The lady and the lumberjack

By Olive Barber

Subjects: Biography, Lumbering, Loggers' spouses

Description: In a story bursting with vitality and gusty humor, Olive Barber describes her turbulent life as wife of a brawny logger in the northwestern forests. Mrs. Barber should have guessed from Curly's unique courtship what she might expect to find at the Coos Bay lumber camp. Curly and Olive had met at a Saturday afternoon picnic; Sunday morning he arrived soon after breakfast to stay all day; by Wednesday he was willing to make the eighty-mile trip from the logger camp to spend the evening with her; by the following Monday he'd quit his job because "it took too much time away from courtin'"! Thus began one of the most unconventional marriages a strait-laced schoolteacher ever hoped to have. The initial shock came when the bride was carried through tent flaps instead of over a threshold, but as Curly philosophically remarked- "now, Baby, just think- you won't have to pull any blinds when we want to pitch a little woo, no windows to wash." Before many days Olive Barber learned the difference between a bull cook and a flunky, a push and a lokey. She learned too that it took high-octane food to give a man energy and strength to climb hills, jump over logs, and wade through the bottomless mud of winter months. Moving right in among these rawboned men, she shared the hardships and the fun, fighting and loving, becoming part of a life as rugged as the Oregon terrain about her. Introduction by Stewart Holbrook.