Bay, Larry – Obituary

La Grande, Union County, Oregon Heart Attack Takes Larry Bay Lawrence G. “Larry” Bay passed away suddenly Tuesday evening February 25, with a heart attack at Walnut Creek California. Bay was born June 6, 1911 at La Grande, son of Harve and Lulu Bay. He was reared in La Grande, graduating from high school there, and attended the University of Oregon. On October 12, 1935 he was married at Seattle to Bernice Wilson who survives him. During World War II he was with the U.S. Engineers in Alaska. He was a member of the Catholic Church, Elk Lodge No. 1829 … Read more

Biography of Sigismund A. Heilner

SIGISMUND A. HEILNER. – This leading merchant, who is described as one of the most energetic, broadminded, and liberal citizens of Eastern Oregon, exhibits in his life that romance of business which has made many of the phases of Western life so fascinating to the young men of our state. He was born and educated in Bavaria, and in 1853 came to New York, repairing soon to Washington, District of Columbia, and within two years more to Crescent city, California, and Althouse, Oregon. At that point he was engaged in business, and was there during the war of 1856. As … Read more

History of Portland Oregon Commerce

History of Portland Oregon Commerce: Primitive Commerce – Commercial Operations of Hudson’s Bay Company – Trade Enterprises of Hall J. Kelley, Nathaniel J. Wyeth and Nathaniel Crosby – Period of Commercial Adventurers – Discovery of Gold and Its Effects on Commerce – Early Trade in Lumber – – Portland a Market for Oregon Produce – Early Sailing Vessels Which Visited Portland – Beginning of Steam Navigation – Character and Value of Portland’s Exports From 1855 to 1865 – Steamships running to Portland from 1864 to 1869 – Value of Portland’s Exports in 1866 and 1867 – Measures Which Secured Portland’s Commercial Independence – Growth of Foreign Commerce – Trade Statistics for 1870 – Period of Business Depression – Commercial Growth and Development During Recent Years – Present Character and Condition of Portland’s Commerce.

Cordova, Margie – Obituary

Margie Cordova, 56, of Portland and formerly of Enterprise, died Nov. 5 in Portland after an extended illness. A private family burial will be conducted later. Mrs. Cordova was born March 13, 1950, in Enterprise to Eugene and Donna Campbell Jewell. She drove a TriMet bus for the elderly and disabled in Portland until her health forced her to quit. Survivors include her mother, Donna Campbell of La Grande; son, Justin Cordova of Portland; sister, Shirley Harris of Albany; half siblings, Debbie Taylor and Mike Jewell; four grandchildren; and her caregiver and friend, Judy Rice of Portland. She was preceded … Read more

Pointer, William Mack – Obituary

William M. Pointer, 68, of 3552 SE 65th Avenue, died at his home Thursday following a lengthy illness. Funeral services will be held Friday at 8 PM in the Bruning & Lundberg Chapel, 1521 SW Salmon Street. The body will be forwarded to Colfax, Wash., where the Elks Lodge will conduct burial services Sunday. Mr. Pointer was born in Walla Walla, Wash. He came to Oregon from Colfax in 1914 and worked for sometime as a highway engineer, having been associated with the construction of Columbia River Highway. Surviving relatives include his widow, Calanthe; a son, Robert W. Pointer, 7707 … Read more

Hearing, Myrtle I. – Obituary

Enterprise, Wallowa County, Oregon Enterprise Native Succumbs At Hospital. Myrtle I. Hearing of Enterprise passed away on Tuesday, Dec. 30, 1975 at Wallowa Memorial Hospital following several months of ill health. She was the daughter of pioneer parents, Nicholas and Mary Ownbey and was born in Enterprise on Aug. 25, 1890. She lived here until 1928 when she moved to Walla Walla, Wash., to live with a sister, Mrs. Ora Bookout. Later Mrs. Hearing, with her sister, moved to Portland where they made their home. After the death of her sister, she lived with a nephew, Don Bookout of Portland. … Read more

Tiedemann, Florine P. Groote Mrs. – Obituary

Baker City, Oregon Florine P. Tiedemann, 79, a longtime Baker City resident, died Aug. 24, 2003, at St. Elizabeth Health Services. Recitation of the rosary will be at 7 p.m. Tuesday at St. Francis de Sales Cathedral, First and Church streets. Mass of Christian Burial will be at 11 a.m. Wednesday at the cathedral. Celebrant will be the Rev. Robert C. Irwin. Vault interment will be at Mount Hope Cemetery after the Mass. Visitations will be from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday at the Coles Funeral Home, 1950 Place St. Florine was born Oct. 27, 1923, at Baker City … Read more

Biography of John Brandt

John Brandt was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, July 4, 1828, and is of German descent, his great-grand parents having emigrated from Germany, and settled in Pennsylvania, in the early history of that State. His father, John Brandt, for several years was engaged in the manufacture of rifles for the United States Government at Lancaster, and was a man of great natural mechanical ability. When the first railroad in Pennsylvania, known as the Old State road, running from Philadelphia to Columbia, and now a part of the Pennsylvania railroad system, was completed, the managers secured a locomotive of English manufacture. This … Read more

Biography of Hon. P. A. Marquam

Hon. P. A. Marquam was born near Baltimore, Maryland, February 28, 1823, and is the eighth child in a family of nine children of Philip Winchester and Charlotte Mercer (Poole), Marquam. His grandfather was a wealthy merchant of England, employing many ships in carrying on an extensive trade. His father was born in England but at the age of twenty came to America. His mother was a daughter of Henry Poole, a wealthy planter, on whose plantation now stands Poolville, Maryland. On account of sickness and financial misfortune the father of our subject soon after his marriage decided to leave … Read more

Biography of Elisha H. Lewis

ELISHA H. LEWIS. – This well-known gentlemen was born in New York in 1824. He was raised on a farm, and received a common-school education at his home on the slopes of the Catskill Mountains. In 1845 he went to Chicago and thence to Wisconsin, where he worked as millwright until 1849. Coming in that year by the Isthmus to California, he was mining in several camps with the usual checkered luck of those days, making a return to the “States” for a visit. In the spring of 1852 he returned by water to California, and in the fall of … Read more

Tuttle, A. R. – Obituary

Elgin, Union County, Oregon Death of A. R. Tuttle Well Known Citizen and Editor of Elgin Recorder Passes Away The grim reaper, death, has again visited our community and has taken from our midst one of its most prominent citizens. A.R. Tuttle was well known throughout Union and adjacent counties, having been a resident of this county for more than forty years. He was born in Marion County, Iowa, May 6, 1859, and when three years of age crossed the plains with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Terry Tuttle, settling on Willow Creek, in the extreme northern part of Grande … Read more

Charles “Everett” Zimmerman – Obituary

Baker City, Oregon Charles “Everett” Zimmerman, 90, of Baker City, died Oct. 18, 2002, at St. Elizabeth Health Services. His funeral will be at 10 a.m. Tuesday at Gray’s West & Co. Pioneer Chapel, 1500 Dewey Ave. Pastor Ted Davis of The Faith Center at La Grande and Pastor Aaron Oglesbee of the Agape Christian Center at Baker City will officiate. Charlene Whitmore of Blue Mountain Foursquare Church will assist. Vault interment will be at Mount Hope Cemetery. There will be a reception afterward at the First Church of the Nazarene Fellowship Hall, 1250 Hughes Lane. Mr. Zimmerman was born … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Presley George

PRESLEY GEORGE. – This pioneer of distinction, who founded in our state one of its most honorable families, was born in London county, Virginia, March 23, 1798, and was the son of Jesse and Mary Craig George, of an old family in that state. While still a boy he came west to Ohio, crossing the Ohio river at the ford where Wheeling now stands. For forty years he lived among the “Buckeyes,” putting his should to the wheel, and doing all in his power to establish the high and generous civilization of that great state. In 1826 he was united … Read more

Heyduck, Robert Leon – Obituary

Elgin, Oregon Robert Leon Heyduck, 88, of Portland and formerly of Elgin, died March 15. He was laid to rest in Willamette National Cemetery in Portland. Known as Rob, he was born June 20, 1918, to Benjamin and Lela (Park) Heyduck in Elgin. He was raised in Elgin and graduated from Elgin High School. On June 9, 1939, he married Nova Henderson of Elgin. He served in the Navy from 1943 to 1945 and was stationed in Hawaii. He and Nova lived in Bremerton for a short while after they married, then moved to Portland, where they have lived since. … Read more

Rayburn, Mary – Obituary

La Grande, Oregon Mary Rayburn, 71, of Portland and formerly of La Grande, died April 5. A funeral will begin at 6 p.m. today at Adam’s Chapel in the River View Cemetery, Portland. She was born Mary Tyschenko Aug. 20, 1935, in Chernin, Ukraine. She immigrated to the United States in 1951, settling in Weiser, Idaho. In 1955 she moved to La Grande, where she married Claude Eldon Rayburn in 1956. She was nationalized in 1960 and graduated from what is now Eastern Oregon University in 1964. The Rayburns moved to Portland in 1974. Passionate about many things, Mrs. Rayburn … Read more

History of Portland Oregon’s Press

Portland has always had an industrious and vigorous press. The fathers of the city were not slow to perceive that among the things necessary to build up the city and make it known to the world was an active and enterprising press, and very soon after the city was started there was an effort to establish a newspaper here. The project was talked of for a considerable time before means were found of carrying it into execution. It was no easy matter to find a man who would undertake the publication of a newspaper in so young and small a … Read more

Portland Oregon Parks

Going down the slow hill once more one finds that B street heads, to speak in the manner of the mountaineer, in a stony canyon, whose natural roughness has been aggravated by gravel-diggers. Out of this rises, or did rise King’s Creek, a stream of most delicious water, which has now been consigned to more than Tartarean gloom in a sewer. In a cleft on. the left, which is soft and leafy with trees overhanging, and cool with the shade of some immense firs, begins an inviting path, gently rising, leading between two banks more or less bestrewn with leaves … Read more

Biography of John Dovell

JOHN DOVELL. – Mr. Dovell is one of those men who have belabored fortune, and have knocked about the world until it is sufficient to turn one’s hair gray simply to listen to their adventures. A native of the Azores, of Portuguese parentage and born in 1836, he came to Portland, Maine, at the age of fourteen, and learned shipbuilding. He left in four years and plied his trade in New Orleans, shipping thence to Liverpool, and coming as ship’s carpenter from that foreign port to San Francisco. He soon came up the coast to Portland, Oregon, and worked upon … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Peter Dueber

PETER DUEBER. – The life of Mr. Dueber exemplifies the rewards which our coast and society hold out to the old-fashioned qualities of industry and economy. He was born in Newport, Kentucky, in 1857. At the age of ten years he removed with his parents from Minnesota and crossed the plains with ox-teams to Oregon, arriving in Portland safely the following autumn. He first attended school, and at the age of fourteen qualified himself for a sure livelihood by learning the trade of harness-making. He followed this actively in Portland and San Francisco until 1870, when he found a new … Read more

Withrow, Jessie Alice Nash Stanchfield – Obituary

Mrs. Jessie Nash Withrow, 78, of 2014 NW Glisan St., former switchboard operator for The Oregonian, died Thursday [September 4, 1969] at a local hospital after a long illness. Mrs. Withrow was born in Junction City, Sept. 13, 1890. She had lived in Portland for the past 60 years. She worked on The Oregonian’s switchboard for 23 years. She is survived by one brother, Ralph Phelps, Milwaukee. No services will be held. The family suggests that any remembrance be in the form of donations to Seeing Eye Dog Fund, P.O. Box 4412, Portland, 97208. Contributed by: Shelli Steedman