The Rickard Family Listen to the interview with Sally here
John Rickard - Oregon Pioneer
How long is your commute in minutes - 15, 30, 60? My commute to work is 34 miles. It takes me about 40 minutes to drive it each way. I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have a car and had to walk that distance. Well, John Rickard, who came to Oregon in 1854, faced an even longer commute - on foot - to his second job. Rickard came to Oregon from Indiana. He got a land grant near Monroe, located a few miles north of Eugene.
John and his wife Susannah wanted to raise hogs - and needed to work the land in order to keep their land grant of 297 acres. The trouble was that the land wasn't ready to produce yet for John, so he had to find a second job. The area just wasn't settled enough for there to be plentiful work opportunities, so the closest place he could find employment was Eugene - 38 miles away!
So John would set off each week to walk those 38 miles in order to work splitting rails in Eugene. Then at the end of the week he'd trudge back to Monroe, carrying all the groceries his family would need for the coming week. Read more about John Rickard on page 28 of Oregon at Work.
John's great great grand daughter is Sally Hilles. Today, Sally and her husband Rob grow hazelnuts on the same property John Rickard settled in 1854. The couple own Hazelnut Hill. Though they don't raise hogs like John Rickard, they do grow blight-resistant hazelnuts which they sell on their website. Sally gets up early each day to make chocolate and other incredients to dip their hazelnuts in. Sally and Rob love the fact that they live on part of the original family land grant. Sally had to commute to Eugene herself for a while when they first started the orchard, but at least she got to go by car.
Sally Hilles Hazelnut Hill
The two feel not only pride in their land but a sense of being modern day pioneers, and keepers of something called the Pioneer Spirit.
“Rob and I both have the pioneer spirit. I would define it as not being set in conditioned thinking; being able to expand beyond what you think your own boundaries are and become comfortable with uncomfortable. You’re not always going to have the means, the resources. You’re not going to be the one out there on the golf course. You’re not going to be the one doing what normal people do. But because of that you stretch yourself beyond what you think you can do. I know that this process has transformed me. I’m not the same person I was a few years back, even yesterday. Every day there’s a challenge and every day it transforms me, and every day I look forward to it.”
Read more about Sally on page 132 of Oregon at Work.
