Green, Philip Gordon “Phil” – Obituary

Philip Gordon “Phil” Green, 89, died June 1, 2005, in Baker City at the home of his daughter, Aletha Green Bonebrake. A celebration of life will be held at the Island Funeral Home in Vashon, Wash., on Saturday, June 11, at 11:30 a.m., followed immediately by the committal in the family plot at the Vashon Cemetery. Phil was born in Olalla, Wash., on Jan. 8, 1916, but spent most of his childhood on Vashon Island with his parents, Philip and Kate Sandwith Green and his beloved brother and sister, Joseph Sandwith Green and Janet Isabella Green Okeson, all of whom … Read more

Miller, Hudson Linden – Obituary

Hudson Linden Miller, 84, of Dolan Springs, Ariz., died Feb. 8, 2005, in Kingman, Ariz., of congestive heart failure. His funeral will be Saturday at 1 p.m. at The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-day Saints, 2625 Hughes Lane in Baker City. Bishop Tom Brock of Baker Valley Ward will conduct the service. Public visitation will be Saturday from noon until 1 p.m. in the Relief Society Room at the church. He was born Sept., 22, 1920, at Midvale, Idaho, to Philip and Alice Miller. He served as a cook in the Army Air Corps during World War II, ranched … Read more

Jewett, Joe – Obituary

Baker City, Baker County, Oregon Joe Jewett, 93, of La Grande, died Feb. 19, 2005. He was born May 13, 1911 in Helena, Montana to George and Alice Geary Jewett. His memorial service will be at 10 a.m. Tuesday at the First Christian Church in La Grande. Visitations will be until 4 p.m. today at Loveland Funeral Chapel. Joe was raised at Winston, Mont. He went to electrical school in Chicago, and graduated after one year. He returned to Aberdeen, Wash., to finish his high school education as an adult. He worked about 1 year before deciding to go to … Read more

Butler, Walt – Obituary

Walt Butler, 79, a former Halfway resident, died on March 9, 2005, at Yuma, Ariz. At his request, there will be no service. Walt LeRoy Butler was born at Wiley City, Wash., on March 21, 1925, to Walt LeRoy Butler Sr. and Annette B. Sams. Walt left high school early, acquiring a GED. He then entered the U.S. Navy and served until 1946. After the service, Walt went to work for Safeway stores in northern California, a career from which he retired in May of 1975. In September of 1971, Walt and Elsie Scoggin were married at Carson City, Nev. … Read more

Stevens, William Odell – Obituary

William Odell Stevens, 54, of Baker City, died July 2, 2004, at his home. His funeral will be at 10 a.m. Wednesday, at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2625 Hughes Lane. Bishop Thomas Brock of the Valley Ward will conduct the service. Interment will be at Mount Hope Cemetery. Visitations will be until 7 o’clock tonight at Coles Funeral Home. Bill was born July 29, 1949, at McNary, Ariz., to Robert Odell and Geneva R. Pettyjohn Stevens. He married Nancy Jefferies on Nov. 9, 1974, at Phoenix, Ariz. They moved to Baker City in 1981 from Abilene, … Read more

Depoali, Frances Fernell Neel Mrs. – Obituary

Baker City, Oregon Frances Fernell Depoali, 85, of Baker City, died July 15, 2004, at St. Elizabeth Health Care Center after surgery to repair her fractured hip and developing pneumonia. Her memorial service will be at 1:30 p.m. Saturday at the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses, 975 S. Bridge St. John Skurat, a minister of Jehovah’s Witnesses, will conduct the service. Interment will be with her father at Pine Haven Cemetery in Halfway. Fernell was born on Nov. 7, 1918, at Chandler, Ariz., to Arthur Thomas and Mary Alabama Neel. While her father looked for work during the Depression, the … Read more

Davidson, Gladys Mrs. – Obituary

Baker City, Oregon Gladys Davidson, 89, of Baker City, died Oct. 13, 2004, at St. Elizabeth Health Care Center. There will be no service. Burial will be at Lawncrest Memorial Park in Redding, Calif. Gray’s West & Co. Pioneer Chapel is in charge of arrangements. Gladys was born on Oct. 19, 1914, at Pima, Ariz. She had lived at Baker City for the last 14 years. She previously had lived at Redding, Calif., for 40 years. She was a homemaker and a mother of five. She was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She enjoyed … Read more

Tarango, Manuel – Obituary

Baker City, Oregon Manuel Tarango, 80, of Baker City and a former longtime resident of Stanfield, Ariz., died Sept. 20, 2004, at St. Elizabeth Health Care Center. A memorial Mass for him will be celebrated at 2 p.m. Friday at the St. Elizabeth Health Care Center chapel, 3325 Pocahontas Road. The Rev. Robert C. Irwin will celebrate the Mass. Another memorial Mass will be celebrated Oct. 8 at Casa Grande, Ariz. Manuel was born on June 2, 1924, at Fort Davis, Texas, to Encarnacion and Alejandra Magallanes Tarango. Manuel was raised and educated on the family cattle ranch at Aldama, … Read more

Biography of William Francis Holcomb

William Francis Holcomb, a member of the Society of California Pioneers of San Bernardino County, and the discoverer of gold in the valley which bears his name, was born in Indiana in 1831, but his parents moved to Will County, Illinois, in his infancy, where they lived till he was eight years old. They then went, in 1839, to Iowa and located in Portland, Van Buren County Iowa. His father having died, his mother moved with her family in 1845 up into Wapello County and took up a piece of Government land. The same year his oldest brother, Stephen Holcomb, … Read more

Biography of John Wasson

John Wasson, of Chino, is most widely known as an editor, but this accomplishment has been rather an incident than a design in his career. He was born in Wayne County, Ohio, August 20, 1833, on a farm. He received such education as the very common country schools afforded. Attendance on school was secondary to farm work in summer, and to some extent in winter. He was dissatisfied with farm life, but was notably a good worker with all farming implements. At the age of nineteen he went to California; spent 1852-’53 in the mines of El Dorado County. Sickness … Read more

Biography of Clarence Stewart

Clarence Stewart, a well-known businessman of Riverside, is a native of Rockford, Illinois, dating his birth in 1848. In 1849 his father, John N. Stewart, came to California and engaged in mining. In 1851 he returned East, and the next year brought his family to the State and located in Sacramento for about three years, and then moved to Sonoma County, where he engaged in farming until he came with his family to San Bernardino in 1865. The subject of this sketch was reared in California and schooled in her public schools. Shortly after his arrival in San Bernardino he … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Thomas Thornton Cook

Thomas Thornton Cook, a citizen of San Bernardino County, was born near Nashville, Tennessee, March 29, 1830 His parents, James and Rhoda (Falkner) Cook, were both from Georgia and moved to Tennessee soon after their marriage. They had a family of twelve children, of whom our subject is the eleventh. His first experience in business for himself was a journey across the plains to California in 1851. He stopped for two years in Oregon, and then came on to California, in 1853, and mined in the northern part of the State for seven years. In 1860 he went to Virginia … Read more

Biography of George W. Suttonfield

George W. Suttonfield was born at Fort Wayne, Indiana, February 14, 1825. His father, Colonel William Suttonfield, a native of Virginia, was in the regular army, under General Harrison, in the Black Hawk war. He built the first house in Fort Wayne and lived there until his death, which occurred in 1841. His wife, Laura (Taylor) Suttonfield, was a native of Connecticut. They had six children, of whom the subject of this sketch was the fourth. He attended Wabash College at Crawfordsville, Indiana, for four years, and in 1849 came to California. He started from Fort Smith, Arkansas, in April, … Read more

Biographical Sketch of William Toby Noyes

William Toby Noyes was born August 22, 1836, in Durham, Cumberland County, Maine. His parents, John Henry and Sarah Webb (Toby) Noyes, were natives respectively of England and Wales. His father was a politician, and was elected as the first clerk of Pawnel, and was a profound student and a strong advocate of the temperance cause. He died at the residence of his son William, in California, in 1880, at the age of seventy-six. Mr. Noyes came to California by water in 1863, and landed in San Francisco in May of that year. He had previously (in 1861) made a … Read more

Biographical Sketch of James Stewart

James Stewart, a prominent citizen near San Bernardino, was born in Indiana County, Pennsylvania, in 1837, the youngest of seven sons of Archie Stewart. He left his native state at the age of eighteen, for Nebraska, where he homesteaded and proved up on 160 acres of Government land, and to this added eighty acres more. He was in Omaha when there were but twelve houses in the place. He sold out his interest in Nebraska and operated on the plains with headquarters at St. Joe, Leavenworth, then at Denver, and later at Salt Lake City, Georgetown, Colorado, and Idaho. He … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Reuben J. Anderson

Reuben J. Anderson was born in Smithfield, Madison County, New York; he passed his youth and early manhood like most boys, and in the spring of 1853 came by water to California. He landed at San Francisco May 5, 1853, and followed mining for three years. He subsequently purchased 160 acres of land five miles from San Jose, and here farmed for two years. He then sold out and bought a place a mile west of Haywards, and remained on it until 1856, when he removed to San Bernardino County. He bought land near town, on which he kept stock. … Read more

Quahatika Tribe

Quahatika Indians. A small Piman tribe, closely allied to the Pima, of whom they are an offshoot and with whom they still intermarry to some extent. They live in the desert of south Arizona 50 miles south of the Gila river, speak a dialect slightly different from that of the Pima, and subsist by agriculture. They manufacture better pottery than that of their congeners, and are said to have introduced cattle among the Pima from the Mexicans about 1820. They formerly made arrows of yucca stalks which they bartered to their neighbors. It is said that about the beginning of … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Israel Beal

Israel Beal was born thirty-five miles west of Richmond, Virginia, April 10, 1849. His parents, Oliver and Elvira (Myes) Beal, were both natives of Virginia. His father died during the war, and his mother is still living, at a good old age, having reared a family of eleven children, nine of whom are still living. The subject of this sketch came to California via the Panama route in 1865, and worked for a mining company in Kern County for three years. He then went to Nevada and Arizona and mined, and then came back to California and worked for M. … Read more

Biography of George H. Crafts

George H. Crafts, a rancher near Redlands, was born in New York City in 1844, and came to California with his father in 1861. His father, Myron H. Crafts, was born in Whately, Massachusetts, in 1816, and established the first temperance grocery in New York City. He also had a large meat-curing house there, but was burnt out in 1844, and then went to Jackson, Michigan, where he started a soap and candle factory. He next went to Windsor, where he farmed for a while, and then went to Detroit and accepted a position as cashier in C. & A. … Read more

Biography of Samuel E. Fitzhugh

Samuel E. Fitzhugh is a native of New Madrid County, Missouri, born February 7, 1822, a son of Samuel E. and Margaret (Ruddle) Fitzhugh, natives respectively of Maryland and Missouri, and of Irish origin. John Ruddle was a soldier in the war of 1812. The subject of this sketch is the third in a family of nine children. His father moved from Missouri to Kentucky in 1833, where the family grew up. Mr. Fitzhugh was married in St. Louis, in 1845, to Caroline McKee, a native of Pennsylvania, but reared in Kentucky. She is the daughter of David and Eliza … Read more