Ward Girl Guilty, Sentence Postponed
Strangely reminiscent of the widely known novel "Grapes of Wrath" in several points is the story of Eleanor Ward.
Eleanor, 19-year-old household worker from the Buell district, was found guilty on a charge of swearing falsely by a Yamhill county grand jury last week. She is now being held in Multnomah county jail for Yamhill county authorities pending investigation of her case by the Oregon State Parole board, before Judge Arlie G. Walker passes any sentence.
She ran afoul of the law recently when her testimony before a grand jury resulted in indictment of Lee Albert Weygandt on a theft of some foreign coins from a Bellevue farmer. Subsequent testimony at Weygandt's trial, which ended in his acquittal, differed greatly from her prior story, it was alleged.
It is her background, however, which bears some resemblance to John Steinbeck's now-famous novel and its tale of the "Oakies" and their hardships in migrating westward. Born in Minnesota, where her father was a miner. Eleanor Ward went with her parents to Kansas at the age of nine. There her folks became share-croppers, trying to win their livelihood from the sun-baked Jayhawker state, with the whole family toiling in harvest fields.
When harder times forced search for greener pastures, the Wards also looked westward, followed a friend's advice, aimed for Oregon. Eleanor, together with her parents, three brothers, four sisters, brother-in-law and niece- making a total of 12- crowded into a single car and commenced the arduous trek to the Northwest. School days for her were over, and with so many mouths for her parent to feed on little income on their 20-acre patch on Parrot mountain, she started doing housekeeping work, and eventually wound up in the toils of the law.