"Winston and Edson are both sports." Those were the words of "Aunt Lil" many years ago. Winston, of course, was the late Sir Winston Churchill, England's great war leader. Edson, no one would suspect, was E. C. Jerome of Medford, known throughout the West Coast and Canada as "Jerry."
    Even more surprising to most people than his real name of Edson Corlies Jerome is the fact that Jerry and Winston were cousins.
    No one who had read the life of the great statesman of our age--[omission?] no one who has known Jerry through the years, however, will dispute "Aunt Lil's" characterization of the two.
    Jerry says he has no documentary proof that his grandfather, Moses Jerome, and Winston Churchill's grandfather, Leonard Jerome, were brothers. But it was always accepted as fact, substantiated by photographs in the photo album of the beautiful Jennie Jerome, mother of Winston Churchill.
    Leonard Jerome "was a big shot, a real big shot, in New York's upper crust. Moses Jerome was a farmer." Jerry recently explained their lack of communication when interviewed on a cold January day at the inviting fireside of his home on the Old Stage Road, where "Bunny" and he have retired.
    Alike--Churchill and Jerome? At least in their dissipations, Jerry is quick to admit. He used to smoke 15 cigars a day when the Great Northern Railroad, with which he started his career, was paying for them.
    Does he require good brandy? "Not exactly." But Canadian Crown whisky is his favorite drink. He has a friend in Calgary who sends it, or brings it, to him, lots of it, once a year.
    Does Jerry tell a good story? Does he appreciate a practical joke? Those are questions no one--but no one--who knows the history of Medford during the first half of the twentieth century would ask.
    Jerry was once the "Big Eruption" of the Craters, a band of boosters in the Rogue River Valley whose accomplishments in the promotion of Crater Lake National Park and Medford were outdistanced only by their stories and their trickery, most of it directed to the neighboring city of Grants Pass.
    The Craters were, as one other "Big Eruption" described them, "wonderful fellows individually, but collectively . . . (three little words seldom seen in print)."
    Jerome was born in Rantoul, Ill., in 1887. The family moved to Cookston, Ill., where he graduated from high school and two years later joined the staff of the Great Northern Railroad and made every large terminal of the United States and Canada. He made his first trip to the Rogue Valley in 1910, accompanying his mother, his young brother, Kenneth, and his sister, Fern, who came to be near Mrs. Jerome's parents, the late Mr. and Mrs. Henry DeWitt Corlies.
    Jerome returned to Southern Oregon to supervise shipment of materials for the first Copco dam for the Prospect Construction Company. The McLeod Bridge, which went out in the recent Christmas flood, was constructed to get the generator base across the river.
    Harry Stoddard, superintendent of Rogue River Electric, ancestor of Pacific Power and Light Company, hired Jerome to make an inventory of power company properties in Oregon and California. There he met Elizabeth Margaret Schoenenberger, known as Bunny. She was teaching school in Yreka.
    They were married in 1916 and Mrs. Jerome taught in the Medford High School for 27 years. They were both closely associated with the school system, Jerry as timekeeper for the football team for 40 years. He treasures his striped team sweater given to him when the players were still known as "The Tigers."
    He has watched three generations boom over the goal line, and he got the Medford High School band its first invitation to the East-West game in San Francisco. During all the years that classic has been played he has missed just five games.
    "The only thing I ever missed," Jerome reviewed his past, "I wasn't invited or didn't know about it, so my mother said." Ill health has recently forced him to become a "stay at home."
    The biggest celebration of his life was Oregon's Diamond Jubilee, staged in Medford and Jacksonville in 1934 with Jerome as general chairman. The only blight on the whole affair was the surprise June rain, which poured down the night before the opening of the pageant and the night the special train rolled in from Portland with guests and representatives of Pathe news here to cover the jubilee.
    The parade was so much longer than Pathe News had anticipated that the photographer ran out of film before it was over and actually wept when some of the best entries moved by, Jerome recalled.
    "There were things in that parade that hadn't been seen before and haven't been seen since in any one display," the former chairman declared. "But money was scarce in the early Thirties and the two rodeos were the only thing that pulled the sponsors out of debt."
    Jerome recalled that one of the underwriters, the late George Hunt, owner and operator of Medford theaters, accompanied his check with this comment: "For Banwell's folly and Jerry's big hat." A. H. Banwell was then secretary of the Chamber of Commerce. The hat was a gift to Jerry for the celebration, not from the underwriters.
    The jubilee opened with an address by Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace of President Roosevelt's cabinet. It continued through [a] historical pageant, written and directed by Angus Bowmer; parade, contests, tournaments, two rodeos and a grand ball.
    In 1939, while he was field representative for the Shasta-Cascade Wonderland, Jerome engaged in another big celebration--the World's Fair in San Francisco. He promoted the building entered by the Wonderland organization.
    Urged back to discussion of the ruses perpetrated by the "Craters" for Medford against Grants Pass when both cities were younger, smaller but more robust and occasionally ribald, Jerome recalled the faked visitation of the president of Mexico.
    It was for dedication of the Caveman Bridge to which the Grants Pass Chamber of Commerce issued invitations to many notables of the South and West. Medford Craters decided that the president of Mexico should attend. The late Earle Davis, who spoke Spanish fluently, was the star player in the deception. Faked telegrams, uniforms, car license plates gave authenticity to his arrival. He was given the place of honor in the dedication parade, and when the parade march halted in the city park for a few words from the president of Mexico a scroll was unrolled, reading "Greetings from the Crater Club."
    "One Grants Pass friend never spoke to me again," Jerome lamented.
    There were other practical jokes built around radio programs that weren't actually on the air, and the marathon race to Grants Pass with the late James Grieve of Prospect Hotel and Jerome as entries.
    But on the serious side, Jerome has served as a director in the Medford Chamber of Commerce, distributor for Texaco Oil Company and developer of the old Page block on Main and Riverside, in Medford.
    He is senior past potentate of Hillah Temple of the Shrine, senior past exalted ruler and 53-year member of the Medford Elks Lodge. He is past president of the Pacific Northwest Shrine Association, past director Court 108, Royal Order of Jesters, and holds a life membership in the Shrine association in all of North America and Mexico City.

Last revised August 9, 2024