Emma Jane Nutter
Robert William "Will" Hogg, son of John Alexander and Margaret (Hall) Hogg was born in Butler County, Pennsylvania just six months before his parents traveled across the country and homesteaded near Rippie, Iowa. Both of Will's parents came from Irish families which had been in the United States for just a couple of generations. The Hogg family stayed in Iowa just ten years before moving on to Buffalo County, Nebraska where they settled and prospered. Will Hogg began farming for his father when he was ten years old and attended school intermittently. Will attended an agricultural college from 1887 to 1890 after which time he moved to Oregon where he taught school for a year. His parents had called him home to Nebraska in the autumn of 1891 to help his ailing father run his sorghum factory. He then began teaching locally in Buffalo County after his father recovered. It was during his brief tenure as a teacher in Buffalo County that Will met Jennie Nutter.
Emma Jane "Jennie" Nutter, daughter of William and Dinah (Ingham) Nutter, their tenth child (seventh of those still living), was the first one born on the Nutter homestead following their settling for a second time in Nebraska in 1870. Her mother called her "Jane" throughout her life, but everyone else called her "Jennie".
Like her siblings, Jennie was educated in the school at nearby Shelton and eventually taught school herself in District 8 of Buffalo County. It was during that time in 1892 that she met a fellow teacher, Will Hogg. Will had just returned from his two years in Oregon. In no time at all after they met, Jennie was smitten with Will Hogg and they were married on New Year's Day, 1893 at Jennie's parents' home, the octagonal house on the Nutter farm between Gibbon and Shelton, Nebraska.
Will and Jennie had only been married a few months when Anna, the wife of her older brother John Nutter, died. John was left with five young motherless children to raise. It was Jennie who stepped into the breach along with her sister, Louise Nutter, to care for the little ones until John remarried in 1893. These events laid the basis for an enduring close relationship between Jennie and these children along with their new step-mother (also named Jennie) who happened to be close to the same age as Jennie Hogg.
The young couple leased some farm land in Buffalo County for the first two years of their marriage, but a drought in 1894 wrought havoc on established farmers let alone those just starting out. Will then worked for another farmer for a couple of years for twenty-five dollars a month. They saved enough for a down payment on farm along the Platte River costing four thousand dollars. During this time, Jennie gave birth to their eldest son, Glenn Hogg at her parents' home. A little over two years later, Jennie gave birth to another son, Ronald Hogg.
Jennie's "new" sister-in-law Jennie was challenged by her growing family of four children of her own and five step-children. When Jennie and Will Hogg decided to move to Oregon in 1904, they offered to take with them eighteen year old Herbert Nutter, John's oldest son. The Hoggs sold their farm along the Platte and settled in West Salem. Eventually Herbert's sisters Frances Beatrice and Elsie also were sent to Salem to live Will and Jennie, and they graduated from high school there.
The Hoggs bought a farm in Oregon along the Williamette River. Success came quickly and they built a beautiful home overlooking that river on a farm that eventually included 700 acres. About 50 acres were set aside as an orchard where they grew cherries, prunes, walnuts, apples and peaches. Most of the farm produced small grains; corn, clover, rape, alfalfa, oats and barley. They also had Jersey cows, Poland China hogs, Hampshire sheep and White Rock chickens.
Their only daughter Margaret Diana Hogg was born in Oregon, and named after each of her grandmothers.
In 1932 Will formed the Polk County Farmers Union Cooperative Oil Association and was later elected its Director and Secretary-Treasurer. In 1934, he became Director of the Pacific Supply Cooperative and the Williamette Cherry Growers Cooperative. Will Hogg also ran for Senator but lost in a close election.
In 1949, Will Hogg suffered a stroke while operating a power lawn mower. Although he was eighty years old at the time of the incident, it was only then that he retired from work on the farm and from his active membership on various agricultural cooperative boards. He had actually almost fully recovered from his first stroke when a second stroke landed him in a Salem hospital on May 17, 1952. He died the next day.
Jennie survived Will by almost seven years and enjoyed relatively robust health. She died on 16 April, 1959 in a Salem, Oregon hospital just a month short of her eighty-ninth birthday after being ill for less than two months. She was buried next to Will at Belcrest Memorial Park in Salem.
Brothers Glenn and Ronald Hogg graduated from OSU’s agricultural sciences program a year apart in 1922 and 1923. When their father died, Glenn took over the cherry orchard, while Ronald assumed responsibility for the livestock.Glenn began and ran the Willamette Cherry Growers association, led the Polk County Farmers Co-op, and served on the board of directors of Salem Electric. Ronald was President of the American Hampshire Sheep Association, as well as the Oregon based sheep breeders and wool growers associations.
Together with their sister, Margaret,they created a thriving family sheepbreeding business. Over the years, they remained involved with OSU, and Margaret Hogg carried on this tradition after her brothers’ deaths in 1985 and 1994. None of the children of Will and Jennie Hogg ever married or had children, so when Margaret Hogg passed away, she left more than $2.6 million to the College of Agricultural Sciences at OSU. The Salem Hospital Foundation also received a $1.7 million gift, along with 153 acres of the family land in West Salem.
The renowned Hogg flock of sheep was sold in 1981 to D. Paluska Farms in Salem, and was tended by a former Hogg shepherd, Dale Jones. The American Hampshire Sheep Association, recognizing two long-time Oregon Hampshire breeders, Ronald Hogg and C.M. Hubbard, established the Hogg-Hubbard Scholarship, to be administered by the Oregon State Foundations. The scholarship was, and continues to be, awarded to deserving agricultural students seeking graduate study in sheep science at OSU.