Days of Yore for June 6, 2024
10 years ago—
Members of the McElligott family recently made a trip to England and Ireland to attend the wedding of a family member, and to tour the countries. Pete and Nancy McElligott went from here along with son Brian and friend, daughter Janet, Pete’s sisters Kathleen and Mary and friend Nora Toban. They attended the wedding of Paul McElligott’s daughter, Salli, who lives in London.
Twilight on the Track, a walk/run event, will be held at the Oregon Raceway Park east of Grass Valley. The event will provide an opportunity for people to see the unique raceway track up close, and will be held in conjunction with the third annual Grass Valley Pavilion Harvest Celebration.
25 years ago—
A very poignant part of the Spray High graduation was the inclusion of Marvin Britt to the program. Britt happened to mention to the superintendent, Judy May, that he graduated from Spray High, but had never taken part in the actual graduation exercises. So Mrs. May and Marvin’s wife, Louise, decided to give Marvin his graduation ceremony. The whole scheme was kept secret from the man who should have walked across the stage to get his diploma 55 years ago. Marvin was a member of the SHS Class of 1944. He didn’t get to graduate because he received his summons to become a member of the armed service. This was in the midst of World War II, and everything was pointed towards winning the war.
Serving as Grand Marshal of the Spray Rodeo was Tom Campbell of Kimberly. Tom was born and raised on the family ranch at Lonerock, “just 25 horseback miles from Spray,” he says. His birth certificate shows that he was born in Gilliam County. He disputes that, pointing out that the family home was built on the county line and the bedroom in which he was born, was in Wheeler County.
50 years ago—
Lost Ingredients 4-H Cooking Club met at the Wehrli home in Fossil. After the business meeting the group made No Bake Rocky Road cookies. They learned the correct 4-H way to measure ingredients, which they said is lots different than the way they do it at home!
How did you spend your Memorial Day weekend? Would you have run 13 miles in 80 degree weather in the Spray Half-Marathon? Well, 75 runners from as far away as New York and as old as 72 years decided to do so. The run was won by Ray Hatton of Bend with a time of 1:11:34. Among the runners was Bob Straub, Democratic Gubernatorial candidate who finished the race in 69th place.
75 years ago—
The American Legion sponsored a banquet for the Kinzua baseball players and their wives, and Manager Joe Hayes. Lester Halverson, who had the best batting average of the season, was presented with a fishing rod by the Kinzua Pastime. Edward Wham was given a fishing creel by the Kinzua Mercantile Co., for best all around sportsmanship during the season.
Mr. and Mrs. Jack Reser were well embarked on the “sea of matrimony” last week end when two different groups of friends gathered at their ranch home near Condon to charivari them. One group came direct from the St. Patrick’s Day dance Saturday night (or early Sunday morning) and the other group gathered Sunday evening. “It was all a lot of fun,” said Jack, “and well worth losing two night’s sleep.”
Now about 3 of Spray’s local citizens are going about town with bandaged hands. A matter of differences? Banish the thought. Darrell Cecil suffered a badly cut hand while employed at the mill. Clarence Warren’s knife slipped while ear-marking a calf, and Butch Livingston – it seems Butch is somewhat given to nightmares and sustained a badly cut wrist when he struck out manfully while asleep by the man who wasn’t there. The window was.
100 years ago—
For the first time in the history of Gilliam County a woman was drawn on the grand jury – and not only that, she was made foreman. The lady so drawn was Mrs. Mary Wainwright of Mayville. The other members of the grand jury were Tom Stall of Clem, W.G. Keys of Mayville, R.W. Potter of Mikkalo, Tink Womeldorf of Condon, J.D. Shaw of Mayville and Ben Strong of Mikkalo.
For more than two years considerable interest has been manifested in the Clarno district of Wheeler County about the possibility of developing oil there. State Geologist A.J. Collier, in 1914, made a brief examination and reported considerable asphalt being found in that section. In 1921, this inspection was followed up by Prof. John Buwalda of Yale University, a geologist of note who was employed by the U.S. government and the Bureau of Mining. He also reported on oil and gas possibilities in the area.
Mike Dukek of Fossil, formerly a county commissioner of Wheeler County, in the days when highway construction was going on there, is registered at the Imperial, says the Oregonian. Once, when a piece of road-building machinery was needed in his county, Mr. Dukek went to Salem, got the equipment from the highway department and drove the big truck home in order to hurry up the job.
From the Condon Times 1909 —
S.B. Barker has been and gone and done it. We are reliably informed he got tired of using his shanks and bought him a real live automobile. We have not heard what kind of machine he got but S.B. generally does things well and it is likely the machine is a hummer.
Alex Hardie has sold his ranch on Trail Fork to his brother Josh Hardie, consideration $14,500. Mr. Hardie does not know exactly what he will do but if he does decide to leave this part of the country we will lose a good citizen and an honorable man.
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