Clatsop-Statewide County OR Archives Biographies.....(Kinsey) Cosgriff, Mrs. Elizabeth 
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Ila L. Wakley iwakley@msn.com July 4, 2010, 6:56 pm

Source: History of the Columbia River Valley From The Dalles to the Sea, Vol. III, Published 1928, Pages 481 - 484
Author: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company

     MRS. ELIZABETH (KINSEY) COSGRIFF, the widow of John Cosgriff, is a well 
known resident of Seaside. The story of her life is an interesting and 
thrilling tale of triumph over adversity and is most entertainingly presented 
in an autobiography which appeared in the Journal under date of May 13, 1925.

     "My father, David Schroyer Kinsey, settled in the Grand Ronde valley in 
1862. He was born in Pennsylvania, and you can see from his name that he was 
of Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry. My mother, Cornelia (Henderson) Kinsey, was 
born in Ohio. They were married at Newcastle, Indiana, January 2, 1853. Two 
years later they moved to Iowa and in the spring of 1862 they started for 
Oregon. John Wells was captain of the wagon train, which consisted of sixty-
two wagons. My brother Harry was born the day after they reached the Grand 
Ronde valley. My father owned the first furniture store in La Grande. He also 
had the only undertaking establishment in that whole district. My brother-in-
law, J. W. Gray, who lived at Medford, and was in business with my father, has 
passed on. They ran a pack train and brought freight from Umatilla Landing to 
the Grand Ronde valley. Father packed in a small Mason & Hamlin organ over the 
Blue mountains, which was the first organ brought to La Grande or to Union 
county. He brought it in to furnish the music at funeral services. It was also 
used in the Sunday school. Father was the first Sunday school superintendent 
of the Methodist church at La Grande. When this organ was not in use for 
funerals or for religious meetings my brothers and sisters would put it on a 
bobsled and haul it all over the valley to furnish the music for barn dances 
and other social doings of the young folks. Father was the first treasurer of 
Union county, which at that time included also Baker and Grant counties. He 
was appointed by Governor Gibbs. He also had the first furniture store, made 
the first furniture by hand, using a foot lathe for turning. Afterward he put 
in a water wheel and later used horse power and subsequently he bought out 
Albert Huntington. Some of the furniture he made is still in the hotel at 
Union. He and mother organized the first Odd Fellows and Rebekah lodges in La 
Grande, also the lodge at Summerville and Coon. He was the city recorder of 
the old town, was the leader of the Methodist church. He kept books for the 
first store in La Grande, owned by John Wilkinson, and also kept books for the 
first flour mill in the old Mill Canyon.

     "We had a large house, which was usually referred to as the 'Orphans' 
Home,' because father and mother took in every homeless young man who came to 
La Grande to get a start. Father and mother were good Methodists. Mother would 
cook a substantial Sunday dinner for the family, and the presiding elder or 
some visiting circuit rider or other visiting church dignitary would drop in 
to dinner. I have known anywhere from two or three to half a dozen unexpected 
guests to drop in. In such cases we children sat at the second table and ate 
the chicken necks and drumsticks. Father Flynn always made our home his 
headquarters for that district.

     "Father was the first county treasurer of Union county. In the 
early '60s, when everything was brought into the country by pack horse, he 
built a horsepower treadmill that was higher than our house. This furnished 
the power to operate a saw, a lathe and other machinery in his workshop. He 
did cabinet work and made coffins for that whole district. Father became well 
to do. I can make that statement stronger. He became wealthy. He dreamed one 
night that he had discovered a rich mineral belt. So vivid was the dream that 
he started out to locate the mine of his dream. He hunted for weeks, and 
finally thought he recognized his dream mine in what was later known as the 
Cable Cove district. He located the Esmerelda group of mines. He had to cut a 
road through the timber to get in machinery for a five-stamp mill. He spent 
all of his own money and all the money he could get his relatives to invest, 
and a man from the east put in thirty thousand dollars. He spent over two 
hundred and fifty thousand dollars in trying to make the Esmerelda mines 
produce, but the ore was low grade, and finally broken in health and fortune, 
he had to give up the attempt.

     "I was one of the younger children. I was born at La Grande. When I was 
twenty-three I moved to Baker City. I was married September 15, 1887, to John 
Cosgriff, a mining engineer. Rev. J. S. Anderson came down from British 
Columbia to marry us. We spent our honeymoon in a tiny cabin under the 
hoisting works of the Virtue mine near Baker. My husband worked for the 
Virtue, later for the Red Boy, and still later for the Bonanza Mining Company. 
He was what is known as a `joiner.' He belonged to the Elks, the Knights of 
Pythias, the Woodmen, and most of the other lodges. Three years after our 
marriage his health failed and he was sick for four years and then died. My 
mother had become an invalid, and my father had become too old to work and was 
without money, so I took care of my husband, my mother and father. Fortunately 
I was young and strong. The doctors at Baker thought the Portland doctors 
might help my husband, so we went down to Portland, but it was too late. I was 
in a strange city with a dead husband, two very live and lively babies, and 
sixty-five dollars in cash. I went to the Knights of Pythias, who paid me the 
funeral benefit of seventy-five dollars. I had an undertaker take charge of my 
husband's body and ship it to Baker. The Elks met the train at Baker and took 
charge of the funeral.

     "My husband had carried insurance in two companies, but when he got sick 
and had to stop work we could not pay the premiums, so we had to let them both 
lapse. Two weeks after the funeral I took stock of my affairs. I had two 
little boys — Robert and Jack — to provide for as well as my father and 
mother. I had no home and no money, but I thought I might be able to get 
credit and start a boarding house, for I was a good cook and homemaker, and 
that was all I knew. As I was sitting, pretty much in the depths of despair, 
planning for the future and seeing no ray of light, there was a knock at the 
door, and John Donnelly and Nat Cooper came in at my invitation. They said 
they had come as a committee from the Elks to talk with me about my plans for 
the future. I told them I wanted to start a boarding house, and asked their 
advice. They told me the Elks would stand by me, to a man. They said they 
would see what they could do about it and come back later. As they left they 
handed me a long envelope. I supposed it was a resolution of condolence from 
the lodge, and I hated to open it, but finally I did. In the envelope was a 
note from the secretary of the Elks lodge saying that when Jack's last 
insurance policy, for four thousand dollars, had lapsed, four years before, 
they had decided to keep up the payments, and the check for four thousand 
dollars was inclosed. I looked at the check and read the figures — four 
thousand dollars. I was dazed. I couldn't believe that from abject want I had 
suddenly been raised to affluence. When I said my prayers that night I 
said, 'And whatever else you do, God, be sure to bless the Elks!'

     "John Donnelly, Nat Cooper and other Elks bought a lot for me two blocks 
from the post office at Baker City and put up a house with a large dining room 
and six bedrooms, with my four thousand dollars. They also picked out some 
nice young chaps to come and board and lodge in my house. I ran this place 
three years, when I had a nervous breakdown. Caring for my little folks and 
for my father and mother and doing the work in the boarding house had proved 
too great a strain, so the doctor said I must ease up awhile. A committee from 
the Elks sold my house and lot for four thousand dollars, so my three years' 
rent cost nothing, as I got back exactly what I put into the place. They went 
to Portland and selected eight acres near Courtney Station, with a neat little 
house on it, and helped me move on the place.

     "Father was too old to do much work on the place, so I sold the eight 
acres and bought one acre with a smaller house near Oak Grove. I landed a job 
clerking at forty-two dollars a month in a store at Oak Grove. I worked there 
two years and eight months and saved money. I bought a fine cow for one 
hundred dollars, so we not only had all the milk we could use, but also sold 
milk to the neighbors. I bought a gentle mare, which I named Net, and also a 
second-hang rig. I bought my winter's supply of wood and had it sawed and 
stacked in the woodshed and all my bills were paid. I thought that after a 
long period of hard sledding things were at last coming my way. They were, 
too, but not the kind of things I expected. I was clerking in the store when I 
heard the fire alarm. Someone told me my house was on fire. I ran home and 
found my woodshed was ablaze. My two boys and some neighbor boys had gone up 
in the loft of the woodshed to smoke cornsilk cigarettes and had dropped a 
match into the litter on the floor of the woodshed, so I lost my wood. While 
it was burning, my mother had a heart attack, so I sent for the doctor. It 
looked as if I were going to lose my house also, so the neighbors carried my 
furniture and everything else out into the yard. Presently I missed father, so 
I hunted him up and found him crumpled up on the porch, where he had fainted. 
Before we could move the things back into the house a brisk rain started, so 
everything was moved back soaking wet. That night I heard a heavy thud in 
father's room. I hurried up and found him lying on the floor unconscious with 
his head in a pool of blood. While walking in his sleep he had fallen and cut 
a deep gash in his forehead. I phoned for a doctor from Portland, who came out 
and sewed up the wound. Next day all the neighbors came in to see father. The 
doctor also came out and I saw he looked troubled. I said, 'What is the 
matter? I am used to trouble; a little more won't make much difference.' He 
said, 'I'm sorry, but I shall have to notify the health department. Get rid of 
your visitors as quickly as possible. Your father is breaking out with 
smallpox.' The health officers came out and quarantined us and put up the 
yellow flag. The neighbors who had been exposed were in a panic. I had to stay 
home and nurse father, so I lost my job at the store. The telephone company 
offered to care for my mare, Net, for what use it could get from her. A 
neighbor promised to take care of my hundred-dollar cow for the milk. He 
agreed to give us two quarts a day and keep the rest of the milk. After a week 
he failed to bring any more milk. I learned that the cow was lost. I paid a 
man three dollars a day for a week to hunt for the cow, but he couldn't locate 
her. A month or six weeks later I heard she was in the city pound. The charges 
were so much that I didn't have the money to get her out. I owed the butcher 
four dollars. He said he would pay the charges at the city pound and give me a 
receipt for my four-dollar bill in exchange for the cow, so I accepted his 
offer. Then the telephone company notified me that my mare had got tangled up 
in a barbed wire fence and cut herself so badly that it had been necessary to 
shoot her. I was on the verge of breaking down, so I hired a nurse at four 
dollars a day.

     "Finally the quarantine was lifted and we celebrated the event by having 
a little party out in our front yard. At the dinner mother had another attack 
and fainted. When the doctor came he said she was breaking out with smallpox, 
so they put up the yellow flag again. I had kept the nurse all through my 
father's sickness and then let her go, and I took care of my mother with the 
help of a sister-in-law. About three weeks later I came down with smallpox 
myself. I had no money left, so I took care of myself the best I could. After 
ten weeks the quarantine was finally lifted. I had a home left, an invalid 
mother and father, two small children, some debts, no money, no job, no winter 
wood, no cow, no horse, and a hearty appetite.

     "My friends had a place created for me in the juvenile court, as head of 
the home-finding department. I could tell you enough about my work there to 
make a good-sized book. I worked in the juvenile court several years. Then I 
served as matron at the Union station for a couple of years. Then I worked in 
the women's protective division of the police department a year or so, then 
served as house detective at Lipman & Wolfe's for a year or more. Then I began 
to run down in health, so the doctor told me to go to the seacoast. I came to 
Seaside. I have a nice home here, in which I live for eight months of the 
year. The balance of the year I rent it to some well-to-do summer vacationist. 
I put in the summer working in the exhibit salesrooms of the Pendleton Woolen 
Mill Company here at Seaside.

     "In spite of a somewhat strenuous time financially, I put my son Robert 
through the University of Oregon. He is now doing leads in western films for 
the Universal at Los Angeles. Yes, he gets good money — from one hundred and 
fifty dollars to two hundred dollars a week. I also saw to it that my son Jack 
received a good education. Yes, I have passed my fiftieth milestone. No, I 
don't believe I do look my age. You see, I have always been so busy dodging 
imminent financial disaster that I haven't had time to worry; so my face 
hasn't the wrinkles caused by worry that you will see on the faces of so many 
women who worry for fear they might have something to worry about some day."

     Concerning Mrs. Cosgriff's son Robert the following article is 
quoted: "Robert James Cosgriff, of Hollywood, ex-resident of Portland, has 
just published his first novel, 'Wastelands: A Romance of the Big Trees.' 
First copies of the novel were received this week from the publishers by the 
author's mother, Mrs. Elizabeth Cosgriff of Seaside. 'Wastelands' deals with 
reforestation, and is based on the author's childhood recollections of the 
Clatsop county forests. The author dedicated this work to his mother in the 
following beautiful tribute:

     "'A woman who has lived always close to nature and to the trees of the 
great outdoors — to a woman who has found her happiness in communion with the 
primitive — and who has learned a lesson from the growing things of God's 
Natural Realm —
                                                                               
                 My Mother.'

     "Mr. Cosgriff has written a number of widely read short stories. Before 
taking up writing as a profession he worked as a sticker in the pressroom of 
The Oregonian, served as aid to Colonel John Leader at the University of 
Oregon, served at Camp Lewis as a second lieutenant during the war, did 
vaudeville time in the east, worked with the Kiser motion picture studios in 
Portland, played roles in the Forrest Taylor stock productions here and played 
lesser roles in Hollywood. He attended grammar school in Oak Grove and 
graduated from the Lincoln high school in Portland. His first novel is based 
on his experiences in the Crown-Willamette camps near Seaside."

     Jack Cosgriff, the younger son of Mrs. Elizabeth Cosgriff, is also a 
gifted young man, having already won more than local renown as a clever 
cartoonist, and is now in Washington, D. C., working his way through college.

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