Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
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In the Times edition on May 13, 2010, I wrote about my experience playing the piano for patients at Booker Annex, many of whom are dementia patients. A March 9, 2012, edition of the Union-Bulletin featured a story on its health and fitness page that read: "Dr. Brent Bauer, professor of medicine and director of the Complementary and Integrative Medicine Program at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., says research is beginning to catch up with the value of music in promoting healing." He credits the Natural Institute of Health with the changing...
This week's column quotes from Bill Gulick's "Chief Joseph Country" I visited the site of the Lewis and Clark encampment with the steel silhouette sculptures featuring 80 artistically detailed silhouettes depicting a typical campsite of the Corps of Discovery as they passed through on May 2, 1806. I noted on the plaque at the site that they traveled 19 miles that day. Inside Lewis and Clark Trail State Park "In early May of 1806, Lewis and Clark passed through here on their return from the Pacific Ocean heading east." They traveled on the trail...
Excerpts are from "Chief Joseph Country Land of the Nez Perce" by Bill Gulick, 1985 Quoting the plaque on the Lewis and Clark Trail State Park on Highway 12: "In early May of 1806, Lewis and Clark passed through here on their return from the Pacific Ocean." On April 18, 1806, Clark wrote: "Early this morning, I was awoken by an Indian man of the Chopunuish (Nez Perce) Nation who informed me that he lived in the neighborhood of our horses. This man delivered me a bag of powder and ball, which he had picked up this morning at the place the goods...
Below is an excerpt from"Chief Joseph Country, Land of the Nez Perce" by Bill Gulick, 1985. "Inside the Lewis and Clark State Park, there is a plaque that states: In early May of 1806, Lewis and Clark passed through here on their return from the Pacific Ocean heading East and they would complete their epoch making journey in St. Louis Sept. 23. While in the region, the hungry men ate cow parsnip and doc for lack of better provisions. Since they (the Nez Perce Indians) accepted the environment as they found it and did not try to alter it, food...
I always get a feeling of Irving Berlin's "Blue Skies Smiling At Me" when I see the beautiful Blue Mountains, spotting them as I drive back and forth to Walla Walla. This feeling is felt many times by many people over the years. Many people tell me so. The poet Joaquin Miller, operating the Mossman Express between Walla Walla and Lewiston in 1861, was so impressed with their evanescing hues that he declared 'The Blue Mountains are the most beautiful in the world.' But one must look at them every day to really see them. Undoubtedly, an...
Elvira Laidlaw, co-author of Wait's Mill, told about the early 1900s worship at the new Little Brown Church on the corner of Main and Fifth streets (the First Presbyterian Church). This church was built in 1887. Before that time (1869), the citizens of Waitsburg celebrated at the new school house on Academy Street for Christmas. Her very first remembrance was of the Christmas exercise. She remembered dimly "the first Christmas tree and the decorations - the filling of bags of popcorn and nuts. There were recitations and dialogues by the...
"Nor were the women of less fortitude than their men, while they did remain at home in their cabins, their work was hard; carried great responsibilities and suffered many terrifying moments from the Indians who were all about and delighted in frightening them. Fearful of the natives, Lois Lloyd, during her first year in the valley in 1859, when Albert was away for the day, had taken her baby and a lunch and hidden in the woods until he returned in the evening. It was such women that 'Lyman's History' recorded: Not one of these noble women but m...
As improbable as it may seem, the local Symphony Society is the oldest orchestral organization west of the Mississippi that has continued without a break from the year it began in 1907. Over the years, local Dayton and Waitsburg members of the Walla Walla Symphony have come and gone. Incidentally, Cal Malone, of Waitsburg, was a charter member of the Walla Walla Symphony in 1907. Cordiner Hall, located on the Whitman College Campus, was completed in 1968. In its nearly 10 years of existence, Cordiner Hall has more than fulfilled the dreams of...
Clark's Family Makes It Right C aptain Clark's Des cendants Make Amends To Tribe After completing their journey west and spending a wet and wretched winter at the mouth of the Columbia River in 1806, William Clark and Meriweather Lewis prepared to head home. There was just one problem. They were short a canoe. So, they stole one from the Native Americans who had kept them alive all winter. More than 200 years later, William Clark's descendants are making amends by presenting a 30-foot replica of the stolen canoe to the Chinook Indian Nation....
First Phone System Installed Here In 1903 I t was 1877 that Alexander Graham Bell's invention was first installed as a commercial venture. The first successful demonstrations device was in Havana Cuba in 1849! In Waitsburg, the first telephone was installed in 1887. The first rural telephone system was installed in 1903, 4 W. Morgan was Central (John White's Paper). I couldn't believe there were telephones that early in Waitsburg! Laidlaw's book monitor the telephone office located between Mae Combes and the bank -operated by Tina, one of...
Paved Or Unpaved, Area Roads Have Always Been A Joy To Explore I was going through some old Waitsburg Times, dated March 13, 1885, in a letter to the editor: "Last Saturday, it was so delightfully pleasant to "take a drive --- We, accompanied by Mrs. Times, made a brief visit to the beautiful little city of Prescott. We found the roads in apple pie order, and the town of Prescott showing abundant evidence of animation, owing to the excellent farming weather, but 'few tillers of the soil were in town; still evidences of thrift were manifest in a...
Looking back on the 1950s when barbecue grills were being introduced into American culture, the craze didn't hit Waitsburg as quickly as it did other places. People were busy with harvest and they didn't want to be bothered at that time of year. I looked at my old 1958 Better Homes and Gardens Barbecues and Picnics book and read the introduction: "This is easy-going, hieverybody sort of fare. Poke up a fire and relax. For Dad there's all the how-to's for those big, thick charcoalbroiled steaks, plump barbecued chickens, for the kids:...
Recently I had the opportunity to look through some interesting travel books about the state of Washington. Among them, I found "Exploring Washington's Past," written by Ruth Kirk and Carmela Alexander. Kirk and Alexander's book gives an excellent background into the history of the state, especially rural areas. In this book it has a section that discussed the town of Waitsburg, its size and the local community. " In 1871, a visitor to Waitsburg described the little town as "The most enterprising and thrifty of any town, except Walla Walla, in...
WAITSBURG - The 108th Waitsburg Alumni Banquet was held Saturday night, May 28, in the Multipurpose room at Waitsburg Elementary with Ross Hamann, Class of ' 80, and Waitsburg School Board Chairman, welcoming the one hundred sixty-eight who attended. The meeting was conducted by Peggy Baker Henry, Class of 1974, and President of the Waitsburg High School Alumni Association. President Henry congratulated and introduced the nine members of the Class of 2011 present; Austin Garrett Nolan Beasley, N...
I was reading about life "being simple" in Dayton in 1902 from a booklet printed in 2002 celebrating Grace Episcopal Church's centennial. "Only 14 percent of the homes in the entire country had a bathtub," it read. I noticed there was no mention of pianos in the homes, but that's what was on my mind. I took piano lessons in the '20s and '30s. It occurred to me that many of my friends or acquaintances did have pianos as well as my family. That was during the Depression. I have felt blessed that my parents kept paying for my lessons, and I...
My husband's grandfather, Dr. Rufus Butler, was a "horse and buggy doctor" in Waitsburg for 30 years. According to an article in the Waitsburg Times in 1950 memorializing him, he was one of the last settlers to recall log cabins, Indians, hardships, and pioneer love of the Northwest. In the short time that I had the pleasure of his acquaintance, I realized he played an important role in the history of many people of Waitsburg, and he had many interesting stories to tell. His education and background differed from today's physician as we k...
Last month my daughter, Bubs Cerma, and I stopped at Dunham Cellars located at the Walla Walla Municipal Airport. I mentioned to the young man who showed us around that I used to dance there during World War II. I found out later that I hadn't danced with soldiers there, because the Dunham Cellars had been used as hangars for B-17 and B-32 airplanes! In Robert A. Bennett's book, "Walla Walla, A Nice Place to Raise a Family," he writes, "Three days after Pearl Harbor it was announced in Washington, D.C., that Walla Walla was to be one of seven...
When I was a child, I was fascinated with the beautiful bluebirds in the area where I lived in the "Old" Kettle Falls, Wash., north of Spokane. The western and mountain bluebirds were plentiful there in the spring and summer. The mountain species is typical of high elevations in summer, most common above 5,000 feet as quoted from "The Golden Field Guide." Both of the species are found in our Blue Mountains above Dayton, Waitsburg and Pomeroy. An excellent loop into the high mountains follows a ridgeline south from Dayton above the Nor...
WAITSBURG - The 107th Waitsburg Alumni Banquet was held Saturday night in the Multi-purpose room AT Waitsburg Elementary. One hundred twentytwo turned out for the dinner. The meeting was conducted by Jim Leid, President. Sally Chase Baker, ('61) from Austin, Minn., traveled the farthest. She and her husband Glen ('59) were in Waitsburg with Sally's mother ('38), Bettie Chase. Bettie is celebrating her 72nd year. She was the only one present from her Class of 1938. Jim Hanson and Ivan Keve were...
