Historic Hood River
What’s the Matter with Your Blooming Town Anyhow?
Notes
Here’s another fine letter from the city archive, this time from someone we know– Henry Langille, brother of Will Langille who we met at Cloud Cap Inn. Langille had been city recorder, and is now paying a tax assessment to the current city recorder. I think the entire letter is tongue in cheek.
It’s interesting he writes on Panama-Pacific Expo Company letterhead. He had recently moved to Palo Alto, according to the Glacier. In a sense he was returning home since he had attended Stanford University.
I was a little baffled by his last lines, but I had a hunch this might be Esperanto. Google translate verified my hunch, though I couldn’t translate it in its entirety. It says something like “Are you and your wife learning, or are you a scholar? Write Esperanto to me”
L.E.
Could this have anything to do with building the library, the Georgiana Smith Park and the Smith house?
Even if there is no connection, there is some good HR historic reading at the
National Register of Historic Places:
https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/c6240c33-0aef-4940-9b5c-5c0b62bbf794
There is only one reference related to Henry Langille, but this all must have taken place just before he left.
"The Woman’s Club, continuing their efforts toward city improvement, petitioned the City Council for vacating Fifth Street between State and Oak streets. The adjacent property owners had joined with the Woman’s Club, with an addition to the petition, asking that a twenty-foot passageway be left along the east side for a thoroughfare for teams and pedestrians. The property owners agreed to accept a lesser amount of space in their reservation if they were shown it was adequate. The petition passed on October 2, 1911 and was signed by recorder H.R. Langille, and Mayor E. H. Hartwig. The common council passed the petition on January 1, and the new mayor, E.O. Blanchar signed it on January 7, 1912."
I thought this part was interesting and wonder if this could be Langille’s refernece to flowers?
"In May of 1912, the Woman’s Club had planted roses and vines in the park area secured by closing of Fifth Street between Oak and State streets….."
Arthur
L.E., there were several letters in the file on this subject. I believe there was a special assessment to Mr. Langille’s neighborhood for street or sewer improvements. It had probably been controversial, as taxes always are, so he was ribbing his successor who had to deal with all the angry taxpayers.
Bill Chapman
Your translation of the Esperanto text is fairly accurate. There is a small linguistic error by Langille himself. The seventh word should have been "lernantaj" – he had omitted a plural agreement. My translation is "Are you and your wife learning (Esperanto), or are you an expert? Write to me in Esperanto".
Langille was an Esperanto expert himself and a leading light in the movement promoting it. His name appears in the journal "L’Amerika Esperantisto" in August 1908. November 1911, June 1913, May, July, September 1915, February, April and May, 1916. He even gets a mention in "The British Esperantist" in 1915.
Jeffrey Bryant
Here is an article concerning revoting the $90,000 bond issue for the reconstruction of the water system:
https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn83009939/1912-06-19/ed-1/seq-1/