WASCO CO. — I always enjoyed history, though I had no background in it before moving to The Dalles in 1970. Good luck played a part when I noticed that many of the local artists I met at the local Art Center, and the music lovers in the Concert Association, were not just history-lovers but active participants in preserving our history.
Old houses, old downtown buildings, historic markers, warehouses, grain silos. You name it, they knew about them. Not just in town but in South County, Sherman County, up and down and across the river, too. The artists drew, painted, did rubbings; the music lovers talked about the wonderful musicians they’d seen and heard. “Do you know the great William Warfield sang here?” and “Have you heard the organ at St. Peter’s Church?”
The Historical Society met in a little basement classroom in the Art Center, so I became acquainted with many of those historians of the ‘70s…and of course, they knew everyone else in town who also worked at preserving history.
The Museum Board needed a new caretaker early in 1987; they posted a notice at the Employment Office, fortuitously on the same day my unemployment benefits ran out. I walked in, convinced the interviewer that I considered a part-time job better than none at all and submitted my application. Gladys Seufert, Secretary-Treasurer of the Museum Commission, called and offered me a job on the spot! I worked at the Ft. Dalles Museum for 28 years! It was the most challenging (and by far the most fun) job I ever had! We accomplished amazing upgrades and innovations. I look forward to sharing them with you.
Come to my Aug. 9 presentation and hear my accounts of local historians who have handed the “torch” to us, e.g., Lulu Crandall, Wm. H. “Snooky” McNeil, Col. Lew Nichols, Glady Seufert, James Weeks, Fritz Cramer, Anita Drake and others. We owe them our gratitude for their devotion in keeping that torch burning! Cheers to our historians!
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