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Sunday September 27, 2015 Greetings, I am going to be guilty this week writing a letter very similar to one I sent two years ago telling about Tim’s and my trip to Vernonia, Oregon and to the family cemetery at Buxton, Oregon. Only this time with a different twist. Friday night I wrote to Tim asking him if he and Kim would like to go with Mom and me to Buxton to see the new grave markers that we bought for my Uncle Lewis, Uncle Siegel and their mother that were installed last winter. Saturday Tim and Kim came up from Corvallis. We stopped by to see my brother Arlie in a nursing home here in Salem. After a short visit we were soon on our way for a family adventure. It was an 80 mile rural drive up the Willamette Valley through little towns to Vernonia -- and then driving a mile and a half out of town to where we lived in 1933 on the McGraw Ranch. We moved away in 1934, but I remember it well. I can picture the cows lined up in their stalls to be milked -- by hand. One time when Papa was loading a cow, she laid down and refused to get up. When he poured water in her ear she hopped right up. That impressed me. 1 The barn at McGraw’s. McGraw was a local banker. For Easter 1933 Arlie and I were given a little white toy truck with a dump bed full of
Easter candy. Probably seven years later brother Bill converted it to a logging truck. I still have it. The sawmill burner is up the Siuslaw River from Florence, Oregon. 2
3 McGraw house now empty. Back in Vernonia we stopped for lunch at the Black Bear Restaurant. I am so glad that we did. On opposite walls were pictures from the ‘20s - including one with my father taken in 1927.
4 One of two opposite walls.
5 The picture on the wall with Papa in in.
On his right are Uncles Gilbert and George.
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6.5 Then 4 miles south of Vernonia to the house where I was born. (1927 picture.)
7 Koster camp This favorite picture was taken in 1927, 2 years before I was born and 2 miles from where I was born. Notice the barn in the logging camp picture on the upper right. This is how it looked Saturday.
8 The present day highway runs maybe 150 feet to the left of the barn -- both pictures. On to the Buxton Cemetery to visit the graves of family and to see the 3 tombstones I had made and installed last winter. The following one kind of haunts me -- I was named after Uncle Lewis Henry Holt. 9
I could have written in much more detail but I am just sharing a bit of our trip. Thanks for riding along with me this week on a 160 mile trip. Lew If you are so inclined: See: http://home.comcast.net/~dina.shaylor/lew_chronicle/articles/2012/10-07-2012-article.html My proverb this week will be this picture.
10 Horses looking for a hand out at the McGraw barn. They represent an innocence that is about us and a beauty that is about us, if we take the time to look.
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