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Clatsop County Historical Society Quarterly C u m t u x Vol. 33, No. 1 — Winter 2013 Clatsop County Historical Society 714 Exchange St. P.O. Box 88 Astoria, Oregon 97103-0088 (503) 325-2203 [email protected] www.cumtux.org Heritage Museum 16th and Exchange St., Astoria Flavel House Museum 8th and Duane St., Astoria Oregon Film Museum 7th and Duane St., Astoria Uppertown Firefighters Museum 30th and Marine Drive, Astoria BOARD of DIRECTORS Paul Mitchell, Warrenton President Andrew Bornstein, Astoria Vice-President Patricia Roberts, Gearhart Secretary Books about some of Clatsop County Cemeteries by Joyce Morrell Kent Ivanoff, Astoria Treasurer Kent Easom, Astoria In is Issue … Brett Estes, Astoria Marsha Ettro, Svensen Vern Fowler, Gearhart There is little in the area that connects the past to the present as much as Cheri Folk, Warrenton the cemetery on Niagara Street in Astoria. There we can read the names of J. Todd Scott, Seattle David Reid, Astoria people who walked our streets a century and a half ago. There are ship captains Randy Stemper, Astoria and bar pilots, bartenders, drowning victims, a Territorial court judge and STAff his family, and a Civil War veteran. There are Germans, Italians, Chinese, McAndrew Burns Finns, and people of many other nationalities. These are people who made Executive Director the long trek across the plains or traveled by ship for many weeks to get here. Sam Rascoe If you would like to know more about the people buried in this cemetery, the Director of Marketing information is printed in books by Joyce Morrell sold by the Clatsop County Liisa Penner Archivist & Genealogy Society. See the story in this issue. CUMTUX Editor A long time supporter of the Clatsop County Historical Society, Dr. Charles Amber Glen Linehan brought us the history of the medical and dental clinics in Astoria Curator collected from interviews and the writings of people associated with those Martha Dahl clinics. To these we have added the reminiscences of Vern Fowler, CCHS board Business Manager member. Some stories overlap, while others include more personal details. Carol Lambert Michael Duncan wrote the story of his family for Dr. Julie Brown’s class Marlene Taylor Michael Wentworth at Clatsop Community College a few years ago. Cumtux Support —The Editor Clatsop County Historical Society Clatsop County Historical Society CUMTUX 714 Exchange St. P.O. Box 88 Astoria, Oregon 97103-0088 (503) 325-2203 [email protected] Clatsop County Historical Society www.cumtux.org Quarterly Heritage Museum Vol. 33, No. 1 — Winter 2013 16th and Exchange St., Astoria Copyright © 2013 Clatsop County Historical Society Flavel House Museum (ISSN 1083-9216) 8th and Duane St., Astoria Oregon Film Museum 7th and Duane St., Astoria Contents: Uppertown Firefighters Museum 30th and Marine Drive, Astoria 2 How it all began with Cumtux by Evelyn Leahy Hankel BOARD of DIRECTORS Paul Mitchell, Warrenton 4 The Challenge President Andrew Bornstein, Astoria by Liisa Penner Vice-President Patricia Roberts, Gearhart 7 Medicine in Astoria 1957-2000 Secretary Kent Ivanoff, Astoria by Charles Linehan, M.D. Treasurer Kent Easom, Astoria Brett Estes, Astoria 31 The Karki family Story Marsha Ettro, Svensen by Michael G. Duncan Vern Fowler, Gearhart Cheri Folk, Warrenton J. Todd Scott, Seattle 44 U. S. Custom House David Reid, Astoria Property Evaluation Randy Stemper, Astoria STAff 48 New and Renewing McAndrew Burns Historical Society Members Executive Director Sam Rascoe Director of Marketing Liisa Penner Archivist & CUMTUX Editor Amber Glen Curator Martha Dahl Business Manager Carol Lambert Front Cover: Marlene Taylor 1948 Christmas card from the Fowlers: Michael Wentworth Dr. Vernon Fowler, Mrs. Lynn Fowler, son Cumtux Support Vernon “Tooey”, and daughter Linda. CUMTUX: Chinook jargon: “To know…to inform” H C ow it all began witH umtux by Evelyn Leahy Hankel The year was 1978 in Astoria, counties were offered a federal grant Oregon. to write and illustrate a history of Three retired teachers from the two counties with an Clatsop and Tillamook emphasis on history of the area and native life found by contact with sailing vessel crews. It was to be A History of Clatsop and Tillamook Counties. The writers were Roger Tetlow and Evelyn Hankel of Clatsop and Fabian Dorgan of Tillamook county. The illustrator was Mary McDonald and the photographer was Paul Duus. This project was funded by Federal Title X through auspices of Oregon State Department of Education and Clatsop and Tillamook Intermediate E d u c a t i o n District. The teachers chose twelve units and each writer was to complete four units. The 2 Clatsop County Historical Society project was to begin in Unit 1 with the Boaz meaning “to know” or “knowl- geology and geography of Clatsop and edge” or “inform.” Tillamook counties. The project was Our first issue of Cumtux Volume completed in 1979 and printed in four 1, Number 1 was Winter 1980. The booklets. Publication costs were borne cover bears a photo of my great aunt, by local tax monies of the people of Ann Noonan Leahy, a pioneer in the Clatsop and Tillamook counties and Olney area of the county of 1879. placed in the Intermediate Schools for Inside was my first article, the history use in Fourth Grade. of the arrival of my Leahy family from With the completion of this proj- Ireland to Astoria, Oregon. Most of ect, Roger Tetlow had a dream which the original one hundred and sixty he shared with me. Roger and I had acre homestead in Olney is owned by worked many hours with the Clatsop my son Hal Hankel Jr. and has been County Historical Society which was held by the family since 1879. (It is growing rapidly into professional located next to the Klaskanine Fish standing comparable to the state Hatchery on Highway 202.) organization. Roger saw the need for Note: Cumtux is now in its an historical quarterly magazine that thirty-second year of publication. would preserve the history of the county. We approached the Clatsop County Historical Society Board with C C H Roger’s idea and found enthusiastic S P response. Roger was given the “go H o t ahead” and I was to assist him. I : Do would like to mention the officers aily and board members of that year 1980 a St because I knew them and remember or ia them as memorable leaders of our nC o time: President Sam Foster, Vice ll e C President Bruce Berney, Secretary t io n Dorothy Churchill; Board Members: Sam Churchill, Eleanor Forrester, Russell Dark, Michael Foster, and Capt. Ray Collins. Roger and I began work on our first issue with the chosen name Cumtux which we found in the Chinook language section of Handbook of American Indian Languages by Franz Evelyn Leahy Hankel 3 Cumtux — Vol. 33, No. 1 — Winter 2013 t C He Hallenge by Liisa Penner Originally written about 1995 for by conducting special workshops, Heritage Quest Magazine. purchasing good basic books for the library and by inviting exciting speak- We came to the monthly meet- ers to our meetings. ing of the Clatsop County Our speakers that day were Evelyn (Oregon) Genealogy Society that Hankel and Marie Oesting. Evelyn day in November 1986 expecting to Hankel was the editor of the Clatsop be entertained as usual by our two County Historical Society’s quarterly, guest speakers, after which we would Cumtux, and a former teacher and have refreshments and stand around principal. Marie Oesting was also a sharing with others the successes or teacher who had recently published failures in our family research. What a book, Oysterville Cemetery Sketches. happened that day at that meeting Together these two women issued was to change the lives of many of a challenge to our society to begin the members of our society. a project of recording the names of The Clatsop County Genealogy those buried in all the cemeteries Society was organized by Bruce in our county. In our whole society, Berney, the Astoria Library director, there were only a couple of people and was only a little over a year old who were doing local research. Most at the time. Most of our members of us were doing our research back had done only the most basic kind of east in Illinois, Ohio, Kentucky and research. But we had as our president the eastern seaboard. What advantage Kathleen Johnson, who was later would it be to us to divert our atten- President of the Washington State tion from our research in those states Genealogy Society. Kathleen was and begin a local project? I think we president then of two different so- all had our misgivings. “Headstones cieties in two different states. Her in our Clatsop County cemeteries,” home was in Washington, where she we were told, “are being destroyed at was president of the Pacific County an alarming rate by vandalism and Genealogy Society. Once a month, neglect. It has to be someone’s respon- she commuted across the Columbia sibility to try to save this information. River to Astoria for our meetings. If you don’t save it, who will?” Single-handedly, Kathleen took on “Start with the Lewis and Clark the job of educating our members Cemetery,” we were told. “It is on 4 Clatsop County Historical Society the point of being completely lost to print using a little second-hand Atari the blackberries.” Dutifully, we read “game” computer that my son gave materials that Marie Oesting sent us me. We published our first book, 167 on how to do a cemetery reading. We pages of painstaking research. attended the Genealogical Forum Then followed two books by fellow of Oregon’s conference in Portland member Jim Dennon, on the Clatsop on “Sleuthing the Burials” and on Plains Pioneer Cemetery and the May 21, 1987, the Clatsop County Seaside Evergreen Cemetery. Joyce Genealogy Society members arrived Morrell did a book on the Hillside at the Lewis and Clark Cemetery Pioneer Cemetery, the oldest surviv- with our sack lunches, notepads, and ing cemetery in Astoria, and decided chalk. And for hours we wrote. It that since records for this cemetery wasn’t work; it was fun! But it was were so few, she would need to go only the beginning of our response through every page of the newspaper to the challenge. We compared the to search for obituaries. As a result, cemetery reading with the only sur- she compiled two books of obituaries, viving sexton’s book. The others, we 1864 to 1880s, for Clatsop County. were dismayed to learn, burned in a A county clerk, unsympathetic fire. Who was “Grandfather” buried to the goals of a genealogist, can set in Block 25? Was his last name Junna obstacles in the way of those wanting or Nelson? We had no answer. The to use court house records, or she can next step took us to the Astoria Public help. Our society’s next president was Library, where we searched through Norma Hunsinger, who was also the the newspaper index, a wonderful County Clerk! Norma continued the research aid compiled under the process of educating our society’s direction of Bruce Berney. This is an members about all the kinds of index to Astoria newspapers from 1864 records available for research in the to the near present (1990s). Court House. She taught us that we The next step took us to the Court might find marriage records in the House where we tracked property deed books and about what we might transactions in the name of the owner find in the Miscellaneous Record and of the Lewis and Clark Cemetery what type of naturalization records until the date when the County Clerk to look for. After retiring as County no longer recorded the sale of cem- Clerk, Norma compiled an index etery plots. We located some records to marriages in Clatsop County, through the Finnish Brotherhood 1851–1944, and later did an index to Lodge. We studied more Court probate, 1934–1966 and an index to House records and mortuary records. deaths, 1924–1944. Finally, we decided to put it all into In the years since we were issued 5 Cumtux — Vol. 33, No. 1 — Winter 2013 Morrell this challenge, our members have Shipwright Union Records by Joyce Morrell gone on to copy and index local Clatsop Plains Pioneer Cemetery by Jim records from the cemeteries, Court Dennon House, union offices, State Archives, Evergreen Cemetery in Seaside by Jim and more. We now believe that Dennon Clatsop County, Oregon, is a great Lewis & Clark (Riverview Cemetery) by place to do research. By focusing on Liisa Penner & Bettie Ober Dybvik preserving local records did we lose Fort Stevens Cemetery by CCGS ground on our own family research? Marriage Indexes for Clatsop County (1851- 1944) by Norma Hunsinger The answer is that we may have, tem- Death Index for Clatsop County (ca. 1924 to porarily. But, in the long run, we did 1944) by Norma Hunsinger not. In the process of trying to solve Homestead Claims in Clatsop County by questions that we ran into while com- Liisa Penner piling these local records, we learned 1890 Veteran’s or their Widow’s Schedule by where we could find the answers. Liisa Penner Everything that we learned we could Misc. Indexes Published in the Forebears by CCGS now apply to our research in Brown Contact Carol Wamsher via e-mail at County, Ohio, or Cambria County, [email protected] or telephone Pennsylvania, etc. Where before were (503) 338-4849 only dead ends, we now found new opportunities for discovery. Note: In more recent years, the Some books for sale by the Clatsop Clatsop County Genealogy Society took County Genealogy Society: on the immense task of researching the Hillside Pioneer Cemetery by Joyce Morrell ancestry of all the members of the Lewis Obituaries and Death Notices by Joyce & Clark expedition of 1805-1806. The Morrell (Book 1 is for the Hillside Pioneer result was two large volumes of carefully Cemetery and Book 2 is for burials taking detailed work that will be a resource for place elsewhere for local people.) years to come. Copies of the books are on Olney – Walluski Cemeteries by Joyce a CCHS library shelf. 6 Clatsop County Historical Society M a 1957-2000 ediCine in storia by Charles Linehan, M.D. The following collection of documents and went on in 1956 to build a clinic is meant to give some flavor of the four building. There was a central waiting medical clinics and the dental practices room with the medical offices on in Astoria in approximately the last one side and the dental on the other. half of the 20th century. Each clinic The three formed a corporation of was reviewed by a surviving member. Medden which held the building and Photographs are included. This compi- the land and received rents from the lation was done in 2011 by Charles K. Medical and Dental sections. Linehan, M.D. (Editor’s Note: there is Dr. Michael Buchman (April 21, some duplication by the writers/speakers 1917—Jan 31, 2010) a dentist. He in these accounts.) received a fellowship in dentistry from Kansas City Western Dental When I came to Astoria in 1957 College in 1941. He was in the U.S. there were four medical clinics Navy Dental Corps. He practiced in in place plus a couple of independent Astoria in the Medical Dental Clinic solo specialists. My clinic was the for many years until retiring. He sold Medical Dental Center. There were out to Dr. Robert J. Karby, DMD. also the Astoria Clinic, the largest; He had an associate for many years, a the RKN (Rafferty, Kerbel, Neikes) Dr. Larry Pardee. I, Charles Linehan, clinic and the Fowler Clinic. M.D., joined the clinic in 1957 and The Medical Dental Clinic came gave a promissory note for $10,000 about after the expulsion from the for my buy-in to the partnership car- second floor of the 1st National Bank ried by the 1st National Bank. At the building of several doctors there time, unbeknownst to me, my new including Dr’s. Palmrose and Parlova. partners, Dr’s. Palmrose and Parlova, The bank wanted the space to do cosigned the note. The bank wasn’t something with it and then never did. about to lend that much money to Dr’s. Palmrose, Internist and Parlova, an unknown. General Practice and Surgeon, joined Events happened with Dr. Parlova with a dentist, Dr. Buchman, to form leaving our clinic; Ned Fowler pass- the Medical Dental Center. They ing away and Vernon Fowler retir- bought a house diagonally across ing. That left Drs. Henningsgaard, from St. Mary Hospital on 15th Internist and James Estes, Surgeon, of Street owned by the Leathers family the Fowler clinic and Drs. Linehan, 7 Cumtux — Vol. 33, No. 1 — Winter 2013 G.P, and Palmrose, non-boarded where medicine was changing from Internist, of Medical Dental. Drs. General Practice domination to Henningsgaard and Estes joined that of specialty domination. Dr. the Medical Center, at which time a Clyde Parlova, in addition to doing building extension in 1965 was made surgery, saw many general practice on the south side to accommodate patients. Dr. Ed Palmrose, a nominal everyone. The combined clinic paid internist, delivered babies. Dr. Estes Vernon Fowler $10,000 as his por- was trained as a general surgeon, an tion of the Fowler Clinic assets. The orthopedist and a urologist. All of accountants, with some reluctance, these are separate specialties now. were given the task of making the Dr. E. weighed in the 300 pound assets from each clinic equal. range. Once we had a severe fracture Dr. Thomas Honl (April 8, 1937— of the ankle with the foot markedly October 28, 2005) joined the clinic displaced forward in relation to the with a practice heavy in urology. lower leg. Under anesthesia he had He was there several years before the leg placed so the foot was just retiring. There were a few short time over the edge of the gurney. Then consultants and interim physicians in he wrapped his hands about the foot the clinic at various times. and leaned on it. There was a crunch Dr. Palmrose left the clinic to prac- and the foot and bones were back in tice in Roseburg for a few years until alignment. Dr. Blair Henningsgaard retiring. Dr. Estes retired and moved was a board eligible internist for many south. That left Dr. Henningsgaard years without sitting for his intended and me for a few years until Dr. board examinations. He also did H’s demise from a sudden cardiac much general practice and even did event. Being alone in a large clinic prenatal care to my wife. building was not tenable and I was One of the independent specialists due to be out of business when Dr. was Dr. Henry Feusner, a radiologist. Mark Stryker, M.D., Internist, came He read what are called plain films from Astoria Clinic to join MDC. today and did Upper and Lower GIs. Dr. Richard Kettelkamp, M.D., Early on he did radiation therapy to Generalist with particular interest some dermatological lesions. He really in Obstetrics, followed shortly. This excelled in his field, complaining to continued until 1998 when after a me once that some of the docs that period of slowing revenue and increas- substituted for him for vacations ing costs we all retired. The building made too many mistakes. Once, as a and land was then sold to Dr. Bruce Medical Examiner, I had occasion to Bobek, D.O., internist. have a chest Xray taken of a deceased The 50s and 60s was a period woman that had been run over by a 8 Clatsop County Historical Society