Obituaries

Helen Lee (Slocum) Holmes was born in Gerster, Mo., on March 4, 1919, to Edward and Mollie Slocum. She was the youngest of 10 children. On Feb. 28, 1936, she married Carl William Holmes. They had one child and lived in Missouri until 1951, when they moved to Bingen, and then later to Hood River.

Mrs. Holmes worked as a cook at Larsens Lunch in White Salmon. Later she worked several years as a meat wrapper at Town and Country supermarket, also in White Salmon. She retired from work in 1974.

In 1976, she and her husband sold their home, bought an RV and hit the road. She thoroughly enjoyed her golden years traveling with Carl. Their RV was their home for a quarter of a century.

Mrs. Holmes' pastimes were going to the beach, fishing, clam digging and camping. A great deal of her time was spent with grandchildren. They truly were "spoiled by Grandma."

She is survived by son Vernon Holmes; grandchildren Terry, Portland, Ore., Carol, Beaverton, Ore., and Christopher, Vancouver; great-grandchildren Doug and Faith Woods, Beaverton; and great, great-grandchild, Keegan Woods, Beaverton, Ore. She was preceded in death by her parents, her brothers and sisters and her husband of 66 years.

Services were held Friday, April 4, 2003, at 2 p.m. at Gardner Chapel in White Salmon.

Memorials may be made to Hospice of the Gorge.

BARON BABCOCK

Baron Lindsey Babcock, 52, died in Vancouver, on April 3, 2003.

Born in Portland, Ore. on Jan. 14, 1951, Mr. Babcock was the son of Alvin and Walbourg (Astorpe) Babcock.

As a young child, Mr. Babcock moved to Stevenson. He joined the Army and served for six years, including one tour in Vietnam. After his discharge from the military service, Mr. Babcock moved back to the North Bonneville and Stevenson area.

He enjoyed hunting and fishing and was a member of the Eagles Lodge.

Surviving Mr. Babcock are his children, Brandon Babcock and Nicole Thiemann, both of Lyle; brothers Byron Babcock, North Bonneville, and Alvin J. Babcock, Kelso; sisters Sheridan Pietzak, Warren, Ohio, and Karen Corcoran, Kelso; father Alvin Babcock, Smith River, Calif.; and mother Walbourg VanHollebeke, Longview.

A memorial service was held at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, April 9, at Gardner Chapel in Stevenson with inurnment at the Stevenson Cemetery.

PAUL WALDEN

Retired Oregon radio broadcaster and radio station owner Paul E. Walden, who served three terms in the Oregon State House of Representatives in the 1970s, died Friday, March 28, 2003, at his residence in Hood River. He was 85.

A memorial service was held Wednesday, April 2, at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Hood River, where he was a longtime member. The Rev. Rustin R. Kimsey, retired Episcopal Bishop of Eastern Oregon, delivered the eulogy.

Mr. Walden, the father of U.S. Rep. Greg Walden of Hood River, spent 48 years in radio broadcasting, working as an engineer and station manager at radio stations in Walla Walla, LaGrande and Pendleton. He worked at KODL radio in The Dalles for 27 years before purchasing KIHR radio in Hood River in 1967. He served twice as president of the Oregon Association of Broadcasters.

Mr. Walden earned his license as a Radiotelephone Operator First Class in 1937, after studying broadcast engineering at the Oregon Institute of Technology in Portland. He acquired his radio amateur (HAM) license in 1934, and remained an active radio amateur until quite recently, communicating with other radio amateurs around the globe, both by voice and by Morse Code.

He was in the U.S. Army Signal Corps in 1946 and 1947, stationed at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey.

Mr. Walden, who was born on a wheat ranch near Prescott, on May 7, 1917 to Ernest Edmund and Nellie Angeline Purdy Walden, grew up in Milton-Freewater, Ore., and graduated from Mac-High in 1935.

He was a descendent of Oregon pioneers; his family came to the Oregon Territory by wagon train in 1845. The diary that his great-grandmother, Sarah J. Walden Cummins, kept of her journey on the Oregon Trail has been published as "The Autobiography and Reminiscences of Sarah J. Cummins."

Mr. Walden's survivors include three sons Bob Walden, Phoenix, Ariz., Bill Walden, Gresham, and Greg Walden, Hood River; a stepson and two stepdaughters Mike Tenney, The Dalles, Barb Hosford, Hood River, and Jo Ann Lewis Wixon, The Dalles; two grandsons, Mathew Walden, Gresham, Ore., and Anthony Walden, Hood River; and two sisters, Eleanor Day, Kellog, Idaho, and Ginger Delk, Ridgecrest, Calif.

In 1940 in LaGrande, he married Betty McEwen, who died in 1990. His second wife, Ethel Mae Tenney Walden, died in 1999.

He served as a lay reader in the Episcopal Church for 50 years, and had been a member of the Diocesan Council for the Episcopal Diocese of Eastern Oregon, serving for two years as council chairman.

Mr. Walden, who greatly appreciated hearing -- and telling -- a good story, also was a community activist. He was named First Citizen of The Dalles in 1956, where he was president of Kiwanis, twice president of The Dalles Chamber of Commerce, and a member of the chamber's board of directors. He chaired The Dalles Dam dedication committee, and served as the master of ceremonies when then-Vice-President Richard M. Nixon dedicated the dam in the mid-1950s.

He was a former exalted ruler of the Hood River Elks Lodge, and also was a member of Hood River Rotary, the Pendleton Masonic Lodge, Al Kader Shrine and Portland Valley of the Scottish Rite.

Memorials may be made to Hospice of the Gorge.