like to portray us that way. I picture us as a fresh-faced young couple, well educated, solidly middle class, and looking to be engaged in life with a purpose.
It is only with the perspective of time that I realize, looking at the bigger picture, that Bill Blosser and I were bit players in a drama far larger than we knew. We shared a small part of the incredible entrepreneurial energy that enveloped the world when we were young and ready for adventure.
The decade of the first plantings in Oregon vineyards, 1965–75, was one of political and social upheaval. When those of us who lived through it look back, what stands out are the Vietnam War, civil rights, and feminism that dominated the news. Race riots, antiwar protests, political assassinations, and bra burning were what we saw every time we turned on the TV news. What we didn’t see, but experience today in every facet of our lives, was what was happening behind the scenes in the business world, which was facing its own upheaval.
Radical thinking flourished in more than politics. This was a decade in which young entrepreneurs started looking at the world differently. Innovative companies that became household words got their start. Apple, Starbucks, Microsoft, Nike, and many more all began in that decade. Laptops, lattes, cell phones, high-end sneakers, word processing, gourmet home cooking—all these things that have become part of our lifestyle had their birth or blossomed in the decade between 1965 and 1975. It was an extraordinary time on all fronts and we are still reeling from the momentum created.
When Bill and I decided, in 1970, to start a vineyard—out-of-the-box thinking for two history majors—we were manifesting the innovative energy of the time. Like the Eraths, Letts, Adelsheims, Campbells, and Ponzis, who also dreamed of European wine grape vineyards, we were each following our own dream, not realizing we were part of a global phenomenon.
IN 1973, BILL AND I decided it was time to move out of our drafty rented farmhouse. We had lived the seven years of our married life in rented housing, never more than two years in the same place. I was pregnant with our second child, and we wanted a home of our own. We tried to buy a house nearby, but there weren’t many and none were for sale, so we had to build. A sloping corner of our vineyard, not good for grapes, would work for a house. Bigleaf maples and Douglas firs lined the west side, but we could look east, north, and south over the vineyard from the second floor.
The library’s books of house plans showed us boxy houses that seemed too conventional. Far more enticing were plans for vacation homes. These had imaginative shapes and angles that could be fun to live in. We chose an octagonal pole house. Neither of us had ever seen such a house, but it sounded interesting and we liked the idea of views from eight sides.
We hired a contractor from a nearby farming community, whose workers came from a local commune. We planned to have them only frame the house. We would do the rest ourselves and Bill took six months off to work on the house. He installed the whole electrical system and beamed with pride and relief when it passed inspection. To save money when he put up the drywall, he carefully cut and fit small pieces into the odd angles that an eight-sided house created. It took so much time that we decided to hire professionals to do the taping and ready it for painting.
The men we hired couldn’t believe that Bill had used so many tiny pieces and never stopped complaining about all the odd shapes they had to tape. I did much of the painting of the walls, propping myself against the ladder with my increasingly pregnant belly. We moved into our almost finished home just in time to celebrate Christmas. One month later, Alex was born.
We were thrilled to finally be in a home of our own, but it didn’t take long to discover that while an octagonal house looked good on paper, it was full of angles that made rational furniture arrangement almost impossible. None of the rooms had the square corners required to accommodate a cupboard, a TV, or a chair comfortably. Our main living area—living room, kitchen, dining area, master bedroom, and large deck—was on the second floor, overlooking the vineyard. The kids’ bedrooms were on the first floor. Below that, a daylight basement opened to the carport. We framed in space for a motorized dumbwaiter, with the idea that I wouldn’t have to carry groceries up two flights of stairs. But in the eighteen years we lived there, we never got around to building it.
As the second child, Alex had the advantage of my having been broken in by Nik. The youngest of four siblings, I never babysat or even paid much attention to children. I had no idea how to handle babies and was nervous that I would do something wrong and wouldn’t be a “good mother.”
In the rented farmhouse, I was generally alone all day, sometimes in total silence except for Nik’s wailing and the creaking of the rocker where I sat holding him, unable to stop the tears of helplessness flowing down my cheeks. Nik just kept crying. I changed his diaper and nursed him, held him, rocked him, and sang softly to him. What could it be? I reread my paperback copy of Dr. Spock’s book until it was falling apart.
Checking out the vineyard on a sunny day in early spring before the vines leafed out. Bill has four-month-old Alex in the backpack. Three-year-old Nik is in between me and Bill’s father, John Blosser.
It took me a long time to loosen up enough to enjoy my baby. Later I understood that his crying reflected my insecurity, and I carry a rueful tenderness in my heart for Nik who, as the first child, had to bear my learning curve of motherhood.
As I relaxed, I was surprised to discover how interesting, how much fun, and how individually distinctive my children were. My two boys were born three years apart: Nik, reserved and intellectual, with an unexpected silly streak; Alex, gregarious and unconventional, with an unexpected intellectual streak. They complemented each other, and the older they got, the more fun they had together. I found motherhood deeply satisfying, but never easy.
With the vineyard in its infancy and only a few acres planted, I had time to get involved in non-farm activities. I joined the McMinnville chapter of the American Association of University Women (AAUW) and through my new friends learned of a teaching opportunity at Linfield, a small liberal-arts college nearby in McMinnville. I grabbed the chance to indulge my interest in American history and do the work I had trained for. Hired as an adjunct professor, I taught for the next two years, first History of the American Revolution, and then History of Women in the United States. I had my own office in the History Department and worked so hard that I managed to turn teaching one class into a full-time job. The whole experience—planning and giving lectures, talking to students, being one of the faculty—was intellectually invigorating. The department chair gave me the freedom to formulate the syllabus for the courses, and I felt as if I were in graduate school taking a tutorial, except that I was also teaching it. The material was always fresh in my mind because I was absorbing it only days ahead of my class. Here was the stimulation I craved, and I stayed until it became a luxury I couldn’t afford. I was needed in the vineyard.
PEOPLE IN THE LOCAL farming community were curious about us since none of the farmers had experience with wine grapes. Our first contact with the community was Carrie and Les McDougall, a retired couple who lived in a pink, ranch-style house on the large lot adjoining the top corner of our property, the site of our first planting. Summer evenings we’d see them settled on folding lawn chairs in the driveway in front of their house and we’d join them when we finished work. The four of us talked about farming and looked out across our rows of grapevines, past a few big maple trees, and down onto the patchwork of farms on the valley floor. The distance made it seem peaceful, but farmers work long days, and the valley was full of activity.
“Golly, look at that,” Carrie would say, pointing to a tiny tractor moving slowly across
