1923

In 1923, Fray Ebert, his then wife Agnes, her sister Harriet, their daughter Audrey and their baby Donald drove from Bismarck, North Dakota to Portland, Oregon. This according to the back of the photograph. It also says that they camped most of the way and Donald was in the back seat in a basket.

Fray Ebert and Agnes Gray met in a music store in Great Falls, Montana.  She had bought a victrola record player and wanted to get some records for it.  She had gone into a music shop and the sales man, Fray, asked her “Anything I can do for you?”  She replied by saying “Yes, have you got a little bit of heaven?”  That was the name of a popular song then. Here it is being played on a victrola: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GGlZqFLla4)  He laughed and said “I think I have.”    They got to know each other and then were married.  Shortly after, they went to Spokane, Washington where they would live and Fray would work in an office on an Indian Reservation in Wiponet, Washington.  He found this job from an ad in the newspaper.  Here is an excerpt from what she wrote about her life on a type writer in 1976:

They gave the employees a nice little house furnished, a nice tennis court out in front, horses to ride, etc.  Mother came to visit and she was heart sick to see no rugs on the floor, a little wood stove in the kitchen.  We had had an electric stove at home.  The Indians were wonderful.  One day, I made cookies and an Indian came to the door with a little bird in his hand to show me.  I offered him a cookie, I had them on a plate, he took them all off the plate and put them in his pocket.  Another time, Fray and I was going horse back riding, an Indian came along, and said I shouldn’t ride that horse, it wasn’t safe.  Fray said I shouldn’t pay any attention to him.  That Indian followed us all the way, because he thought that horse wasn’t safe. 

Eventually, they moved back to Minneapolis because her mother found Fray a job there at a music shop.  Her mom was living there then and wanted to be close to her daughter. This was in 1919.  This was the year the war was over.  I remember we went downtown and there were so many parades, etc.

Audrey Louisamet Ebert, was born February 2, 1920 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  Agnes’ mother was worried about her daughter being pregnant, so she went to stay with her.  She asked her How do you believe a baby is born? I said mother don’t worry, all they have to do is cut you open from the belly button down and take the baby out.  She looked at me and sighed.  No one had ever told me. 

Audrey used to tell me the story about how she was kidnapped when she was a baby.  Agnes wrote this about it.   When Audrey was nine or ten months old, I used to take her to the park across the street from the apartment and I put a little blanket under her on the ground, and she sat there and I was reading, a man came along and picked her up and ran.  I ran after him, a couple men in the park ran after the man and got her for me.  Sure scared me, so you see they did do those things in those days.  (1920)

A couple years later, Fray wanted to move to Bismark, North Dakota.  He had a job lined up in a music store there.  Agnes had her second child, Donald, in Bismark.  She also had taken in her younger sister Harriet to live with them because her mother had passed away.  They were not in Bismarck long when they decided to go to San Francisco or Portland. 

They stopped in Portland first and although her husband Fray went on to San Francisco to see what it was like, they ended up staying in Portland.  They lived on 42nd and Madison and in 1925 they moved to the St. Francis Apartments on 21st Avenue.  

As I read what my Agnes had written about her life,  I noticed a blank in the story.  May be she chose to edit this part out.  I know that several things happened in that time.  Her son Donald became very sick and passed away, she divorced Fray and the manager of the building she was living in offered to let her have a beauty shop downstairs.  Agnes who had gone to business school in Great Falls, Montana, had also gone to beauty school when she had lived on 42nd, so she started Agnes Beauty Shoppe in 1926. Although she stopped working there in 1944, it was still there 50 years later in 1976.  She worked very hard there for  more than 18 years and was able to raise my grandmother and take care of her younger sister Harriet with her own business.  

Here’s another version of “A Little Bit of Heaven” for my Great Grandma Agnes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3hIf9dTxOM