Some of the older outbuildings on the Vey Ranch property, which now house Marilyn Schiller?s grandchildren, are viewed from the main house.

Originally a sheep ranch, the property is now mostly a ranch for quarterhorses, cattle, and alfalfa.

An antique portrait of Antone Vey hangs on the wall in Schiller?s bedroom.

Antique family photo albums containing photographs and original tintypes from when the Vey family first arrived from Portugal are on display.

Records date the Vey ranch back as far as 1861, just two years after Oregon became a state.

But that?s only because the settlement predates the records themselves, says Marilyn Schiller.

?This was the first census (here),? said Schiller, now owner of the 55,000-acre ranch outside Echo. ?They were here before that.?

As Oregon celebrates its 150th birthday this weekend, many are taking the opportunity to look back at a rich history of statehood. Schiller has to look no further than her front porch view, where past the trees stands an old white barn bearing a commanding ?AV? symbol painted in red ? the initials of the ranch?s founder, Antone Vey.

?It?s interesting. It?s history,? Schiller said. ?Just think of what they went through to walk here.?

Yesterday:

A long walk

Indeed, the Veys? trek to Oregon in the mid-19th century began with a walk. After migrating from Portugal early in his life, Antone Vey and his two brothers worked a number of jobs in California. The three later made the trip to the Northwest ? by foot ? before Antone worked long enough to earn his own land and start his own operation at the present Vey ranch site.

More than 150 years later, Schiller pored over more of that history on an unseasonably warm, sunny January day. Standing over a table in a house that?s stood on the Vey property since 1922, she thumbed through hundreds of old photographs containing faces and scenes of her husband?s family history.

Each frame prompted a different story. Schiller found one of Antone and his wife Mary, chuckling at Antone?s long, thick beard and stern expression.

Another showed the family?s annual cattle drive passing through Pilot Rock on the way to Starkey near La Grande, more than 100 miles from the main ranch. The trip usually took more than seven days, and it?s a trip Schiller remembers taking when she first married her husband Robert and moved to the ranch in 1957.

?When we trailed the cows it was interesting,? she said, marveling at how much has changed since then.

A frame of an old 1920s-era car drives that point further home. Schiller said the car was likely used in the rugged terrain at the Starkey property, near Anthony Lakes. Not exactly the smooth pavement of Big Butter Creek Road that leads to the ranch today.

?Can you imagine? Those are like bike tires,? she said. ?They must have had so many patches.?

Antone eventually passed the ranch on to his son, Antone ?Tony? Vey Jr. Tony ran things with his wife Mabel for five decades, even hosting rodeos on the property through the 1930s, according to the Morrow County Historical Society. The two also raised their nephew, Robert Schiller ? Marilyn?s husband, who eventually took over after Tony?s death.

During those years, Marilyn Schiller said she frequently got another account of her family?s history through Mabel Vey. Living with Robert and Marilyn after Tony?s death, she told stories of the ranch rich with detail and color, Schiller said, bringing some of the old faces in photos to life.

In her later years, Mabel consulted with Schiller to make sure her legacy and her property were in order before her death in 1989.

?Every day I would have to read her will,? Schiller said. ?I probably could have memorized it. She just wanted to make sure it was okay.?

But other parts of the Vey history faded with time. Looking through more yellowed photos, Schiller admits she doesn?t recognize many of the older faces outside the immediate Vey family. None of them have labels or dates. And no one alive could identify them now. More than likely, no one ever will.

?These are sad,? Schiller said, ?because I don?t know who all these people are.?

Today:

?Cattle, quarter horses and grandkids?

Though its buildings have received their share of updates and facelifts, the Vey ranch of today maintains many of its original features. Perhaps most notable is the business itself. Antone Vey started the ranch raising cattle, horses and sheep, and Schiller now describes the operation as mainly ?cattle, quarter horses and grandkids.? Schiller also grows alfalfa and leases other parts of the land, she added.

Walking around the property near her house, Schiller pointed out several signs of a lasting foundation left by its founders. A handmade bridge that crosses Butter Creek near the house hasn?t needed any work since it was built almost a century ago, Schiller said. On one side a carving still reads ?ANTONE VEY 1915? along uneven concrete.

The creek also used to drive the entire ranch through hydroelectric power, Schiller said. She still stands amazed at how things like electricity and paved roads are so common now, but would have been considered a luxury by her relatives.

?We are pretty spoiled and fortunate,? she said.

The property has since come to serve other purposes in its later years. A shop building for a tractor and other equipment can host parties or other receptions when cleaned up, Schiller said. The old sheep barn now holds RVs, snowmobiles and other family ?toys? in addition to a horse arena inside.

The ranch now exists as the oldest registered farm or ranch in Umatilla County still in operation today. Schiller entered the Vey property in the state?s Century Farm and Ranch Program, started during Oregon?s centennial celebration in 1959 as a way to honor its history then. It?s since been featured in tours through the Umatilla County Historical Society, said director Greg Holden.

The ranch was also featured in a book written about Portuguese migration to the United States, Schiller said. She felt the land deserved the recognition, even though the early members of the Vey family ? a very private group, she said ? likely wouldn?t have.

?I just thought it was kind of an honor to have kept it that long in the same family,? Schiller said, adding she?s tried to keep that history alive through her own efforts. ?I think it?s very interesting, and it?s an honor to anyone who has died.?

Tomorrow:

An uncertain future

The Vey ranch achieved a longevity few others reach, but it may be nearing its end in the Vey/Schiller family. Schiller, 70 this month, has run the ranch mostly by herself since her husband?s death in 1995. She uses both family and hired help when she needs it, but the daily and yearly grind now beckons her to move on, she said.

?It?s been a lot of hard work,? she said. ?As you get older, you have to do what you want to do.?

Of her five children and 14 grandchildren, none have expressed interest in taking over the Vey ranch, Schiller said. She tried to sell it through a Pendleton realtor for a few years, but with no success. Now she offers the property less aggressively.

All that leaves the future of the Vey ranch very much uncertain.

Schiller doesn?t seem bothered by the possibility of her ranch leaving the family. She said she?d like to move into a smaller, more low-maintenance home somewhere in the area ? but that doesn?t mean she?d lose sight or lose track of the Vey history. Schiller?s sister stores other old items from the ranch at her home. And aside from building a more modest home for herself, Schiller has another idea for the stacks of photos and records now in her possession:

?Someday I?m going to have a museum,? she said. ?I mean, I have so much stuff.?