Soft hills in the background are covered with blue-gray sagebrush and willow trees marked creeks, one of them Cassia Creek which meanders all through Elba and in to Malta, flowing past what became the second Ottley home in 1927, some 10 miles away.
This house looks peaceful, quiet, and unpeopled. Yet we know that people lived here and long ago it must have looked very different. Between the house and the sheds would have been sounds of busy life as children played, tended to livestock, gathered eggs, chopped wood, sharpened mower knives, or pulled cold buckets of water from the well. Grandma Ottley (Abbie) might be in the garden gathering radishes, onions, peas, or new potatoes for dinner, while Grandpa Ottley (Fred) would be busy on the plow or out in the field.
Grandpa Ottley bought this place, 80 acres, in Elba, Idaho, in 1889 from a man named Sam Wood. It cost $1,000 and the down payment was 25 head of cattle. At the time he was not yet married; four years later he and his new bride came to live here. In the early days, remembered by the older children, the house was a two-room log building, with a dirt roof which leaked, and on which purple flowers grew in the spring. There was a dirt floor later replaced by rough boards. More rooms were added, logs were added to make an attic, and a shingled roof replaced sod. The addition was boards, not log. Grandpa's brother, Edward, (Uncle Ted) came from Utah to help with carpentry work.
A photograph cannot describe the smells of a summer day of barnyard and horses, leather, sagebrush after rain, wild roses, or new-mown hay. Nor can one hear the lazy hum of bees, the sound of robins, meadow larks, killdeer, and sparrows whose nests would be in trees, not seen in an orchard to the south, were planted. There were apples, pears, peaches, and plums, as well as strawberries, raspberries, and currants. The vegetable garden across the road yielded peas, potatoes, squash, onions, carrots, and turnips, some of which were stored in the earthy-smelling cellar at summer's end. Extra food grown was taken to nearby towns to be sold. The fruit cellar held a multi-colored assortment of bottled fruits, jellies, jams, and pickles, all products of long hours of labor over a hot stove on hot days.
At night, bathed in moonlight and shadow, the glow of coal oil lamps would be a bright orange pinpoint of light from windows, and the sounds of crickets, frogs, a hoot owl, or coyotes on the hill would be heard by those venturing out of doors to the outhouse, to do late chores, or arriving home in the horse-drawn buggy.
Another whole landscape is possible, imagining the house in winter, when tree limbs would be bare of leaves and paths through the snow go from the house to barns and sheds. The odor of woodsmoke reminds of warmth by the fire and the house would look altogether different under a blanket of soft white where fences might be completely buried under deep drifts of snow. The silence here would be broken only by the creak of frozen tree branches and the crunch of ice underfoot as one plodded to do chores and tend to restless animals. Children muffled, mittened, and scarved against winter winds would call in voices sharp and clear on the frosty air. In the space between the house and outbuildings there might be a large circle drawn in the snow for playing fox and geese. Older children might be just returning from Parishes hill, pulling homemade sleds.
Nine children were raised here. By 1904 there was a kitchen, living room (front) and bedroom downstairs, and enclosed stairs led to two bedrooms above, one for the boys and one for the girls. Life was good to the family who grew up here. Their lives were enriched by many happy, shared memories through the years. The house, empty of voices now for long years, has fallen into disuse and no longer looks like the one in a photograph which hung on the wall for years, taken by an itinerant photographer. Yet the place lives still in the hearts and minds of the brothers and sisters who called it home.
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