Page:History of Oregon Literature.djvu/362

 widow with two children whom Frederic Homer Balch's father met and married while he had his daguerreotype gallery at Brownsville. He served on the frontier with the Oregon Volunteers from 1864 to 1866.

In 1871, when Frederic Homer Balch was ten, the family left the Willamette Valley because of the need of a drier climate for Mrs. Balch, and moved to Goldendale, Washington. By this time he had a baby sister, Gertrude, now Mrs. J. W. Ingalls of Hood River, the only member of the family now living. A brother, Herbert, was born at Goldendale in 1873.

Mrs. Balch's improved health permitted them to settle in 1876 on a farm near Rocky Butte, east of Portland, and Frederic Homer Balch at the age of 15 went to school for the first time in his life. This does not mean that he had been allowed to grow up in ignorance. His father, a college graduate, simply had too much respect for the quality of his son's mind to expose it to the treatment of the usual pioneer pedagogue, and, with a regular routine of lessons, had taught him at home. He knew and respected the abilities of Mr. and Mrs. T. R. Coon—both still living—who were teaching the Mt. Tabor school, and was glad to send his son there.

The boy had already formed the habit of reading every book he could get his hands on and re-reading the good ones in the absence of something fresh. At Goldendale, between his 10th and 15th years, "whenever a new family arrived in the community, Frederic soon learned if they had any books, and it would not be long before he would have the coveted privilege of