Inspired by the acquisition of love letters from various women to an eligible Lake Oswego bachelor over a century ago, the Oswego Heritage Council has introduced a new exhibit titled “LO in LOve: Love Stories from Early Oswego.”
The exhibit features true love stories mined from the Oswego Heritage House’s archives.
“ (The letters) say so much and are interesting and dramatic in their own ways,” heritage council Executive Director Kathryn Sinor said. “We house so many great stories and it’s fun to be able to share them through this exhibit.”
Sinor said that a few years ago, the heritage council got a call from a First Edition resident who had a cache of love letters from Charles Benjamin Hill, a longtime 20th century Lake Oswego resident. That person donated 306 love letters sent to Hill from his various love interests, whom he often courted simultaneously. The acquisition sparked the council to look for other love stories within its collection and to host this exhibit.
“In our collection we have other love stories, some that ended in lifelong relationships and some that ended dramatically. We have these stories — some big, some small — that are aching to be told,” Sinor said.
Hill grew up in Lake Oswego, fought in World War I and subsequently traveled for his job with Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company, meeting women from elsewhere in Oregon and other states along the way. Sinor said six women consistently sent him letters, though others would as well. She also said that Hill maintained a system for organizing the letters.
Hailing from rural Oregon to Virginia, the women ranged in their economic backgrounds from well off and educated to working class.
“Some women are very nomadic and are going where work takes them, doing difficult manual labor, and some are from a well-off family and writing to him from a boarding school,” Sinor said.
The letters were written from 1919 to 1921 and include hints at life during Prohibition, WWI and the Spanish Flu.
“The fun part about this is these women are writing about their feelings, but because the letters were their main correspondence they are talking about everyday life. You get huge glimpses into the world at the time,” Sinor said.
Sinor said one of Hill’s suitors, a 17-year-old well-educated student, talked about worrying that school would shut down for another year after Spanish Flu cases began to creep up again. She also discussed being opposed to women having the right to vote.
Although it was the Prohibition era, one woman wrote about getting very drunk, partying and witnessing fights.
Sinor added that it was hard to tell how much Hill liked the women and how much he promised them because the collection includes just one letter from him. After seeming on the verge of settling down with one of the letter writers who lived in the current ghost town of Whitney, Hill married twice (not to any of the women who wrote the letters) and stayed with his second wife until he died in 1964.
The exhibit will also include tales of female farm workers who would put love letters in fruit boxes with eligible young men writing back, as well as glimpses into courtship during that era, wedding dresses and a travel journal that documents a woman learning how to flirt and her hope of never getting married unless it’s to a millionaire (the exhibit includes a photo of the women and her husband many years later).
One can also peruse the heritage council’s website, which includes excerpts from some of the letters and photos, at https://www.oswegoheritage.org/.
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