfather roaring with laughter as he drove the one horse milk cart down the main street of Stanfield with his 5 year old grandson peeing over the side rail.

Another time he allowed me to accompany him deliver a load of hay to a farmer. As I recall, his balloon tired hay wagon was pulled by a team of two horses. For some reason, a device resembling an electric door bell button had been mounted on the front rail of the hay wagon, although it was not wired to anything as far as I could tell. He told me that he knew how to make a horse poop by simply pushing the button. He proceeded to prove it to me; each time he pushed the button, the a horse pooped. I was astounded. Then he bet me that I couldn't do it. Gullible, I tried. Push as I would, I couldn't activate the horse's bowels, and after a few trys gave up. Then, as we sauntered along, without a word he would reach down and push the button, and sure enough, the horse responded. As the ride progressed, he perfected his technique, correctly calling each shot as either a passing of wind or a full blown poop. I thought about that for years before I solved it.
Another day, we were off on some trip, again with the horse and wagon. About half way through the trip we saw a cat by the side of the road. He said, "Jackie, see that orange colored cat there? I'm afraid that if it moves, it is going to get my tongue. If it does I won't be able to talk until I get it back." Sure enough, as we approached the cat, it ran off. I said something to him, but rather than answer, he simply pointed to his closed mouth. His lips were sealed, and he could not utter a word. I tried several times to get him to say something to me. I was very upset and probably in tears about the time we turned off the road into the farm yard. Immediately, one the many orange farm cats made its appearance and as it did, he said, "See Jackie, I told you. But, I was getting worried."

John Bagan had farmed in Minnesota and came to Stanfield to work 10 acres that he purchased sight unseen. What he bought, he discovered soon after they got off the train at the Stanfield depot, was mostly dust. Without a better supply of water, farming was out of the question. His thinking, or so it was reported by others, may be a clue to John Francis Bagan's personality, because by 1910 irrigation systems had been developed that were bringing water to 9000 acres of land near Stanfield, Hermiston and Echo. Dams and ditches had been constructed and were converting water from the Umatilla River to formerly useless land. More irrigation projects were planned and eventually implemented. Whether it was hastiness on his part or that his land truly was too sandy for cultivation, regardless of water, is something beyond my knowledge.

He sold his land immediately, whether for loss or profit, is unknown. He purchased a livery stable in Stanfield, and soon sold it and moved the family to Pilot Rock, a small town some 25 miles from Stanfield south of Pendleton, where he had purchased another livery stable. This was not a truly wise move in that the potential in Pilot Rock was about as unknown to him as that in Stanfield. John Bagan soon discovered that he was chasing another rainbow, or so it must have seemed to Sadie. The Pilot Rock venture lasted about 3 months. John suffered a considerable loss of capital and moved his family back to Stanfield.

A change in his luck occurred in 1914. John's father, Thomas F. Bagan (who was dubiously know within the family as "Black Tom"-- Ah, another story there!), died in Minnesota and left an inheritance to his ten children. The total amount must have been sizable because John Bagan was able to purchase a dray line in Stanfield with his share. He began with a team of mules, 4 dray horses, and a pair of racers, as he called them, and soon added a motor truck, the first in Stanfield. One of his first contracts was pulling the school bus with his dray horses, and then with his truck. Within a few years he purchased a school bus. That was followed by other contracts. Probably in spite of himself, John Bagan was becoming a success in the drayage business.
Not one to leave well enough be, John sold the dray line and purchased a herd of dairy cows and the infamous dairy route. This might have worked out for him, except that the state of Oregon soon passed the "milk laws" which, among other things, enforced pasteurization. For whatever reasons, John decided that would be an untenable burden, and sold his dairy. For several years after that he managed sheep herds in the fields around Stanfield, an occupation which was probably a good match for his business sagacity.

Sarah Bridgette Keenan (Sadie) Bagan taught elementary school in Stanfield for 12 or 13 years. She also served on the school board, and was either school district or country clerk for a while. She possessed what we would probably call character, wanting the best for her children and husband, and willing to stand firm for standards of personal and community behavior in which she believed. There is reason to wonder about the nature of John and Sadies' marriage. I don't see that it could have approached mutual happiness because their individual aspirations and many values appear to have been at odds. It is apparent that Sadie tolerated John's excessive and sporadic drinking and unreliable life style. Was it done with a patient resolve, a deep resentment, or a sense of martyrdom?
Their youngest child, Irene, died at age 11. Her sister Margaret was then 15. Margaret told stories about their relationship that indicated they had a competitive and interactive relationship and that their love and affection for one another was deep and strong. Margaret would refer to Irene often whenever she discussed her earlier years. It is undoubtedly true that the loss of a sister during her early adolescent years created a void in personal relationships that was never filled.

Tom, Jim and Margaret, were in college or working away from home by the early 1920s. John and Sadie had 17 years of married life ahead of them in 1920. During that nearly two decades, Stanfield and Echo changed from vibrant communities to potential ghost towns.

The point to remember is that John and Sadie Bagan, by whatever means, provided a supportive home life and oversaw the development of their three children, all of whom were graduated from Stanfield High School. As was true with any clear thinking young person of the time, except those whose parents owned large herds of or expansive fields of grain, they moved from Eastern Oregon in search of more attractive options.