Baker City, Oregon
Pauline Lewis, 84, of Baker City, died June 6, 2004, at St. Elizabeth Health Services.
Her graveside memorial service will be at 11 a.m. Friday at Pine Haven Cemetery in Halfway. Pastor Roger Scovil of the Baker City Christian Church will officiate. Friends are invited to join the family for a potluck at Geiser Pollman Park after the service. In case of bad weather, the potluck will be moved to 2750 College St.
Pauline was born in a farm home at Onarga Township, Ill., on May 25, 1920. Her mother died when she was young so she and her sisters went to live with their paternal grandmother in Campbellsburg, Ind., for four years.
Afterward, the oldest sister, Leona, stayed in Indiana with an aunt and uncle. Pauline and her other two sisters moved to Chatsworth, Ill., for five years, where each lived with a different family.
Then the 16-year-old Pauline and her youngest sister moved to West Chicago, Ill., where she maintained her father’s household. Her daily chores included fixing meals on a wood-burning stove, pumping and carrying water from a well 300 feet from the house, washing clothes with lye soap on a washboard in a galvanized tub, drying laundry on an outside clothesline, and ironing clothes with Sad Irons heated on the wood stove. Preparing meals for the family laid the foundation for her lifelong love of cooking and baking.
At 20, Pauline married Lawrence D. Lyman of West Chicago, Ill., a father of three sons from a previous marriage. Over the next 15 years, five children were added to the family. When the youngest was up and about, the couple enjoyed horseback riding and raccoon hunting with friends.
In 1968, the couple and two youngest children moved to Estacada. In the following years, Pauline was known for providing friends and family with a continuous supply of delicious baked goods.
Lawrence died in 1975 after a lengthy illness. Pauline remarried in 1976 to Joseph P. Lewis of Estacada. The couple spent the next years working as watchmen at area gravel rock-crushing sites, before retiring and moving to LaPine in 1977. Joseph’s health declined and he died in 1996.
Pauline left LaPine and spent the next several years dividing her time between her children’s homes. Her final home was with her son, James Lyman, and his special friend, Ronda Irey, Baker City residents. In Baker City, she enjoyed daily two-mile walks to the Truck Corral for coffee unless prevented by icy conditions.
Pauline will truly be missed by her family and wide circle of friends.
She was preceded in death by her parents; her husbands, Lawrence Lyman and Joseph Lewis; a daughter, Violet Donovich; and daughter-in-law, Evelyn Lyman.
Survivors include three sisters, Leona Hughes of Salem, Ind., Rose Stover of Birchwood, Wis., and Mary “Betty” Marlowe of Estacada; sons, James Lyman of Baker City and David Lyman of Springfield; daughters, Delores Stuart of Butte, Mont., and Donalda Weinmann of Mable, Minn.; 21 grandchildren; 38 great-grandchildren and 10 great-great grandchildren.
Memorial contributions may be made to the charity of one’s choice through Tami’s Pine Valley Funeral Home, P.O. Box 543, Halfway, OR 97834.
Used with permission from: Baker City Herald, Baker City, Oregon, June 18, 2004
Transcribed by: Belva Ticknor