In honor of the recent Illahee lecture by Maude Barlow, here's a story from my grandmother about an earlier approach to water rights.

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The Dam Busters of Another Gender Enid Ritter © 2003

Our neighborhood was in an uproar. We had trouble enough with the Great Depression, and the long droughts of the thirties. The creek and some of the dairy farm wells were slowly drying up. Roger Creek became so narrow that a child would only have to remove one shoe and sock in order to wade across it. Then somebody discovered a farmer up the creek had built a dam causing Roger Creek to dry up faster than normal. The farmers talked to him, nicely at first and then not so nicely. The man insisted that he had a right to do what he wanted on his property. Explaining to him that the creek and a few feet on either side legally belonged to the public, not just him, accomplished nothing. Whenever men visited him about the dam he would take out enough rock to let a little trickle of water run down the almost dry creek bed – which didn’t help the farmers who lived a few miles down the creek.

Meetings were held and people took sides. Soon threats were made on cows and men. I was too young to understand why such nice men could be so mad at each other. We didn’t live right on the creek, but a neighbor who did shared the little water with our small herd of cattle.

Florence’s friend and classmate Eldry Starks was visiting her one day when they decided to take a long walk. They invited us younger girls along. Mom asked where they were going and they said “to the bridge on the old road.” Roger Creek School was on the gravel road that we then called “Old 29”. New 29 was concrete and ran parallel and close to the old road from the town of Stanley to a few feet east of the old bridge.

Mom said, (as usual) that the older girls could go, but it was too far for me to walk. Florence promised her that they would walk slowly and if I got tired she would carry me. She also said that they would rest a while on the bridge before returning home. Eldrey joined in and said if Florence got too tired carrying me that she would carry me on her back too.

I began to suspect something. I truly thought Eldrey considered me a pest and for some reason didn’t like me. But here she was, sounding for my mother’s sake like she really wanted me along, enough so to carry me on her back! Mom finally said I could go, and I wondered years later if she didn’t also suspect something was up.

A quarter mile from home we passed by the Hiller’s. Lucy Hiller, a classmate of Phyllis’ came out to say “Hello” and asked what was going on. The Big Girls explained that we were walking to the bridge on “Old 29” and invited her along. Farther along our one-mile walk another Starks girl and Eloraine Nerdrum came walking along side. They didn’t even ask what we were doing, as if the time and place to join us had been planned.

When we finally got to the bridge, I took more interest in climbing the railing than listening to the Big Girls talk. In spite of that, I found out that there really was a plan, and a carefully constructed plan at that. Florence noticed me and told me to get down. “There is next to no water in the creek, and you don’t want to fall on rocks,” she warned me. She pointed out the rocks. Of course I had no intention of falling, did they think I was an idiot? All I wanted to do was climb on the bridge railing.

Then I was told that they were going to leave me at the bridge while they all went into the woods for a few minutes. They didn’t insult me with what I already knew: I couldn’t run as fast as they could. They were kind and told me I was to be their “lookout”, and if anybody came along afoot – anybody – I was to holler “Run!” And if they got into trouble in the woods, they would holler, “Run!” to me and I was to run until they caught up to me. If they didn’t catch up to me, I was to wait for them at the school house.

“How far are you going into the woods?” I asked.
“Not very far,” I was told, “just to that dam on the creek. You will be able to hear us if we need to holler.” I agreed. Not because I felt I was trusted with an important job, but because I could climb the bridge railings all I wanted to with nobody there to correct me.

When the last girl was out of sight I started my climbing. When the North side railing got boring, I went to the South side. While I was looking at the rocks on the south side, I heard a little trickle of water, but I was distracted when they all came out of the woods. Each girl walked silently toward her own home.

Many weeks later Florence told me the real reason the Big Girls had wanted me along. If anyone was watching through their “field glasses”, a couple of little kids would make them look like there was at least one mother in the group, and they wouldn’t be so curious or suspicious.

On the way home we stopped for a few minutes at Hillers. Florence told them there would soon be enough water in the creek for their cows. She didn’t tell them that in a few minutes a group of young girls had solved a problem that the adults had been unsuccessfully working on for a long time.

Now in their 80’s, a few of the women that were in on this dam busting are still living, and still denying they had anything to do with it.

The dam was never rebuilt.