The Aldrich Family Farm
Est. 1858
Waitsburg, Washington · Walla Walla County
Chapter One
The Family
Four generations called the "Route 1" home. These are the faces the albums kept — clippings from the county paper, a wedding portrait, a grandmother in her apron and everyone together under the autumn trees.
Local newspaper · May 1958
Goldenweds Celebrate at Open House on Sunday
Percy Shelley Aldrich and Mary Abbey marked fifty years of marriage in the same house where he was born eighty-one years before. No invitations, no gifts — just friends calling between two and five on a Sunday afternoon.
Read the full article →Chapter Two
History
A house, a windbreak and a line of fence posts set by hand. The buildings came one at a time — the homestead first, then the barn, then everything that had to be sheltered from the weather.
The Homestead
A house, a tree and the first automobile
The whole household turned out for the photograph — everyone in their good clothes, the car pulled up close so it would fit in the frame beside the porch.
Shelley Aldrich, Mary Aldrich, children Esther, Robert and Percy; friend Chas Wilson; and the family dog Diamond, the St. Bernard.
Walla Walla Union-Bulletin · October 18, 1953
Aldrich Brothers Settled Early in Vicinity of Dixie
Milton and Newton Aldrich came west in the 1850s, met again in Sacramento and never parted — settling on Dry Creek, holding land by patents signed by Ulysses S. Grant, and deciding the Walla Walla Valley was the center of the universe.
Read the full article →Chapter Three
Harvest
From horses in harness to three machines working the same slope — the work never changed, only what pulled it. Cutting time set the clock for everyone on the place.
Chapter Four
Legends
Some stories survive only because someone thought to write them down. A wagon overturned on an unworked mountain road, a settler pinned beneath the load, and a neighbour who did what he could with an axe and his own shirt.
Page Six · May 1930
Why the late Milt Aldrich was called Doc
J. L. Dumas tells how Milt Aldrich moved the load off George Pollard, splinted his crushed leg with axe-cut splints and strips of his own shirt, then rode bareback to Walla Walla for the only doctor in the valley. The settlers called him “Doc” ever after.
Read the full article →“Youthful pride could make a showing in those days, as now.”
Union Bulletin, 1953
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