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About The Observer. (La Grande, Or.) 1968-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 6, 2019)
2A — THE OBSERVER WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2019 LOCAL D AILY P LANNER Road crews ready for winter TODAY Today is Wednesday, Nov. 6, the 310th day of 2019. There are 55 days left in the year. By Bill Bradshaw EO Media Group TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT On Nov. 6, 1984, President Ronald Reagan won re- election by a landslide over former Vice President Walter Mondale, the Democratic challenger. Bill Bradshaw/EO Media Group ON THIS DATE Gladys Huffman, a World War II veteran of Britain’s Royal Air Force, sits covered in a quilt presented to her by the American Legion, of which she is a member in her own right. She was a war bride to a pilot in the U.S. Army Air Forces and has been a U.S. citizen since 1945. She now lives at the Alpine House at Joseph. In 1814, Adolphe Sax, the inventor of the saxophone, was born in Dinant, Belgium. In 1860, former Illinois congressman Abraham Lincoln of the Republican Party was elected President of the United States as he defeated John Breck- inridge, John Bell and Stephen Douglas. In 1861, Confederate Presi- dent Jefferson Davis was elected to a six-year term of offi ce. In 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower won re- election, defeating Demo- crat Adlai E. Stevenson. In 2012, President Barack Obama was elected to a second term of offi ce, defeating Republican chal- lenger Mitt Romney. In 2016, FBI Director James Comey abruptly announced that Democrat Hillary Clinton should not face criminal charges related to newly discovered emails from her tenure at the State Department. Making her home in Joseph ■ Gladys Huffman’s century-long storied life brings her to Wallowa County By Bill Bradshaw EO Media Group JOSEPH — How does a young English girl who served in the Royal Air Force end up in Joseph, Oregon? To tell the full story would take a long time to tell — just about 100 years. That’s because Gladys Huffman will turn 100 in January. But for this Veterans Day, she’s one of the few World War II veterans left in Wallowa County — and the only one living at the Alpine House in Joseph. Born in January 1920 in Birkenhead, England, Huffman was just 19 when Great Britain declared war on Nazi Germany after Hit- ler’s Sept. 1, 1939, invasion of Poland. Like many of her country- men — and women — she wanted to join the war effort. At fi rst, she volun- teered as an air raid warden and spotter in her home- town. Both Birkenhead and Liverpool were prominent shipbuilding centers and thus targets of the Luftwaffe — the German air force. “We had an anti-aircraft gun parked right outside our house,” she recalls, say- ing she was based near her home. She even remembers after one Luftwaffe raid, the building in which she was taking shelter was hit and heavily damaged, but she and others survived in the basement. “We didn’t know how we were going to get out until a pickax came through the wall and somebody asked if we were OK,” she says. As an air raid warden, she helped enforce blackouts during the Blitz — Ger- many’s early, unsuccessful effort to bomb Britain into submission that culminated in British victory in the Battle of Britain — and after a bombing by the Luftwaffe she would call in where emergency services CORRECTION In the Nov. 4 article, “Union County Girl Scouts take Manhattan” on page 1 A, Angela D’Antonio’s last name was mispelled. LOTTERY Megabucks: $5.7 million 8-22-26-29-36-40 Mega Millions: $145 million 2-9-24-49-54-19-x3 Powerball: $40 million 3-23-32-37-58-22-x2 Win for Life: Nov. 4 14-17-55-58 Pick 4: Nov. 5 • 1 p.m.: 4-3-9-2 • 4 p.m.: 0-9-5-3 • 7 p.m.: 2-3-5-2 • 10 p.m.: 0-4-6-1 Pick 4: Nov. 4 • 1 p.m.: 2-1-2-6 • 4 p.m.: 3-5-2-9 • 7 p.m.: 3-4-1-9 • 10 p.m.: 2-1-7-0 NEWSPAPER LATE? Every effort is made to deliver your Observer in a timely man- ner. Occasionally conditions exist that make delivery more diffi cult. If you are not on a motor route, delivery should be before 5:30 p.m. If you do not receive your paper by 5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, please call 541-963-3161 by 6 p.m. If your delivery is by motor carrier, delivery should be by 6 p.m. For calls after 6, please call 541-975- 1690, leave your name, address and phone number. Your paper will be delivered the next business day. QUOTE OF THE DAY “The illiterate of the future will not be the person who cannot read. It will be the person who does not know how to learn.” — Alvin Toffl er, American writer-futurist Courtesy of Gladys Huffman Huffman, then Favager, is shown in her Women’s Auxiliary Air Force uni- form while serving for Britain’s Royal Air Force during World War II. were needed. She says that on one occasion, her family spent 10 days in an air raid shelter. She says the bombings during the Blitz and the blackouts were the worst parts of the war she experi- enced personally. “You couldn’t see any- thing (at night),” she says. “You couldn’t even see the street signs to know where you were. That was the hardest to take.” Of course, the worst expe- rience for her and her family was what happened to two of her brothers, Reginald and Victor Favager, who also were in the RAF. Huffman said that one night, during the same raid over occupied Europe, both the Lancaster bombers her brothers were aboard were shot down. Victor, who had lied about his age and enlisted at 17, was killed, and Reginald, 19 at the time, was taken prisoner. Reginald was captured near the site where the Germans were doing rocket tests and he was accused of being a spy. “He was treated very badly by the Nazis,” she says, adding that he did survive the war. As a plane spotter, she would identify whether fl ights of planes were friend or foe and count the num- bers of enemy planes. Later, she became one of the early volunteers in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. “At fi rst, the RAF didn’t want women,” she says. “You had to be able to do a man’s (desk) job to release him to go to the front.” Later on, she says, as Britain got more desper- ate for manpower, women were conscripted, something American women haven’t experienced. Huffman was given a job as an accountant handling the fi nances of British and foreign pilots. That’s how she met her fi rst husband, Willard W. Davis. An American, Davis went to Canada to try to enlist in the Royal Canadian Air Force. “He wanted to go in right now” to be a fi ghter pilot, Huffman said. But since the process of becoming a pilot with the RCAF was going to take too long, he instead got his wings with the air force of the Polish government in exile. He got his training and wings from the RAF, wore an RAF uniform, but fl ew in a squadron with Poles and other non-Brits. Davis fl ew for the Poles and the RAF until Amer- ica came into the war in December 1941. “He wanted to fl y under his own colors” and trans- ferred to the U.S. Army Air Forces, Huffman said. The couple married in June of 1943 and her RAF service ended. By then, the Allies were pushing back on nearly all fronts, but Davis didn’t want his bride in harm’s way and sent her to America. But that in itself involved danger. She sailed on the RMS Aquitania — a former ocean liner — to New York and at times was chased by U-boats. “It was kind of scary to know they were following you,” she says, but added there was no serious danger since the Aquitania was so much faster. She said no U-boat ever got close enough to fi re a torpedo. After V.E. Day in May 1945, Davis served in the U.S. Army of Occupation in Germany and his new fam- ily joined him there. That’s when Huffman became a U.S. citizen. “He said it would be bet- ter being in Germany with a U.S. passport than a British one,” she says. She said Davis died in 1954, of a heart attack, induced by the stress of the war. Today, Davis has four daughters, 16 grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren. In 2018, she moved to the Alpine House since her daughter, Gockley, was liv- ing nearby and had lived in Joseph for 16 years. Gockley moved to Peck, Idaho, this year. Huffman said she had vis- ited Wallowa County once before moving here and fell in love with it. ENTERPRISE — Colder temperatures, shorter days and occasional snow indicate winter is on the horizon, and those responsible for keep- ing Wallowa County roads and streets clear are getting ready for it. Oregon Department of Transportation keeps clear about 127 miles on the state highways — OR82, OR3, OR350 and OR351 — including where they go through cities, while each city is responsible for its own streets. The Wallowa County Road Department clears a total of about 700 miles of paved and gravel roads. Brandon Tanzey, roadmas- ter for Wallowa County, said his crews have been preparing for their coming winter work. “We hope for the best and expect the worst,” he said of the likelihood of a rough winter ahead. “We’ve got everything geared up and ready to go.” Tanzey said the county has a fl eet of 10 vehicles of various sorts — graders, plow trucks, sanders, etc. — to handle the approximately 700 miles of county roads and a crew of 11 people to operate them. “If it’s really bad, with me it’s 12,” he said. He said the county gets much of its sand/gravel mix from ODOT. After the snow- fall of the night of Oct. 28-29, county crews deposited sand/ gravel on areas that didn’t get the sun and still had com- pacted snow, Tanzey said. Each road department determines for itself the circumstances at which they break out the plows. Ronnie Neil, public works director for Enterprise, said his crew normally comes in about 4 a.m. if there’s more than 2-1/2 inches of snow on the ground. First, the city takes care of the downtown and main emergency routes and school areas, and then concentrates on residential areas. Similar priorities are common in other cities in the county. Some road departments take a less specifi c approach. “We play it by ear,” which usually means 2 to 4 inches, ODOT’s Tanzey said. All the road departments except Joseph use sand or a sand/gravel mix, particularly on hills and at curves. Joseph doesn’t use sand because of the few hills in town, said Larry Braden, city administrator. La GRANDE AUTO REPAIR 975-2000 www.lagrandeautorepair.com MOST ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY AVAILABLE Joe Horst ACDelcoTSS WILDFLOWER LODGE DEMENTIA CAREGIVER SUPPORT GROUP Join us for our monthly support group created for family members or caregivers just like you. This group will help get you re-energized by sharing, talking through challenges and building a mutual support system. Every 1st & 3rd Wednesday | October – December | Noon – 1 p.m. 508 16th Street | LaGrande, OR 97850 For more information on upcoming topics, please call 541-780-0769. 541-786-8984 Assisted Living | Memory Care | 70M256 Alliance Self Storage 2105 E L Ave., La Grande • allianceselfstorage123@gmail.com WWW.SENIORLIFESTYLE.COM
