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  • Albert Lonski Wartime

    My father, Albert Thomas Lonski, wore his dress uniform for this portrait photograph. This uniform, his dress uniform, included a forest green coat, trousers of the same color, a khaki shirt, and tie. The insignia on his hat and lapel was the Eagle, Globe and Anchor (EGA). This was Marine Corps symbol.  The next photo shows his Service ribbon bar at the top. This bar is divided into 3 parts. The Presidential Unit Citation on the left was awarded to all the men in his unit for heroism in action. His unit was Headquarters and Service company, !8th Marines. He was in the mapping section. In the center, the American Defense Service medal is represented. Military service members who served on active duty between 8 Sep 1939 and 6 Dec 1941 got this medal. In the right section is the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal. It went to those who served in that area from 1941 to 1945. Albert had 3 service stars on this right side of his service bar. These stars were often called battle stars because they meant that he participated in a named campaign.

    Albert’s sweetheart, Helen Wolfe, also served during WW2 in Normandy, France. Toward the end of her life she wrote her story of day  of Victory in Europe.

    She, an army nurse, was my mother. In this piece she reacts to the news the war has ended. She heard it as “La Guerre est finie.”

    “La Guerre est finie” boomed the French voice from the radio shattering the darkness.
    I stood alone and listened. I was caring for a large ward of wounded soldiers. It was midnight in France in 1945 (May 8). To all of us this meant we could go home again to our own families and our country.
    I asked myself should I wake my soldiers and tell them. I didn’t, saying to myself what if it is a false report as it might be? For days the two armies faced each other in the valley. This meant that the Germans had finally surrendered the command to the Americans. It was very dramatic standing in that darkened room hearing the war was at last over. The radio became lively with chatter spoken in excited German voices. I spoke a little (German) and could make out only a little bit. I did understand that Hitler married his sweetheart, Eva Braun, then both committed suicides. 
    I stood alone in the dark talking to myself with world shaking news leaking around me. Oh, why didn’t I wake up some of my soldiers? I didn’t.  I did go to my night supper where all on duty went for a meal. There I got to share and say, “La Guerre est finie”. Most of them had not heard.
    How different was the next night! I left the radio on for all the soldiers to hear a discussion about the GI bill. This bill would make a difference in the lives of these young men. They could go home, marry their sweethearts, have babies and go to school (with the help of this GI bill). It was a wonderful investment in people. Our government’s G I bill would make a difference to each of us and we were grateful and ready.
    The next week I received five proposals of marriage. These soldiers were ready to start a family and start living.
    I had a recent quarrel with my Albert, but he still held my heart. I accepted one of the offers, knowing I would not keep it. I, too, wanted to go to school.
    Instead, we married as soon as we saw one another.
    Eventually, we had two beautiful daughters (their oldest one being born almost exactly 9 months after they married). There was enough to do. We used the GI benefits and felt so rich with the 90 dollars the government gave us to live on. We soon had everything. We had two lovely children and enough to eat and La Guerre est finie, no more war.
    We lived in my mother’s old house in Oregon. Albert remade it into a beautiful palace covered with stones he carried from the rock quarry (also on his mother-in-law’s property).
    Our daughters grew daily. 
    Next part -Albert’s career
    After years (of higher education), Albert was tired of college. He contributed (his skills) to making airplanes. He helped develop the 747. We moved around the country a lot with him working for Boeing. He helped get the Saturn Booster in the air.
    It all ended (when Albert retired). We went back to our stone castle on the river. By that time we had four beautiful grandkids. What treasures they were and still are.
    Now our country is in a miserable war (Iraq War) which they cannot win. I hope these soldiers can come home and be ordinary people again. Then perhaps la Guerre est finie can happen.

    Albert Lonski Goes to War

    Early life

    Albert Thomas Lonski arrived in this world on February 6, 1922, In Bremerton, Washington, USA. This was the same year Hitler formed Jugenbund, predecessor to the Hitler Youth organization in Germany. Albert’s mother, Anna Luise Taubert, was born in central Germany. She came to North America as a young woman. Her brother, Walter Taubert, kept in contact with her and her family. He sent birthday cards to his nephew, Albert. Here is a photo of the postcard Albert received on January 21, 1933. Walter’s son, Helmut, who was Albert’s first cousin, wrote out the message. “Greetings to you, from your Helmet, Parents and Grandparents”. The grandparent would have been Luise’s mother who was also the grandmother of Albert.

    This same Helmut joined the German army when grown. He likely belonged to Hitler Youth as a teenager.

    When Albert was only 16, when he graduated from Franklin High School. Then in December of 1938, wanted to join the US Marine Corps. Young men were allowed to join at age 17 if they had written parental consent. It was likely Albert’s father, Thomas Lonski, who gave this consent. This must have been a difficult time in the Lonski household. Seventeen days after his 17th birthday on February 23,1939 Albert did join.

    In the Marine Reserves

    According to the Marine Muster Rolls from the National Archives, Albert drilled at the Canadian National Dock in Seattle. Dates included were March 1, 8, 15, 23, and 29.

    On December 20, 1939, he qualified as an Expert Rifleman.

    Albert’s unit, the second Division Combat Engineer Battalion, was activated on November 1, 1940, in San Diego, California. Albert stayed in Seattle, but drilled with his reserve unit at Aberdeen, Washington.

    Out of the Reserves into Training- Camp Elliott

    Pearl Harbor Attack occurred on December 7, 1941

    Albert went to Camp Elliott before the Pearl Harbor attack. He trained at this camp in San Diego and is here in April 1941.  Second Lieutenant, Ben Webtherwax, led class 2. Albert was a topographer. On the October muster roll he was also a topographer.

    Still at Fort Elliott in January 1942, Albert was then a private 1st class working in the mapping section.

    Camp Dunlap, Miland, California

    By July of 1942, Albert trained in a California desert camp, Camp Dunlap. Here he met Helen Wolfe, a nurse working at Brawley Hospital. Three liberty passes for Albert have the wrong birth date typed at the top. This made him seem two years older than he was. Helen was 24 when they met; Albert was 20. When Albert showed Helen his liberty pass, she thought he was 22. Of course, the truth came much later and she was mad.

    His October 1942 Muster Roll read,” Albert Lonski, computer, mapping section”.

    New Zealand

    In 1942 and 1943 New Zealanders in Wellington shared their space with 15,000 young American Marines. The U.S. Marine corps used Wellington, New Zealand as a base for training and staging during WW 2. It was also a place for soldiers to rest and recover from being in the field.

     Albert with the 2nd Marine Division arrived in January 1943. His unit was stationed at Camp McKay. Albert took photos. Few had written descriptions; many were stamped on the back with this mark.

    Here is a group photo of his unit in New Zealand. He is in front on the right. This is written on the back, “March 29, 1943, after 3 months.” Albert is in the front on the right.

    He photographed more than a few natives while in New Zealand.

    More photos

    In the Field

    His first stay here was brief. He left on December 12, 1942 aboard the USS Bellatrix. He wore the 3 stripes of a technical sergeant on his sleeve. The Marine Muster Rolls don’t say where he went, just that he went to sea and was in the field.

    Campaigns

    On September 8, 1942, headquarters changed Albert’s Division to the first H&S co., 18th Marine (engineer), 2nd Marine Division. H & S stood for Headquarters and Service.

    The engineers of the 18th took part in campaigns in Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan, Tinian and Okinawa. According to his discharge papers, Albert “participated in action against the enemy”. He was at the Battle of Saipan of the Marianas Islands from 16 June 1944 to 9 July 1944”.

    Saipan

    Before Japan attacked the fleet at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, crippling the fleet, Saipan was a farming community. After Japan took formal control of Saipan in 1919, large sugar cane plantations were planted there. Warm, humid air, year-round rain and much sun made the land lush with plants. The terrain was mountainous. Cliffs and gullies dotted the landscape. There were many dark caves and swarms of mosquitoes. Malaria was a problem.

    Months before the U.S. Army, Marines and Navy attacked on June 15, 1944, the Japanese had fortified the island with extra troops. Many of the civilians’ homes were confiscated for military housing. People were forced to live in caves.

    War raged in Saipan from June 15 to July 9, 1944. These are the dates on Albert’s separation papers that he fought there. About 3,426 Americans were killed. Japan lost 24,000 soldiers and 22,000 civilians were also lost. Many of these civilians committed suicide; some were shot by their own soldiers.

    Before this battle Albert had been temporarily attached to the 2nd Division Marine Fleet. He was then with the Amphibians Corps. The first day of the Battle of Saipan saw a fight between American amphibious tanks and Japanese tanks. At the end of the first day most of these vehicles had been damaged beyond repair. Most were put out of commission by soldiers in fox holes.

    Albert, a phototopographer in the mapping section and a technical sergeant, never mentioned his fighting days in Saipan. What he did talk about was his surveying and mapping of Saipan. A phototopographer surveys and maps a terrain based on territorial photographs. The navel construction battalions, the Seabees, built the Navel Advance Base, Kogman Point Airfield and Isley Field on Saipan. Airbases on these islands were critical to winning the war in the Pacific.

    There is a documentary online from Real Time History called Saipan 1944 Total War in the Pacific. Here is a link to Total War.

    Albert took photos.

    Going Home

    By September 1945, Albert back in the United States, was assigned to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina .Albert had been assigned to active duty on November 7, 1940. He received his Honorable Discharge Button at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina on September 20, 1945. The Marine Corps also gave him a travel allowance of 5 cents per mile to get home to Seattle, Washington.

    In Albert’s collection of photos from his service days, I found a photo that touched me. An Asian child, barefoot and beautiful, leans against a dead snag on a deserted beach. The sun is shining as shown by the sharp dark shadows behind the snag.

    I don’t know if the photo is posed or is something Albert just happened across.

    I do know I felt achingly sad, looking at it.

    What was Albert doing here? He had become an engineer. Engineers like to build things.

  • Written

    Week 49 -Written- Helen Wolfe Lonski (my mother)

    Well-chosen words, piles of poems, long letters to the editor of the local newspaper and stories scribbled on scraps of paper abounded. Helen Margaret Wolfe Lonski left these items in my care. That was a lot of written words to go through. She knew written words caused conflict.

    She wrote these two short poems about the responsibility people had to use words wisely.

    Responsibility One

    Every time your tongue’s unkind
    Something dies
    In another soul.
    If to healing words
    Voice is given
    Something shriveled
    Comes alive
    In another being.

    Responsibility Two

    Words wound,
    Words mend,
    Words hurt,
    Words heal.

    Even as a young child stories, books and words fascinated her. Growing up on a hop farm in Brownsville, Oregon. She did chores. She wrote about one chore she really liked.

    One of the fun jobs we had was keeping the cows out of the corn patch that grew in their grazing ground. Mother gave us a blanket and books. She packed us a good lunch in a basket. I got two shining dimes a day for my labor. The older children got more. How rich I felt with two small silver pieces.  One thousand dollars could not have been as much. When I saved $2.00 in dimes I took my family to the ice cream parlor for a treat. That store is still in Brownsville with its old crooked planked floor.

    Then Helen’s family consisted of her father, Bert Wolfe and her mother Edna Olsen Wolfe. Her two older siblings were Harry and Mildred.

    Helen had been born on December 26, 1917. Then the Wolfes lived on Bert’s hop farm near Independence, Oregon. They moved to Brownsville in 1920 where Bert established a new hop farm. Helen didn’t remember the Independence farm.

    One of Helen’ early memories was the sad one. The family buried Helen’s father, Bert Wolfe in the Brownsville Pioneer Cemetery in November of 1925. Helen wrote a poem about this. She called it,

    To A Father Asleep

    They told me Time would heal the wound
    That passing years would leave the mark
    Only Of a vague pain of thy gentle memory.
    They lied. I felt then only numbness and a strange awe
    That grownups usually indifferent, were suddenly kind.
    Taking us three children by the hand
    My aunt led us
    For one last look at your dear face.
    It seemed you were quietly sleeping.
    If I could but touch your hand
    I longed to tell you
    Of the letter that had come for you that day,
    The sadness of the dog, Laddie, since you went away,
    But the urgent pressure on my shoulder restrained me.
    My aunt spoke slowly
    "Your father was a man greatly beloved."
    She motioned toward a bank of flowers
    Making the air heavy with their perfume,
    White Lilies, gorgeous hot house flowers.
    I missed the honest gleam of buttercups,
    The homely glow of dandelions.
    Flowers that you had graciously accepted
    From small sticky fingers.
    Helen favorite grown up woman was the aunt in this poem who spoke slowly and held her hand. Helen wanted to be like this aunt, her mother’s only sister, Sigrid Olsen.  Sigrid received her nursing diploma from the College of Medical Evangelists at White Memorial School of Nursing in 1920. Helen Wolfe received hers from the  same nursing program in October of 1941. While Helen studied at Loma Linda campus in California, she happily wrote this poem.

    Laughter

    	Laughter is an elusive thing,
    	As hard to hold as quicksilver,
    	Bright, flashing through your fingers.
    	Glinting from many friendly voices
    	As sunbeams on granite cliffs,
    	And sparkling out from happy days
    	As moon light on moving waters.

    At White Memorial Hospital

    Here is a photo of her dressed in white to view a surgery.

    After a year of book studies at Loma Linda, Helen went to Los Angeles. She was a student nurse at White Memorial Hospital. While there, she did rotations. She didn’t like all the rounds as she implies in the next poem.

    L.A. County General, Hospital Before Antibiotics

    It seemed to me
    As up and down we walked
    These contaminated halls,
    That little bugs crawled in and out,
    And over all the walls.
    The floor it moved beneath our feet
    Almost of its own accord.
    Dread diplococcus and sporocysts
    Swat lustily aboard.
    The kids all yelled with a hearty will
    And resisted nose drops mightily.
    Vexed and perplexed, I endeavored to quell
    The noise that eddied around me.
    As I soothed their unhappy little noses
    Bathed their bodies, and changed their beds
    Life was full of big red roses,
    Howling kids, and 'coughs, and sneezes.
    Sorry, I regretted choosing nursing,
    When I landed on contagious diseases. 

    Helen graduated from White Memorial School of Nursing on October 1, 1941. She received a certificate from the California Board of Nurses Examiners stating she was a registered nurse.

    Brawley

    At the end of her nurse’s training, she went to work at a 6-bed hospital in Brawley. This private hospital served the Brawley Community in the 1930s and 1940s. In 1950, the larger Pioneers Memorial Hospital opened in Brawley.

    Helen received a letter from the California State Nurse’s Association. The postmark reads Brawley, California, 30 Sep 1942. The 610 Imperial Ave. address matches that of the Brawley Hospital.

     It was here that she met Albert. Before they dated each other they dated mutual friends. Albert Lonski did his basic training at Camp Elliott, near San Diego.  He, a marine sergeant, shipped out in November of 1942. Camp Elliott trained Marine recruits for the South Pacific.

    The Colorado Desert, Brawley’s location, had a tropical climate. Albert wrote to Helen. She answered in kind, and they exchanged letters throughout the war.

    Helen wrote this poem.

    Desert Night East of L.A.,California

    We see
    Night light soft and dim,
    On the white of the yuccas,
    Ten million bright stars,
    A round full moon
    Tangled in the tall pines.
    We hear
    The tiny tinkle of a small brook.
    The hillside holds its breath
    We dare not speak

    left, Albert and Helen in Brawley—-right, Albert’s wallet photo of Helen

    From Albert Stationed in the South Pacific

    Albert first sent this to Lebanon. Helen was in California with her mother, Edna Wolfe.

    The favorite letter Helen got form Albert reads.

    Dearest Helen, 
    Again, I find a few minutes to write you a few lines of my troubles. For the last couple of days it has been raining so much that we almost have to swim to and from our tents. The water is about 6 inches deep around our tent now and it is still raining. Oh, what I would do for a little bit of that California sunshine and a little bit of that moonlight with you. It's been 5 months since we left San Diego that November day and I haven't been with you, my love since that June day in Brawley, remember? I wish they would hurry up and finish this damn war so I could go back home to peace and quiet with you again. 
    By the way, I still think of you all the time and miss you very much. 
    This is a tropical hell hole without you; if you were here, it would be a paradise, my love. 
                                 I love you, 
                                 Albert

    Helen Goes to the European Front

    One reason Helen enlisted in the military was she hoping to be stationed close to Albert. She received basic training at Camp White in Oregon. She started here on January 13, 1944. On January 10, 1944, she became an army nurse and 2nd lieutenant. She saw duty in France, Le Mans and Charters. She arrived somewhere in England aboard the hospital ship, named Charles A Stafford in September of 1944.

    The journey from England to Normandy was difficult.

    The Tent Hospital

    This 1,000-bed tented hospital functioned as an Allied Military hospital. It operated between November 21, 1944, and April 5, 1945. After the April date Allied patients were transferred to other hospitals. The first few months at 170th General Hospital located near Le Mans, Normandy, France were cold, wet and uncomfortable. Helen arrived with the 83 nurses assigned to this hospital on November 13, 1944.

    Here is a description of early camp conditions from the WW2 US Medical Research Centre- Unit Histories- 170th General Hospital. The quoted information is from the Improvisation, procedures, equipment, manpower section.

    170th General- Le Mans, France

    Improvisations had to be made for the lack of certain equipment. Lamps were manufactured out of bottles filled with kerosene. Much borrowing from neighboring units had to be done to keep life from being miserable. The TAT (To-Accompany-Troops) equipment was hauled to the hospital site from the railway station.

    On 21 November, 404 patients were admitted, and there were still no ambulances for disposition and evacuation, the water supply was not yet declared potable, and electric lights were not yet installed. The coal allotment for December had been hauled in, and tents, stoves, and beds set up.

    Soon after the Hospital opened, a PW (Prisoner of War) enclosure was built, and before Christmas 250 German PWs and 28 French civilians were working in the Hospital Plant. It would not have been possible to efficiently run a hospital of this size with such a low T/O of personnel(T/O is short for Table of Organization and referred to a specified number of personnel). Forty (40) EM Enlisted Men) were tasked with guard duty alone. The 170th General Hospital had been operating under canvas since it opened on 21 November 1944, with the help of borrowed tentage.
    Unfortunately, only 8 wards had been winterized, and it took another three weeks before winterization of all the wards was completed. Stoves and fuel were now available, but there was no electricity. The unit managed to borrow one 30 KW (kilowatt) generator from the 19th General Hospitaland, after about two weeks, Engineers installed two of their own generators. No canvas repair kits were available, and as of 31 December, it was impossible to repair leaking tents. Lumber was missing, GC (Geneva Convention) Red Cross markers were nowhere to find, red and white paint was not made available. Circulating pumps could not be obtained, and therefore only one shower unit could be installed for the patients.

    The hospital staff had no accessible bathing facilities for three- and one-half months. The water was obtained from a 200-foot well on the grounds, and a concrete underground water tank of 15,000-gallon capacity served as the main storage tank. Individual washing was done by everyone, and there was no dry cleaning in the neighborhood. Everyone slept in his clothes, as it was too cold to undress without fires.

     Nurses had to keep wearing their class A uniforms, and had no sweaters, no leggings, no overshoes, other people missed overcoats, raincoats, and had no extra clothing. Luckily some extra combat clothing had been obtained on 7 November. Messing was improved after receiving ranges, but keeping food warm remained a problem, and the lack of certain items such as salt and pepper shakers and coffee cups caused problems when serving bed patients. There was a shortage of stovepipes, and there were insufficient personnel to operate everything, so, 60 PWs were employed in the three messes to help serve 1,500 to 1,600 people three meals a day. There was no concrete slab on the floors, no drainage gutters were provided, and dish washing facilities were totally inadequate …

    Around this time Helen and her tent mates had a run in with General George Patton. This is what Helen said about this meeting.

    A Chance Meeting With General George Patton 
    Into our tent stamped a big bluff man with general bars on his shoulders. He was yelling, “what is all that female underwear doing in my command, 3 miles from the front.” We (the army nurses) had saved rainwater in our helmets and some drinking water with which we washed our panties and brassieres in our helmets. Then we hung them with large safety pins from the outside tent ropes. These items were dancing in the breeze. They were all different colors, and I thought they looked interesting, but not military. It did show women lived here and women determined to keep clean.
    He hooked a thumb at me. “Where is she going all dressed up?”
    We did have our good uniforms in our bed rolls. I had been invited for a dinner and a shower at the navy outfit camped on the still mined Utah beach.
    He yelled, “Get a fence up with clothes lines and hide that female underwear. I don’t like the Navy washing our Army girls.”
    I went to a shower and good dinner at the Navy camp. He stomped away yelling, “Female underwear 3 miles from the front.” But in a soft low voice I heard, “They are certainly pretty.”
    We had good showers the next day.

    By the end of November living conditions were better. Helen sent this letter to her Aunt Sigrid telling her about camp life. This was a little before they cared for many patients.

    4 Nov 1944
    Dear Aunt Sigrid & Maudie,
    We’re still in our cow pasture. We’re quite comfortable now. All in getting used to it, I guess. I don’t wear all that extra clothing I did at first.
    Hope you’re not working too hard. I ‘m, not yet.
    I’m staying home tonight trying to write some letters.
    There seem to be always some plan to go out such as it is. We ate steaks the other night. We’re getting stubborn and won’t go out unless they feed us.
    I’m trying to write and talk at the same time.
    We don’t do anything but a little drilling now and then. We have our bed rolls now and are warm enough. We’re sort of acclimated now too, so I don’t wear so many clothes around. In fact, I go to bed wearing only one pair of flannel pajamas.
    Would you send me some calcium tablets. We don’t get milk, and my nails are getting brittle, we get good food now though.
    Love, Helen

    The End of the War

    V-E Day, May 7, 1945, saw the end of the war in Europe. Helen wrote a poem.

    No War Now

    Listen to the silence.
    Hear the quiet.
    Feel the mystic moon sighing.
    Now, there is no crying
    Tonight. The World is at peace.

    on January 1, 1946 Helen traveled to camp Philip Morris. This was a large Army staging camp near the port of Le Havre, France. From here she returned to Presidio of San Francisco near San Mateo in the United States.

    Helen and Albert

    Albert was already out of the service. He had separated from the United States Marine Corp in September of 1945. He attended engineering classes at the University of Washington in Seattle. In February of 1946, he visited Helen in San Mateo. They married on February 26, 1946, in Burlingame. Here is Helen’s wedding photo.

    Helen wrote two poems about love.

    Pulse of Independence

    Two hearts ought not to beat as one. 
    For if one stops, 
    The other stops too. 
    They should beat alone 
    So, when   lying close 
    They do not sing a single note, 
    But together they play a melody. 

    Circles
    Love is not pie 
    To be divided 
    And slices given 
    To friends and relatives. 
    My love for you 
    Is a full 360 degrees 
    That encircles you, 
    Front back and sideways. 
    You cannot turn away from it. 
    And if I choose 
    To love a few hundred other people, 
    It takes nothing away from you. 
    For my love is expandable.

    Helen’s mother and aunts in Lebanon, Oregon honored the new couple with a reception in the spring of 1946. Helen wore the dress a German prisoner of war had sewn for her in France. This tailor fashioned the dress from a white silk parachute.

    Old Marrieds

    Here is a photo of Helen and Albert taken in 1980. Their last abode was at 33063 Berlin Road, Lebanon, Oregon.

    I wrote a poem about them at this time in their lives.

    Old Marrieds

    By Jill Foster

    The old man builds with rock, wood and colored glass
    Drawing his projects before.

    The old woman plants her gardens
    With trillium, dog tooth violets and abandon,
    Sowing her seeds freely.

    Th old man gives great, lavish gifts
    Planning months ahead.

    The old woman sprinkles presents about
    Buying books for any child she knows.
    Giving tidbits of home cooked treats to stray pets and people
    And kind words all around.

    The old man loves with his hands and eyes,
    Touching and looking his feelings
    Saving his words.

    The old woman gives volumes,
    Poems, postcards, letters,
    Using words to create gentle bonds
    And insightful meanings.

    These two bound together by choice
    Apart in their ways, stand together
    Making their world
    A little better.

  • The Disappearing Printer

    Post for Week 39

    There was one member of Frances Perritt’s family who disappeared late in life. I couldn’t find his death record, his burial site, or the place he spent his final years until recently.

    When I first met my husband’s family, including his great grandmother, Bessie Goughler, she spoke affectionately of all her three deceased husbands. George McClellan Goughler, the last of these three, was known to his grandchildren as Granddaddy Goughler. Bessie called him Mac, short for his middle name, McClellan.

    Bessie married George McClellan Goughler in October of 1918 in Portland, Oregon.

    Here is a copy of their return of marriage. Mac was about 11 years older than Bessie and he was 54 years at the time of their marriage. He was born in Pennsylvania on January 19, 1864.

    I calculated his birth date from census records and this entry from his step granddaughter’s diary. Her entry from January 19, 1835, reads:

    Tonight, Bill and Helen were over for dinner. It was Granddaddy’s and Helen’s birthday, so we celebrated.

    from Rose Coursen’s diary written while she was living with Mac and Bessie in 1935

    I found Helen Goughler birth certificate online. It was a typical adoptee certificate with the adoption parents listed as as parents. Helen birth date was January 10, 1906 which matches the newspaper story to follow.

    McClellan, The Printer

    Before both of his marriages, Mac was a member of the International Typographical Union. Mac Goughler ran to be elected to the executive committee for this organization. This was reported by the Oregonian newspaper on 29 March 1893.

    Mac Goughlers name came up in another article, dated September 1, 1913. This article in the Portland Labor Press told stories about early members of this union and mentioned Mac.

    It said that he was a job man and joked about his name. Here is the quote from the article. ”Mac Goughler’s ire was aroused because everybody persisted in calling him ‘MacGoogeler’ which was not his name by any means.”

    Today, to google something means to look online for information about it. In the story, Mac’s friends were using a corrupted form of the word “goggle”. To goggle meant to stare with a wide-eyed look.

    Mac did wear glasses.

    Holly Press

    McClellan Goughler and Chris Hansen were owners of Holly Press. Their print shop was located at 66 1/2 1st in Portland, Oregon.

    Here are two photos of this print shop, Holly Press.

    Holly Press
    Holly Press

    First Marriage

    Mac married Daisy in Yamhill County, Oregon on July 4, 1984. They remained childless until Friday night, January 19, 1906. This is what happened as told by the Morning Oregonian a few days later.

    Will Adopt the Baby

    Mr. and Mrs. McClellan Goughler, living at 794 Clackamas Street, will keep the baby girl, which was left at their home Friday night, and have named the waif Helen. At 9:30 o’clock that night the doorbell rang, and on answering it, Mrs. Goughler (Daisy) found on the doorstep a baby, that at once won a place in her heart and home. There was nothing about the infant that might lead to the identity of the parents. It was wrapped up in an old blanket. The baby is about 19 days old, and is a healthy child, and Mr. Goughler is as willing as his wife to give it a home, as they have no children of their own. They have accepted the baby girl as a gift from the mother whoever she may be.

    City News in Brief, Morning Oregonian (Portland Oregon)Wednesday 24 Jan 1906, p.9

    Mac and Daisy Split

    In 1913 and 1914 Daisy Goughler showed up in the society pages of Portland, Oregon newspapers multiple times. She attended and hosted events as Mrs. McClellan Goughler or Mrs. M. Goughler. Occasionally her husband, Mac attended with her. In 1916 society news of her decreased dramatically. It looked like trouble for the Goughlers. But Daisy was still listed as McClellan Goughler’s wife in the Portland City Directory for 1916. They live at 415 12th Street.

    In 1917 Mac and Daisy separated. Mac moved to the Lenox Hotel. He is listed in the Portland City Directory as being a resident of that building.  In 1918, Mrs. Daisy Goughler is living at a new street address- 389 Main Street, Portland, Oregon.

    By 1920 Daisy Goughler had moved to Seattle, Washington. She worked for a corset company. On the 1920 census for Seattle, King County, Washington, Daisy Goughler is divorced and boarding with Jack and Emily Holmes.

    In 1920 this date, their adopted daughter, Helen Goughler lived with Mac and Bessie.

    The Studebaker

    The same year that Mac and Daisy separated, Mac bought a 1917 Touring Studebaker. He registered the car with the Oregon Motor Vehicle Department. His license number was 10087.

    Here is a photo of this car with Bessie and Mac taken a few years later.

    Mac’s Years with Bessie

    Here is a photo of Bessie and Mac before they married. They are at Multnomah Fall with some of Bessie’s siblings.

    Back, George Reynolds, Louis Reynolds, Frances Reynolds Cooke and Louis Cooke, Front, Mac and Bessie Goughler, Mary Lydia (Mamie) Reynolds

    Their Residences

    The census records showing Bessie and George McClellan Goughler as a couple include those from 1920, 1930, 1940 and 1950.

    In October of 1918 George McClellan Goughler and Bessie Reynolds Cabell Curtiss married and set up housekeeping together. They first lived at Bessie’s place, 410 Harrison Street in Portland. They were still there when the 1920 Census was recorded in Multnomah County, Portland, Oregon.

    According to the 1920 census for this area, Rodolph W. Cabell, Bessie’s son, and Helen C. Goughler, Mac’s daughter, lived with them. Mac worked at his company, Holly Press which he owned with Chris Hansen. This record recorded Mac’s name as George M. Goughler.

    By 1930, they had moved to the house on 47th Street North. Mac’s daughter, Helen, still lived with them. The 24-year-old Helen taught music. This record values their home at $6,000.00. Here Mac gives his occupation as a printer of posters.

    House on 47th Street

    By 1940, Mac is no longer working outside the home. He and Bessie still live on 47th Street. Their house is listed as 3415 NE 47th. Mac’s name is recorded as George M. Goughler.

    In 1850, this couple still live at the 3415 NE 47th Street house. By this time Mac was 87 years and Bessie was 75 years. They had been together 32 years.

    The Aging of the house on 47th Street

    Here are two more photos of their Portland home taken another angle.

    house after remodel
    about 1936 showing Mac, Bessie and Betty Coursen, Bessie’s granddaughter

    Looking for Where Mac Died

    The 1950 census record is the last record I have of Mac in Portland.

    Looking for Where Mac Died

    I did find George McClellan Goughler burial site but not where I expected. It was more than 10 years after I started looking. Death records for Washington, Oregon and California yielded nothing. He was not buried in the River View Cemetery where his wife, Bessie, was buried. He was not listed in the Social Security index. I searched area newspapers for his obituary.

    For a long time, I felt like Mac had disappeared from Portland and Oregon altogether. But George McClellan Goughler had an uncommon name. I tried a global search on Find a Grave. I typed in only his name. A George M. Goughler came up. This George was buried in Evergreen Cemetery of Colorado Springs, El Pasco County, Colorado. A search of this city’s cemetery record showed the middle name as McClellan. A large sign for section 242 held many names. The burial date for George M. Goughler was given as September 10, 1952.

     As a result of all this looking, I found an institution in Colorado Springs that cared for old sick printers. George was a member of the International Typographical Union. He qualified for health care at the Union Printers Home.

    George McClellan Goughler was the type of man an unwed mother would give her baby to raise. I feel sad that were no obituaries for him at the time of his death. So here I am, sharing Mac’s memories 88 years after his burial.

  • Images

    I recently looked through my old treasures from the Ferguson family. I thought I should photograph these four big portraits. These people are related.

    In 2010 after the death of Aunt Betty Coursen Miller (gg granddaughter of Daniel Ferguson), Betty’s children give me family photos from the Ferguson Reynolds side. These photos are large, measuring 16″ by 20″. The images are on cardstock, yellowing, crumbly, and labeled as follows:

    Two photos had writing on the back on the back in what looks like Bessie Reynolds Cabell’s writing. One reads “Margaret St. John Ferguson.” This label gives information about who had the photos copied. It says, “Mrs. J. B. Cabell Baker City, Oregon, crayon, 3-18-02, April del W. Bowston.” April del W. Bowston was the artist who enhanced this portrait with crayon. Mrs. J. B. Cabell (Bessie Reynolds) was the granddaughter of Daniel Ferguson.

    The second photo has, “Edwin Wesley Reynolds married Margaret St. John Ferguson” written on the back. These first two photos made by photographing smaller photos of Margaret and Edwin. These smaller photos were taken in Baker City at Parker’s Studio around 1901. I have 4 /2” by 6 1/2″ photos of both identified as Edwin and Margaret Reynolds. Margaret’s age at Baker City sitting for the original photo was fifty-four.

    The third portrait was a drawing of Daniel Ferguson. It had a masking tape label saying, “Daniel H Ferguson married Jeannette Keller.” It was the one in the most deteriorating condition. It looks like a drawing.

    The fourth portrait shows a young woman about 18-years-old. She wore a white dress and has a mysterious smile . She looks very much like a younger version of Margaret. But the label on this lovely young lady photo reads, “Jeanette Keeler , wife of Daniel Ferguson.

    If this photo was taken of a 18-year-old Jeannette, the year would have been 1834.

    In the end, I decided this, too ,was a photo of Margaret Ferguson.

    None the less, these are some of my favorite photographs.Also they are an useful introduction to the next part of the Daniel Ferguson family story.

    Margaret’s Education

    Chances are greater than not that Margaret learned to draw quite young. 

    When Margaret was a young girl in the 1850s, opportunities for girls and young women were meager. Fewer opportunities exist in Oregon Territory. But in Oregon City just across the Willamette River starting in 1853, there was Clackamas County Female Seminary. Reading, writing and simple math, French, drawing and monochromatics were taught to the girls.   Monochromatics is drawing using shades and tints of one color. To attend this school for an 11-week quarter it cost six dollars. For an extra two dollars, the drawing lessons were offered.

    Some of Margaret’s art has been saved by the family. The drawing of her father, Daniel Ferguson, was probably Margaret’s work. Another piece, a mother and child drawing in the monochromatic style has Margaret name at the bottom of the piece.

    Here it is.

    Margaret signed this as Maggie Reynolds

    In 1857 the school faced financial ruin and was closed for a year. It reopened in 1858 under new management.

    Not long after this Daniel moved his family away from Oregon. Here is an ad placed by W. Blain in the Oregon Argus. It announced that the property on the hill above Linn City was for sale. This revealed that the Fergusons were still in Linn City in June of 1858. The whole family was there when the Oregon territorial census was taken in 1856 and 1857. Daniel, Jeannette, Elbert, James and Margaret left friends, neighbors. They also left a breath-taking view of Mount Hood when they left Linn City. They left for a home on the Columbia River in Washington Territory where the Cascade Rapids impeded river boat travel. And the 12-year-old Margaret probably had to give up drawing lessons.

    View of west side of Mount Hood

    They moved into a new house in Cascade City while still owning a house in Portland.

    Cascade City

    The next year the Fergusons moved to Cascade City also known as “Lower Cascades”. Cascade City developed around the army Fort Cascades. this fort was located on the north side of the Columbia River near today’s North Bonneville. In the 1860s, Cascade City was the largest town in Washington Territory and an important steamboat stop. Daniel’s neighbors, the Bradford brothers, owned dock and portage here. They took advantage of the passengers and cargo that had to bypass the river at Cascade City.

    The 1860 U.S. census listed 142 towns’ people in Cascade City. Also, there were 52 personnel at the garrison at Fort Cascades. At the beginning of the Civil War,this fort was abandoned by the army Then the town took over the fort.

    The Fergusons were listed in this census for Washington Territory, Skamania County and the town of the Cascades. They lived in dwelling number 602. Their surname was spelled incorrectly and written as “Fergerson”. Daniel H. Fergerson, a 46-year-old male headed this household. He was said to be a hotel keeper from New York. His family, Jeannette, aged 46, Elbert, aged 17, James, aged 15, and Margaret, aged 13, were listed next. Also, living at dwelling 602 were Thomas Pike, age 30, a ship carpenter, Albert Perval, age.

    A 21-year-old clerk named E. W. Reynolds lived close to the Fergusons in dwelling 600.

    Image of 1860 census, The Cascades, Dwelling 600 and dwelling 602

    The Teenage Margaret

    The house, mentioned in the 1860 census record as dwelling 602, was a second home for the Fergusons. They still owned a home in Portland, Oregon. This new home, like their other homes, fronted a major waterway used for shipping and travel in Oregon.

    Travel between their Portland home and their Cascades home was easy considering the times. If a person climbed aboard the Carrie Ladd of Captain Ainsworth’s fleet, the trip took a little over seven hours. It took five hours forty minutes to go down the Columbia to Vancouver, then 90 minutes inland to Portland.

    The Columbia River also marked the boundary between Oregon State and Washington Territory. The Fergusons lived on the Washington Territory side of the Columbia River.

     Living in Cascade City was more of a do-it-yourself affair than living in Portland and the Fergusons had hungry boarders. Margaret and her mother cooked on a cast iron stove. So, there was wood to chop, a fire to build and feed. Then, when cooking Margaret needed to monitor the fire to keep the temperature ideal.  To make a chicken dish, the chicken had to be caught, killed and plucked first. There was no refrigeration, so the roast chicken would have to be eaten soon after being cooked. William Moffitt was the area’s butcher, so there was beef.

    A root cellar kept vegetables like potatoes, carrots, parsnips, and turnips.  More perishable fruits and vegetables would be canned in mason jars. The climate being hot and dry during the canning season made this work hotter. The climate in the winter was cold and wet.                                                                                                                       

    Schools didn’t exist in Skamania County until Felix Iman and John Nelson built a log cabin schoolhouse in Stevenson. Stevenson, about two miles from Cascade City, still exists. The town was destroyed by flooding in June of 1894.  See more about Cascade City.

    Shortly after this census was recorded, circumstances in the Ferguson family changed. This left mother, Jeannette and daughter, Margaret with the work of running their hotel.

    Elbert, sick with tuberculosis died December 9, 1863. The family buried him in Portland, Oregon at Lone Fir Cemetery. In the 1860s, tuberculosis was the leading cause of death in Washington County, Oregon.

    James Ferguson went to Portland to clerk for the Harker brothers in 1861. The Harker Brothers, wholesale and retail dealers, sold clothing and dry goods. Their building was located at 53 Front Street, corner of Oak in Portland. James worked there for four years.

    Daniel built businesses in Washington Territory selling goods to miners in this big territory. He also mined for gold himself.

    So, at home in Cascade City, Margaret and Jeannette kept the home fires burning.

    Margaret’s Romance

    The clerk, living in B. F. Bradford’s house or dwelling 600 on the 1860 census record, noticed Margaret and she noticed him.

    The family believes Edwin came west in 1849. When Maggie met him, he was working on a steamer on the Columbia River.

    Edwin Wesley Reynolds married Margaret Ferguson on March 2, 1864. They were married at their Portland house with Jeannette and her brother James Ferguson as witnesses. The Ferguson Family Bible says:

    Edwin W Reynolds and Margaret were married in Portland, Oregon the year AD 1864 by the Rev Mr. Cornelius, a Baptist minister. 

    The young couple are listed in the 1870 census record for Baker City, Oregon.

    They lived in dwelling no. 4. Ed W. Reynolds, age 32, occupation, retail grocer had $2000 in real estate and $2000 in personal property. He was born in New York. Margaret Ferguson, age 22, occupation, keeping house, born in New York was listed next. The three children, all born in Oregon were George P., age 5, Addie J., age 4, and Frances G., age 3, were listed next. Lastly, Jeannette Ferguson, aged 53, born in Connecticut was listed.

    James Ferguson lived next door. He was in business with Margaret’s husband, Edwin Reynolds. Here is a copy of this record.

    1870 Baker City Census showing The Fergusons and the Reynolds

    So, now the Ferguson family is based in Baker City, Oregon except for Daniel. He was gold mining in Cerro Gordo located in California.

  • The Traveling Baby Grand

    Starr Minum Grand, The Indianapolis Star, 16 Dec 1906 p. 52

    I wrote this post for week 34 of the 52 Ancestors in 52 weeks for 2025. The ad at the beginning of this post shows the Minum grand piano built by the Starr Piano Company. I found this ad in the Indianapolis Star, dated December 16, 1906. I saw and heard this piano at my husband’s grandmother’s beach house in 1968. It, along with the human piano player, produced a lovely mellow clear sound as indicated in the ad.

    Lifting the keyboard cover, I found this on the underside of the keyboard cover.

    Raymond’s Early Life

    Raymond Coursen, the first husband of Frances Cabell Coursen Perritt played this model and played it well. The baby grand didn’t come into Raymond’s and Frances’s lives until they had settled on Maui on the Hawaiian Islands.

    Raymond made piano music and sang long before he married Frances. This wasn’t even the first piano in Raymond’s life. A clipping, saved by Frances described Raymond as 7-year-old boy at a big recital with a black eye. He sang in his young soprano voice a solo- “Sleep, Little Tulip”.

    Edgar Coursen, his father, taught him to play the piano while he was a boy. Soon his legs were long enough to reach the petals. So then his father taught him how to play the organ. His mother Annie Griffin Coursen was the singer in the family. She sang opera on stage.

    Off To College

    Raymond entered Oregon Agricultural College (OAC) in 1912. He was a natural choice for a piano accompanist. He joined the Glee and Mandolin club at OAC. He performed piano solos at this club’s concerts as well as being the accompanist for the group.

    A Year in the Hawaiian Islands

    His expressive playing led to a job in his junior year.  In 1914, the Liberty theater of Honolulu hired Raymond to play the organ at their theater in Honolulu, Hawaii. The photo below shows the theater organ at the bottom middle. The films shown during this era were silent, so Raymond supplied sound by playing the organ. The Liberty theater also held live performances on stage. Raymond is playing on a grand piano in the back on the right.

    After playing for 8 months in the theater in Honolulu, he went on tour. He joined the Bervani Grand Opera Company. During the next month he did a tour of the islands. At the end of the tour, he went back to playing at the Liberty Theater.

    Back To Portland, Oregon

    Returning to Oregon but not to OAC, Raymond found a girl. He married Frances Cabell on September 16, 1916. Then he introduced his bribe to the Hawaiian Islands. They moved to Maui where Kula Sanitarium hired him as superintendent of outside work. After three years at the sanitarium, he was hired by the Hilo Sugar Company to work on their Wainaku farm. This farm was also on Maui. Both daughters were born on Maui Island- Rose in May of 1917 and Betty (Elizabeth) in December of 1918.

    The Baby Grand Piano

    The Coursens purchased their baby grand piano from the Starr Piano Company while they were in the islands. Since the Minum grand model was built in Richmond, Indiana, their piano’s first trip involved a long ocean voyage. But the Starr Piano Company shipped their products. From Richmond, Indiana to Maui it is about 4,300 miles. This trip was not the last ocean voyage the Coursen’s baby grand piano made.

    Return to the Mainland

    In the summer of 1923, the Raymond Coursen family returned the mainland of United States. They arrived aboard the SS Enterprise at the port of San Francisco on August 25, 1923. Among the items shipped for Raymond was his baby grand piano. The American and Foreign Marine Insurance Company insured this piano for 700 dollars. The piano was to travel from Hilo to Seattle, Washington, then on to Portland. I assume the insurance was for damage at sea. From there the piano went to 658 Lovejoy St., Portland, Oregon where Raymond’s Mother and father lived. The young Coursen family visited with the elder Coursen family for a while.

    To Bend Oregon

    Four years later, the family moved to a ranch in the Tumalo project, located near Bend, Oregon.

    Edgar Coursen visited them there sometime in 1927 and writes to Frances in September of 1927.

    “There is one thing sure and that the kiddies (Rose and Betty) are getting a good, rugged, healthy start in life that will stay with them for good. And I want to congratulate you Frances on the beautiful way that the children are being brought up.”

    In another letter Grandfather Coursen asks after the horses, cows, dog, cats and chickens at their Tumalo home. Apparently, Edgar Coursen regarded this venture as wilderness farming. But they did have the baby grand piano to play in Tumalo. Raymond taught both girls to play.

    In July, 1928, Raymond started working for the Brooks-Scanlon Lumber Company of Bend. He worked there until his death in 1933. In Bend, the Coursens lived first at 125 Revene Avenue and then at 316 Delaware Street. Raymond studied small engines on the job and by correspondence. On September 14, 1932 he was proclaimed proficient in these topics. He had studied machines, electricity and refrigeration.He was awarded certification stating this from the International Correspondence Schools in Scranton, Pennsylvania. 

    A Sad Event

    About one year later Raymond died in Portland, Oregon after surgery for bladder tumors. He had a severe reaction to the nupercaine spinal anesthesia used during the surgery. Raymond died 22 June 1933. He was sorely missed by his family and Bend friends. Frances and the girls moved to Portland later that summer.

    The baby grand was moved back to Portland. This time Frances and the girls moved in with her mother, Bessie Goughler, and Bessie Husband Mac. Bessie and Mac’s house at 3415 N.E. 47th Ave. was big enough to house them all, even the piano.

    Frances worked and saved until she became a home owner herself. She bought a house at 6305 Brazee Street in Rose City.They moved in on January 18, 1936. Their piano moved with them. But this wasn’t the piano last home.

    The daughters married in 1940. Rose married Howard Foster on June 30 1940. Betty married Bud Robert “Bud” Miller on August 30, 1940.

    Frances Marries Again

    Frances married Hayes Marion Perritt on April 12 1942. They bought property on the Oregon coast near Lincoln City. This place was so remote that electrical and telephone service was not available.

    It must have been a struggle to move the baby grand piano up the steep gravel and grass road. But it happened. Frances played the piano at night by lantern light. The piano sat in the Perritt’s beach house for more than 40 years.

    When this couple separated, Frances moved to a small apartment in Beaverton, Oregon. It filled half the largest room. Visitors squeezed around it. Frances died on May 20, 1994.

    The piano went to a grandson’s home and is still there. It had been new more than 100 years ago.

    Here is a photo.

  • James Crowley-Encounters with the Law

    James Riley Crowley is a 3rd Great Uncle to my husband. I wrote a biography about James a few years ago. The biography is on Wiki under James Crowley.

    I want to share a part of this biography that tells about three of James’s experiences with the law. He had three such experiences in the space of eleven years.

    James migrated from Ray County, Missouri to Polk County, Oregon with his parents 1864. Here in Oregon, he married, started a family and acquired land. He first owned a farm in Perrydale, Polk County. Secondly, he owned land on Cascade Head, Tillamook County.

    In June of 1882, his troubling times in Oregon courts began. James didn’t see the murder. He heard the gun shots and found the body.

    The Nathan Nott Case

    The first trial involved James’s hired hand who lived with the Crowleys. James was a key witness at two of these trials. In the first trial Nathan Nott, James’s hired hand, was tried for the murder of William Frakes.

    The 1880 census for Salt Lake District, Polk, Oregon shows these people living in dwelling #132 with James R. Crowley, age 37. They are his wife, Martha C., age 31, his daughter Mary J., age 10, and two sons, Walter, age 3, and James R. (Ralph), age 1. Also, living here was a single farm worker from Illinois named Nathan L. Nott, age 30.

    A disturbing news item from the Corvallis Gazette went to print on June 9, 1882. This article featured Crowley’s boarder, one, N. L. Nott.

    Hired Hand commits a murder- Nott trial 

    On Tuesday evening last week, William Frakes, an old resident of this county, was murdered at Bear Camp, on the Salmon River Road, by N.L. Nott, says the Dallas Itemizer. From the information we have been able to obtain it seems that Nott had formerly been keeping some stock for Mrs. Frakes on the shares and some misunderstanding arose regarding the matter. On Sunday last Mr. Frakes started from home to bring back a cow and calf, which had been in Nott’s possession, and which had been left on the range. On Tuesday Nott, James Crowley and Billy McKinney started from Salt Creek with some stock which they were taking to Salmon River. They met Frakes at the place where he was murdered, and it is said that Nott remarked to McKinney that he had a job to attend to, and left him and in a few minutes, shots were heard and Nott came back, announcing that he had killed Frakes

    “Murder”, The Corvallis Gazette, (Corvallis, OR), 9 Jun 1882, p.3, col 1, (https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn84022650/1882-06-09/ed-1/seq-3/

    A second article printed on June 10, 1882, in the Eugene Guardian continued the story saying,

    A Murderer Under Arrest 

    McKinney was then sent to the house of Mr. Mulligan, about a mile distant, and when he arrived at the camp Crowley and Nott had eaten their supper and were there; Mr. Mulligan was requested to take the body to Perrydale, which he consented to do, and on Wednesday he brought the remains to the place named. Nott, Crowley and McKinney proceeded on their way to Salmon River. John Crowley started after them on Wednesday, and Nott was met by Sheriff Hall at Grand Ronde on Thursday. He claimed he had acted in self- defense and was coming back to give himself up. He was brought to Perrydale, and his examination postponed until Wednesday next. He is now in jail at this place. Frakes received four shots, one in the breast proving fatal. Both arms were broken and he was shot through the thigh It is supposed he was on his horse when shot.

    “A murderer Under Arrest”, Eugene City Guardian (Eugene, Oregon), June 10, 1882, p 5, col. 2 near top (https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn84022653/1882-06-10/ed-1/seq-5/#words=Frake+Frakes+Nott
    • On July 29, 1882 Nott was on trial for killing William Frakes as the Polk County Itemizer went to print.
    • Two weeks later the Polk County Itemizer reported that Nott had been found guilty of murder in the second degree.

    Naoma Shelton vs John L Shelton

    James’s younger sister, Naoma Crowley, was born when James was 17. On October 25, 1880 Naoma married John Lawrence Shelton at the home of John’s mother. They had four boys. When Naoma was 32 years-old, she filed for divorce.

    James and John had known each since 1873. Both were farmers living in the vicinity of Dallas, Oregon. Naoma met John much later.

    In April of 1891 James rescued his younger sister, Naoma Crowley Shelton, from a house in Portland, Multnomah, Oregon. In Portland she lived with her four boys and her abusive husband, John Lawrence Shelton. James took her and her sons to his home near Dallas, Oregon. She filed for divorce on April 10, 1891. The case came to court on May 10, 1892. Naoma was 32 and still living in Dallas, as did James Crowley.

    James said in his testimony he had known John L. Shelton for 18 years and Naoma all her life. He also said that John had ran through Naoma’s property. She had owned 400 acres of land when they married. John drank and gambled it away. Here is a partial transcript of James’s testimony:

    James’s Testimony

     She wrote me that he was treating her so badly that she could not live with him, so I went and brought her to Dallas. At that time, they were living in Multnomah County. He accused her of being intimate with other men in my presence. When I went after her, she told me that he had been abusing her, that she couldn’t live with him and was afraid to do so. When I went after her, I found her and her children almost destitute of clothing. On a number of occasions, I heard him use abusive language toward her. After she came to my house, he came there drunk and used such abusive language towards her that on two or three different times, I was compelled to put him out of the house.

    Circuit Court of the State of Oregon, Polk County, Divorce Record, Naomi Shelton vs John Shelton, Record # 16009, Case #2247, Oregon State Archives, Salem Oregon, in the files of Jill Foster

    Here is a copy of the last page of James’s testimony with his signature.

    Bowker’s Trial

    James’s next exposure to Oregon’s legal system came in the summer of 1893. The court at Dallas, Oregon subpoenaed him and his sister Naoma Shelton as witnesses at the Bowker’s Trial.

    Charles A. Bowker, who worked the Southern Pacific railroads at the time of his arrest, had been a Baptist preacher. Charles had delivered services at the Baptist Church in Dallas attended by the Crowleys. When he was preaching in Dallas he was respected and well-liked.

    Charles was the fireman on the evening train running between McMinnville and Portland. He was arrested and tried for manslaughter in Portland. It seems he got a young woman pregnant, a seventeen-year-old named Helen Wilson. This happened in Portland, Oregon. Charles was charged with having arranged the abortion which killed Helen.

    In this first trial Charles was acquitted. But, more trials were conducted and he was charged and spent time in prison. In November of 1894, he secured a new trial, and he was released on bail. This case eventually went to the Oregon Supreme Court. The Oregon Supreme Court reversed Charles’s conviction and he was acquitted.

    More Troubles

    It would seem that these three court cases would be enough for one man to bear. But in 1893, James’s wife died.

    The announcement of Martha’s death was made in several Oregon newspapers. She died of cancer at her Dallas home on Tuesday, June 13, 1893. The family buried her at Crowley, Oregon in the Oak Grove Cemetery (Etna Cemetery) on Thursday, June 22 1893.

  • Traveling by Mailboat

    The Ferguson Brothers Go West

    for week 28-travel

    Daniel Howes Ferguson, my husband’s 3rd great grandfather traveled to San Francisco, California in 1849. Part of this trip he was with his brother, Thomas Jefferson Ferguson.

    When I think of this trip, the nursery rhyme, “To Market, to Market”, comes to mind.

    To market, to market to buy a fat pig:
    Home again, home again, jiggety-jig.
    To market, to market to buy a fat hog.
    Home again, home again, jiggety-jog.

    In this nursery rhyme the travelers rode in a cart or buggy pulled by a horse. The Ferguson brothers traveled by ship. Daniel left in the spring of 1849 from Norwalk Harbor, New York City. Thomas left from Key West, Florida. They met in Panama City and traveled together from there.

    Letters exchanged between Thomas and his wife, Rosalinda, describe the doings of these two industrious and lucky gold miners. Mary Haffenreffer transcribed most of these letters and published them along with her research into the Ferguson family in the Florida Keys Sea Heritage Journal, fall 2012 and winter 2013. She also sent me copies of the original letters.

    The Fergusons traveled on a mail boat steamship. The Falcon was the one Thomas rode. This small steamship with Captain Thomson at the helm, was one of the three ships carrying U.S. mail as well as passengers on the Atlantic side of the Isthmus of Panama. The Falcon’s first trip between New York City and Charges, Panama happened in December of 1848 and took 26 days. The Falcon left New York City on December 1 and arrived in Charges on December 27. The route was New York to Savannah to Charleston to Havana to New Orleans to Chargres. It included mail pick-ups and drop-offs as well as passenger pick-ups.

    Here are maps showing the route.

    Around the time Thomas left Key West Florida for Havana, Cuba, he received this letter from his brother William E. Ferguson. It reads:

    Brother Thomas,

    I have thought it advisable to write you to give you the particulars brought by the Steamer Northerner from Chagres.

    I was conversing with a passenger who went from New York in company with fifteen others. They thought to get passage from Chagres but they found no opportunity to get from there. There is onboard three who bought steerage tickets in New York for $100.00 for each. One sold at Chagres for $450.00, one for$500.00 and the other for $700.00, and they state that there is 2500 persons on the Isthmus now waiting for a passage to San Francisco. My informant states that they think that there is a poor chance of the steamers returning from San Francisco and there is no sailing vessels at Panama. He states that he is going to New York to procure tickets if possible to go through, if not to write them to return to New York and proceed around the hook. I would advise you to go by land some route through Mexico if possible. I think we will get from here next week. They are getting every ready as soon as possible.

    Remember me to all friends.

    W.E. Ferguson

    Letters to Rosalinda

    Charleston April 5th, 1849

    The first letter Thomas wrote to his wife Rosalinda Corcoran Ferguson reflects what his brother William said.

    Havana, April the 8th, 1849

    I arrived here at 9 o’clock the next morning after I left home. I learn here that there are two thousand passengers at Panama waiting for passage. I think of altering my route to Vera Cruz and go through Mexico.

    The trouble with going through Mexico was that the United States had just won a war with Mexico, known as The Mexican War in the States and The American Intervention War in Mexico.  Mexico lost on third of its territory by the “Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo”. Traveling from Vera Cruz through Mexico, those Americans who chose to that way were likely meet angry Mexican citizens who would have no interest in aiding them and might even rob and kill them.

    In his next letter also written from Havana to his wife, he had changed his mind about traveling through Mexico.    He now planned to sail to Chagres on the steamer Falcon.

    Panama April the 22th, 1849

    Dear Wife,

    I write you once more from this place though I expected to leave here before this but receiving information from Vera Cruz not very favorable of the route through Mexico, I have altered my mind and shall go the way of Panama…  I expect I shall find my brother Daniel there if he has not got passage away which is doubtful. The steamer Falcon will be here on the 25th going to Chagres… Write me whether you heard anything more from Albert before he left Charleston.

                                     Thomas J. Ferguson

    On April 25, 1849, Thomas Ferguson left Havana on the Falcon heading to Chagres. He arrived in Panama City on the Pacific side of the Isthmus on May 9, 1849. Thomas didn’t mention how he got across the Isthmus after he landed at the mouth of the Chagres River.

    Up the Chagres River and on to Panama City

    The 60 miles between the mouth of the Chagres River and Panama City is challenging for most. It involved first chugging up the Chagres River in a small steamboat for 12 miles. Then the river became very shallow. Travelers boarded flat bottomed canoes called bungas which were poled or dragged by men. Clouds of mosquitoes, stifling heat and big alligators added to the atmosphere.  The passengers rode mules for the last 24 miles because the waterway ended at the very small village of Gorgona. Besides the discomfort caused by heat, reptiles, insects there were illnesses. People often caught cholera, malaria and yellow fever on this route.

    Daniel had a similar though longer journey as he had traveled from Norwalk Harbor. He arrived in Panama City before his brother Thomas.

    Letters to Rosalinda

    Panama May the 11th, 1849

    Dear Wife,

    I arrived here day before yesterday and shall leave day after tomorrow morning on the ship Norman in company with my brother Daniel, Stafford and Saywood and the rest of the Key West party who I have found here all well, all excited to get away to the Land of Promise. Daniel tells me he had a talk with fifteen young men who arrived here a few days ago on the steamer Oregon from California on their way home. They said they got as much gold as they wanted and were going home to enjoy it. They had got seven bushels of pure gold with them that they had dug themselves in the space of six months. Daniel says they told him to keep cool, that there was enough gold there for all…I have got my passage in a first rate ship by Daniel’s having a pass engaged for his brother-in-law who hasn’t got here yet.

                                                         Thomas J. Ferguson

    San Francisco- July 31st, 1849

    Dear Wife,

    I arrived here on the 15th of this month having sixty three days passage from Panama, rather a tedious  passage but well and hearty, the weather at sea was calm and sea very Smooth. On my arrival here Daniel and I took a small job which we done in a week for which we got five hundred dollars. Since then we have built us a boat to go up to the mines and intend to leave tomorrow. I was offered sixteen dollars a day the day I got here and refuse good jobs now to go up to the mines so you may judge what I think of the prospect. The gold stories we heard about California before I left home was no humbug. I have seen lots of the gold here, one lump weighing fourteen and half pounds. I don’t know as I shall find any of those big lumps but I am bound to have gold of some sort; there is plenty of it here and no mistake. This place is very healthy though cold. I have wore flannel shirt and drawer with my thick buckskin pantaloons ever since I have been here and then been cold with a severe wind from the sea like our Northers in Key West but back from the coast it is warm.  I eat apples, Pears and blackberries here. Some things here sell high, others very low .Clothing is cheaper than it is in the States,  flour $10, pork $25, beef $5,of the best salt, fresh beef from 12 to 18 cents a lb., potatoes $10 for a hundred lbs., onions seventy five cents a pound, cheese fifty, saleratus (baking powder)$2.50, butter $1.50, cheese fifty cents. This town is overrun with goods, the streets and yards full, lying about open, nobody steals. There ain’t a quarter stores enough to hold them. …

                                                                 Thomas J. Ferguson

    By October they were on the Yuba River prospecting and had made a claim. The Yuba River, located in the Sierra Nevada’s in northern California, is a major tributary to the Feather River.

    Uba (Yuba) River Calif. Oct 21st 1849

    Dear Wife,

    … I will now give you a statement of my success. After arriving here I spent a month in hunting, or prospecting as they call it here, up and down the river for a good place to locate. I at length found one which prove to be good on which my brother and myself built two machines for washing out gold and a water wheel to lift up water out of the holes we dig which works them all effectually so much so that we have made over five thousand dollars in the last three weeks…

    By a great odd we have got the richest spot I have ever seen on the river. It is a small bar on the side of the river in the form of a triangle about fifty yards on each side with rocks ten feet high on two sides and the river on the other. We have the whole of it to ourselves and nobody troubles us…

    I am faring very well here. We have got plenty of pork, dried beef, ham, flour, hard bread, beans, cornmeal, coffee, sugar, molasses, dried peaches and cherries. We get fresh beef every few days so we fare pretty well. I made some molasses cake this morning which went very well. It wasn’t quite as good as you used to make but it done very well.

    Albert is not here. We are looking for him every day. I have wrote letters directing him where to find us.                                                                            Thomas J. Ferguson

    Selling Goods to Other Miners

    Daniel’s and Thomas businesses have grown. They are buying more goods for sale to their fellow miners on the Yuba River. He writes to Rosalinda about this.

    San Francisco Feb 28th, 1850

    I am here now buying goods to take to the mines. Since I was here and wrote you, last, Daniel has been down and taken up $3000 worth of goods. Immediately on his return I came down again. We are selling a great many goods, as soon as I return now we shall start another store at Eliza Town on the Feather River at the head of Steam navigation. We purchased a lot there a few days since for which we paid six hundred dollars. We have been offered six hundred for one half of it. We also have another lot in the town given to us by the Proprietor of the town in consideration of our being the first who landed goods there from a steamboat… We have our own teams to haul our goods, eight mules and six horses, which we bought last winter when they were cheap. Now they are worth from two to three hundred dollars apiece.

    By March of 1850 Daniel and Thomas established two more stores and are buying a stock of goods large enough to have freight bills over twenty five hundred dollars. Daniel has taken charge of the mining and trading operations in Yuba while Thomas travels up and down the river to buys goods.

    In his April letter to Key West, Thomas said he had been to San Francisco three times buying about four thousand dollars’ worth of goods each time. Daniel worked on some damming projects to turn the river. Thomas also mentions three towns they had invested in, Elisa, Fredonia, and Lindd City. Could this be Linn City of Oregon, the town on the Willamette River where Daniel worked and lived when he brought his family west?

    Thinking of Home and Family

    Daniel and Thomas thoughts turned to home and family. In April Thomas writes, “I am beginning to like this country quite well. You needn’t think strange if I should be home this fall for you and Daniel’s wife and bring you out to this country.” Rosalinda answered this proposal in her May letter. She writes: “If you think that the place will suit me and the children I am willing to go any place under the globe to you. I’ve become acquainted with a fine Irish woman. She is willing to work and would be glad of the offer to go with me to California.

    In November of 1850 Daniel and Thomas were preparing to go home. They gave their wives December 15th as the date they would start back. Daniel and Thomas Ferguson had taken ample gold out of their mine. They also had sold many items to their fellow miners. Thomas and Daniel planned to return via Havana together. From there, Thomas would ship to Key West and Daniel to New York.

    The Ferguson brothers had done well.  A newspaper article from San Francisco states: “Thomas J. and Daniel H. Ferguson, from Danbury, Ct., have obtained $150,000 in gold dust by mining operations upon the Yuba River, during the past summer.” Using an inflation calculator this would be about $4,829,000 in 2018.

    Going back to the nursery rhyme “To Market”, the Ferguson brothers had certainly brought home the bacon. Their families would live high on the hog.

  • A Matter of Place

    week 28 -Wedding Bells

    Edward Henry Griffin wasn’t looking for love when he left his home in Cuba, New York. He was only twenty when he arrived in Clinton, Illinois. He wanted a career. He trained to be a dentist in Galena. Then he went west. First to the gold field of California, then to Portland, Oregon.

    When Fred Lockley interviewed Edgar Coursen in 1930, Lockley wanted information about Oregon pioneers for a series of newspaper articles. Edgar’s father-in-law, Edward Henry Griffin, came to Oregon in 1850 as a practicing dentist. He was the first dentist in Portland, Oregon.

    A news item about firsts in Oregon reads,

    “The first dentist in Portland was E.H. Griffin. He offered his services to a suffering public on November 22, 1851.”

    Here is a part of the interview conducted by Fred Lockley.

    Ed Lockley, Oregon Journal, 4 Dec 1930

    Lockley captured the industry of Edward Henry Griffin but not the passion. Coursen recalled the facts of Edward’s moves quite well.

    Galena, Illinois

    Edward did arrive in Galena about when his father-in-law said. He had letters remaining at the Galena Post Office on January 5, 1846 and March 5, 1846. Here are copies of the Lists of Letters for those dates.

    Semi-Weekly Galena Jeffersonian 5 Jan 1946

    Training

    Semi-Weekly Galena Jeffersonian 5 Mar 1946

    In 1845, when Edward first arrived in Galena there were no dental schools in Illinois. The first dental school in the United States was built in Baltimore, Maryland in 1840. It was the Baltimore School of Dental Surgery.

    It is reasonable to conclude that Edward learned dentistry through an apprenticeship with an established dentist here. This was the usual way of learning this profession in the United States during the 1840s. He made his living expenses doing work he knew. He gave music lessons while training to be a dentist.

    Gold in California

    Listed as an Oregon Territory pioneer in 1850, Edward came west on the Oregon Trail. He took a California cut off and ended his trip at Fort Sutter, California. Before there was Sacramento there was a fort owned by John Sutter. Gold discovery near here in 1848 triggered the California Gold Rush. John Sutter sold his property to Alden Bally in late 1849.

    The area around this Fort became a busy hub for river traffic and trade. This area would become known as Old Sacramento. Dr. Edward Griffin arrived here in 1849. No doubt, Edward considered mining for gold himself. He practiced dentistry here for about a year. Then he chose to go to Oregon.

    From Fort Sutter Edward traveled to San Francisco. From here he sailed along Pacific Ocean coast to his next destination . He boarded the Ann Smith in late August. Sixteen days later on the 2nd day of September of 1850 arrived in Astoria, Oregon. Another passenger had a role to play in the next year of Edward’s life. J. H. Wilbur was also a passenger on this voyage. Here is a newspaper item detailing this trip.

    item from Oregon Spectator 2 Sep 1850, p.3. col.1

    Emily Roberts

    Emily Roberts Griffin described the first time she saw Edward Griffin in a February 27, 1914 interview with Fred Lockley. These interviews were published in the Oregon Journal, a Portland newspaper.

    I met my fate two days after arriving in Portland. We put up our tent on the riverbank at what is now the foot of Pine Street. We decided to camp there till father was able to find a house. The second morning I was sitting in the tent doing some work while mother was working over our camp stove. I heard voices and looking out I saw a very handsome young man with a silk hat and Prince Albert coat. He had a large white water pitcher in his hand. He was explaining to mother that he had just come down to the river to get a pitcher of water. He said his name was Edward Griffen and had a room at DeWitt’s City Hotel nearby. He explained while he ordinarily got his water at the hotel, he believed the river water was colder and better. I noticed him shift his position until he could look into the tent and see me. I wondered if his explanation was the real reason why he had come down to our camp. After I married him, I discovered that my intuition had been correct. He had caught a glimpse of me the day before and wanted a nearer view of his future wife.

    After Edward’s first view of Emily Roberts, the romance in the man got the better of him. He, being not only a dentist with prospects but a music teacher, went to woo her. He used what he knew. He offered singing lessons and a group to sing with.

    Emily had a second interview with Lockley on February 28, 1914. This is what Emily had to say about her second meeting with Edward..

    Shortly after we moved into the hotel and while I was singing one evening. Mother who was a master hand with the violin, was playing the accompaniment. Dr. Edward H. Griffin, who had a room at De Witt’s City Hotel, passed and heard the music. He stopped and listened until we were through. Next day he came to mother and said I had a wonderful voice. But it needed training. He said he had decided to start a singing school, and he would like to enroll me for his first pupil. Mother was willing. He was young and handsome and a good singer. So, I was willing.

    The singing school was started in the schoolhouse. We soon had a fine crowd of young folks. There was A. B. Hallock and Squire Davis and his wife and Warren and Tom, Davis and the two Davis girls, Sarah and Mary, and George I. Story, who still lives in Portland. He married Sarah Davis.

    Edward’s singing school turned into a choir. This was the first church choir west of the Rocky Mountains.  This choir sang for the Taylor Street Church, built on Third and Taylor Streets. Edward helped James H. Wilbur build this church.

    On December 4, 1925, The Morning Oregonian published an article on page 49. The title was “Covered Wagons Brought Many Settlers Here In 1850”. It listed the pioneers who came to Oregon Territory in 1850. A photo of this first church choir illustrated this article.

    Portland, 1850, Emily Roberts Griffin, 2nd from left, front, Edward Griffin, back, far right

    Wedding Bells

    On October 26, 1851, James H. Wilbur performed the marriage ceremony for Edward Henry Griffin and Emily Roberts. Rev. Thomas H. Pearne assisted. Only a few weddings in the village of Portland occurred before this one.  This wedding was the second in the Taylor Street Church.

    This Methodist church “stood in the middle between 2nd and 3rd, Facing north… back to the woods. The only way to reach it was by walking on single narrow planks strung lengthwise.”

    Early image of Taylor Street Church from the Oregon Historical Society Research Library

  • Institutions

    Hunting for Mary Lucina Taylor

    Western Washington Hospital at Steilacoom, Main Hospital Building, 1892

    Why do these stories sometime take on a life of their own? This story was to be about an institution and an institution is involved. Death of a loved one is a somber time for families, marked with family gatherings, funerals, burials and graves markers. This story involves two stone grave markers both made long after the deceased had died. One marker made for William Wallis Taylor was set in 2015. The marker for Mary Lucinda Taylor Miller was completed in 2006.

    I wrote this story about my husband’s 2nd great grandparents and their daughter, Mary Lucina. I searched for years for Mary’s death date and burial place. The institution involved in Mary’s last years was Western State Hospital at Steilacoom. This hospital is located between Olympia and Tacoma, Washington. I had been looking for Mary about 15 years before I found a death date.

    William Wallis Taylor’s Marker

    Craig, my husband and I became acquainted with one of his cousins. This cousin also traced back to Craig’s 2nd great grandparents, Mary Ann Sayles and William Wallis Taylor. We met and traded records. I had found Mary Ann’s grave site in Springwater Cemetery in Clackamas County, Oregon. The cousin’s family held the bible of William. The dates and places in both our records matched.

    Both the cousin and I had found an obituary of William’s saying he had died at the home of his son near Aurora, Oregon on August 11, 1909. William was buried in Springwater Cemetery where his wife Mary was buried. Here are copies of William’s obituary and funeral notice from the Oregon City Enterprise, dated 20 August 1909.

    William Wallis Taylor Obituary
    Page 2

    We were sorely disappointed when we visited Springwater Cemetery and didn’t find William’s burial next to Mary Ann’s grave marker. We searched the entire small cemetery. Craig’s cousin convinced the combination groundskeeper and cemetery record keeper that William Taylor was buried there next to his wife. We had a new marker made. It was placed to the left of Mary Ann’s grave site.

    Here is a photo of this new marker.

    Mary Lucina Taylor Miller

    Before this event, I knew quite something about William and Mary Ann’s first child, Mary Lucina Taylor Miller. Mary was my husband’s great grandmother. I had become acquainted with the cousin’s grandmother, Madeline Taylor Wells. She was the granddaughter of William and Mary Ann Taylor and had family photos of her Aunt Mary Lucina.

    Mary Lucina and Siblings about 1865

    Mary Lucina seated in the middle

    Born in LaPorte County on 7 Aug 1857

    Orril Adell on the left

    Born in Will County, Minn. on 18 Sep 1862

    Otha Beardslee on right

    Born Will County, Minn. on 6 Sep 1864

    Mary Lucina Taylor and Edward Arthur Miller

    Wed in Multnomah County, Oregon on 28 Oct 1885

    Taylor Family about 1896 in Springwater, Oregon

    Edward Miller on left

    Mary Lucina Miller in back

    Daughter, Edna Naomi Miller

    Born in Dodge, Clackamas, Oregon on 24 Aug 1889

    They homesteaded a farm in the Dodge Springwater area

    Move to Portland, Oregon

    By 1910 the Miller family had sold their farm in Dodge, Oregon. They now lived in Ward 8 of Portland, Oregon. According to census records, Mary and Edward had been married 25 years. Edna Miller, their twenty-year-old daughter, lived with them and their house was on East 35th Street.

    In 1912, Edward A Miller and his daughter Edna N Miller still lived at at 192 E 35th Street. This information comes from to the 1912 City Directory of Portland, Oregon, Mary is not listed on this record.

    I found Mary in the 1915 City Directory of Portland, Oregon. She is listed as Mary L Miller, widow of Edward and living at 4927 66th SE. Twenty-four years later she still identified herself as a widow of a man named Miller. On her death certificate it is noted that the first name of her deceased husband is not known.

    Edward Living St Joseph, Michigan

    Edward filed for divorce on 1 December 1917 at the courthouse in St. Joseph, Michigan. The grounds were desertion. Edward was the complainant.  His divorce was granted on 22 July 1918. He married Bessie Gadson on 18 August 1918.

    Daughter Edna Married

    Before Mary entered Western State Hospital in 1929, her daughter, Edna had lost her first husband and married a second, Charles Foster. She brought to this second marriage a small boy, Howard Shelton, son of her first husband. She and Charlie had 3 children. Charlie informally adopted Howard. Howard was a teenager when his grandmother, Mary, lived at Western State Hospital. He visited Mary there and remembered these visits being sad.


    The Institution on the Cowlitz River

    Many years before in 1854, the “Poor Law” was passed by Washington Territory. Its aim was to find a better way to care for and house for the poor, disabled and mentally ill. It shifted the support of these individuals from their families to the counties where they lived. At first patients were cared for through a contract system.

    Twenty-one such person went first to a place in Monticello (now Longview, Washington). It was located along the Cowlitz River in Cowlitz County.

    This institution was set up by a pair of businessmen from Monticello. They knew how to make money, but not how to care for “this class of sufferers”. James Huntington and his son-in-law, W.W. Hays built and ran this place. They received a dollar a day for each patient under their care.

    A big problem for this enterprise was the location. Here is a quote from Starlyn Stout’s Care For the “Unfriended Insane in Washington Territory (1854 to 1889)”.

    The buildings of the asylum were revealed by the elements to be merely temporary. In his history of the region, Hubert Howe Bancroft surmised that accommodation opposite Monticello on the Cowlitz River were inadequate. So much so that an event of melting snow from Mt. Rainier brought on an “unusual flood” in December 1867, in which the improvements were swept away. Huntington’s hastily built buildings were now needing to be hastily salvaged and rebuilt to maintain his part of the contract. They published a letter addressing community concerns about their facility, claiming that they too were victims of the territory not fulfilling its part of the agreement. “The Territory must meet the expenses as per contract…  We only ask that our money be paid when due”.

    Dorothy Dix

    A 19th century social reformer, Elizabeth Meriwether Gilmer, who was better known by her pen name, Dorothy Dix, had friends inspect this place in 1869. She wrote:

    Just as I was prepared to leave for California, I first learned from some military officers and reliable civilians your territory was responsible for a rightly intended provision for certain unfriended insane men and women … It being impossible to visit the place referred to myself, I earnestly requested an experienced medical man and a carefully judging citizen of Oregon to see if the statements … were borne by facts, as they understood right care for this helpless, irresponsible class of sufferers. (“Miss Dix on the Insane”).

    It was found that some patients were doing all the cleaning, laundry and cooking. Other patients were confined to their cells. Filthiness was found throughout the faculty.

    Dorothy wrote about this. When Dorothy mentions the Doctor and Inspectors, she is talking about Washington county people who were responsible for the asylum.

    The patients sleep in bunks, in cells, in a coarsely finished, unplastered building, parts of which are described to me as very little better than a barn … the visitors added that, judging from any efficient and proper standard, they could not consider the institution otherwise than inadequately provided both for care and cure of the insane … badly maintained by parties in charge, who possibly may know no better … The Doctor and inspectors are parties interested in perpetuating the present system; the ‘one by his salary easily earned, the others by trade’” (“Insane Asylum”).

    More Letters from Dorothy Dix

    She also wrote to two authorities in Washington Territory—Governor Alan Flanders and former Governor Elwood Evans. Changes were made.  After relating her assessment of the situation, she said this. “At this distance I can only write to you, sir, knowing your sense of pity for these poor creatures will induce early and, I hope personal attention.

      Changes Were Made

      Fort Steilacoom, an old army base which had been built in 1849, was out of use and run down. On April 22, 1868, the staff lowered the last flag at this army fort. The fort located in the Puget Sound region near Tacoma, Washington would be the new home for 21 Monticello patients. The new inmates who had lived with the conditions at Monticello bought their stories with them. Even to this day their tales of poor treatment and the demons that haunted them abound.

      In 1887, the Washington Territory legislature approved $100,000 to build a new institution on the Fort’s grounds. In 1888 this institution became known as Western State Hospital for the Insane. In 1915 the institution’s name was changed again- this time to Western State Hospital.

      My Search for Mary’s Death and Grave

      Before Craig and I knew that his great grandmother, Mary Lucina Taylor Miller, had spent her last years in a mental institution, we were puzzled by the lack of results in the hunt for her death date. Because she was a direct ancestor to my husband this lack was an ongoing source of frustration. I had looked in both Washington and Oregon death indexes many times before I found her in the Washington death index. I ordered her death record from the Washington State Department of Health. I did the paperwork showing my husband, who was requesting the record, was her oldest living direct relative. Since Mary had died in 1939 this record was about 75 years old when I finally got it.

      Mary had lived at Western State Hospital for almost ten years when she died on March 9,1939. She died of a heart and lung condition. Senile psychosis was said to be a contributory cause. She was cremated on March 14, 1939.

      Also, from the death certificate, we learned Mary had entered Western State Hospital on August 27, 1929. She died on March 9, 1939, and was cremated there on March 14, 1939.  Her hometown was Washougal, Washington.

      Disturbing Article in Spokane Newspaper

      The Title, Bill Could Help Families Find Ancestors’ Graves, hints that there was something in the Washington State laws preventing family from locating relatives who died in Washington State’s mental institutions. A Washington State statute designed to protect the mentally ill from shame restricted anyone from getting their relative’s death certificates. This statute prevented a volunteer organization called Grave Concerns from identifying who was buried and where they were buried in the institution’s cemetery. The state had decided these patients were people to be ashamed of and hid their records. Here is a quote from the article.

        At Western State Hospital, a facility worker once found a shed full of human remains packed into tobacco tins and canning jars. And at Northern State Hospital in Sedro Woolley. Wash., now closed part of the cemetery was plowed under and farmed.

        Cremated remains were often buried together in mass graves, said Laural Lemke, Western’s ombudsman and chair of The Grave Concerns Association, a volunteer group that repairs grave sites. After the 1950s, many unnamed remains were sent to crematoriums.

        Making the job of restoring dignity to Western State Hospital’s cemetery was the fact that “many of the state’s records of the dead are incomplete or missing even when records are located…the cemeteries which volunteers have only recently began to recover are often overgrown and in disrepair.

        Our Visit to Western State Hospital

        Craig and I met Laurel Lemke, a woman greatly involved with the Grave Concerns Association, on March 10, 2015. She described life at the hospital when Mary lived there.

        Mary slept in a narrow bed in a narrow room with few personal belongings and a barred door.

        Because Western State Hospital grew its own food and kept livestock, Mary had plenty to eat. At this time the Great Depression was causing misery throughout the land. Patients worked on the farm. Mary may have worked preparing food or sewing. Physical labor was considered therapeutic.

        From 1911 to 1961 hydrotherapy was used to sedate patients. Bath treatments of 2 hours included hot and cold water sprayed up and down a patient’s spine.

        Washington State Hospital’s Cemetery

        Before we left, Laurel showed us the cemetery. Volunteers for Grave Concerns had been restoring and upgrading the grave sites for about ten years. It was no longer tangled in blackberries with graves only marked with numbers etched on small concrete squares. The Grave Concern Association had found names to go with the numbers. As they raised money, they replaced the old unreadable number blocks with granite grave markers. These markers showed the patients name, the birth date and death date. Here is an example.

        anonymous marker and John Ryan- dignity restored

        We were hoping to find Mary’ grave marked like the marker on the right. We had set a granite grave stone for her father, William Willis Taylor buried in Springwater Cemetery.

        This was not to be. It is sad to say Mary’s remains were among the unidentified. Perhaps, her unidentified remains were in a canning jar or tobacco tin found stored in the garden shed. Her remains were buried in the mass grave with a large granite marker. Her name and dates were there. We laughed and cried that day. Here are some photos.

        Craig and Jill Foster Viewing Giant Grave Marker
        Mary Miller’s Name on Giant Grave Marker

      • A little Joy

        Week 17 DNA

        Frances Cabell Coursen Perritt and my baby daughter

        I felt connected to the mother of my husband. I felt more than just a liking for her as a person or loving her as an extension of my husband. Rose Foster resembled my husband, Craig, in many ways. Both were shy and brave, had dark good looks, loved and worked with numbers. Concise, efficient, self-controlled and kind-hearted described them. Even though Rose and I did not share DNA, I had a kinship with her.

        Both Rose and her sister, Elizabeth Coursen, carried mitochondrial DNA that their family traced back to Jeanette Keeler Ferguson. The mitochondrial DNA is inherited only from the mother. It is passed down from mother to daughter through the egg cell during fertilization. Rose and Betty (Elizabeth) were the daughters of Frances Cabell.  Frances was the daughter of Bessie Reynolds. Bessie was the daughter of Margaret Ferguson. Margaret was the daughter of Jeannette Keeler. Frances Cabell’s scrapbook held mementos and memories of all these women.  Here is a photo of Betty’s daughter, Betty, Rose, Frances and Bessie. Five carriers of Jeannette Keeler’s mitochondrial DNA and four generations are pictured here.

        Betty’s daughter, Betty, Rose, Frances, Bessie

        I happened to be pregnant with my first child when my husband and Rose’s oldest son, Craig Foster, was sent to serve a tour of duty on a small island. Shemya, Alaska, located 1,200 miles southwest of Anchorage, is 2 miles wide and 4 miles long. It is mostly runway. Some liken it to a prison without walls. More known as an Air Force base, army personnel also served there. Craig served in the Army Security Agency.

        Shemya is 280 miles from a Russia-owned island and is almost touching the International Date Line. Craig said from Shemya he saw tomorrow.

        Husband on Shemya, Me with Relatives

        Husband on Shemya, Me with Relatives

        When my husband was away and I was pregnant, I drove between my parent’s house in Seattle and my husband’s parents in Portland. My OB doctor had his practice in Portland. This was early in our marriage, and I hadn’t quite left the nest.

        I talked Rose into taking La Maze birthing classes with me and being my coach when I had the baby. We would pant and breathe together through the labor pains. She would be in the delivery room for birth.  Fifty years ago, having family in the delivery room was beginning to be in style. It was mostly for the fathers.

        Rose and I followed the plan. I presented our family with a beautiful baby girl. Rose and my father-in-law, Howard Foster, did not stop smiling. We called Craig in Shemya and talked. Then the crabby night nurse sent my family home. She was out of sorts for being told by my doctor that Rose was to be allowed in the delivery room. She was still muttering about that as she sent Rose and Howard home. The hospital did allow my daughter to be in my room in a bassinet by my bed.

        I loved the fact that these people were contributing DNA to Craig’s and my daughter.

        My Mitochondrial DNA

        I can confirm my mitochondrial DNA from my daughter back to my great great grandmother, Johanne Catherine Rasmusdatter. through cousins on ancestry.com. Here are some family photos. My daughter and I at on the top right. My mother, Helen Wolfe Lonski, and I are on the top left.

        My grandmother Edna (Dagny Oldsdatter) Wolfe and Helen show on the bottom left. Her mother, Elen Jacobsdatter, is on the bottom right. This last photo was taken in 1885 at Rövig in Hansel, Norway.