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About Vernonia's voice. (Vernonia, OR) 2007-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 21, 2013)
14 history february21 The Good Old Days 2013 By Tobie Finzel Museum News The Board of the Vernonia Pioneer Museum Association (VPMA) elected officers for 2013 at its January meeting: President, Jay Anderson; Vice President, Ralph Keasey; Secretary, Barbara Larsen; Treasurer, Tobie Finzel. The board bid a fond farewell to Carol Davis who has ably led VPMA for the last seven years but resigned to pursue other interests. Jay Anderson has volunteered in a number of ways during this past year, and he was warmly welcomed to the board. There is a new structure on the museum grounds. After the collapse of the former outdoor display shed during a heavy snow in 2010, the museum board applied to the Columbia County Cultural Coalition for a grant to help replace that structure. This spring the area under the roof will be graveled and several of items will be moved there with explanatory placards added to describe how they were used. VPMA has received several donations from descendants of the Malmsten family who settled in the Vernonia area in the early 1900s. Olof Malmsten’s sons, among other accomplishments, established the first telephone service in Vernonia which was jokingly referred to as “The Swede Line.” We have used some of these funds to purchase a display case for the wedding coats worn by Olof and Franklin Malmsten and to restore their wedding portraits which are now in the process of being reframed at Grey Dawn Gallery. Mark Greathouse, great grandson of Olof and grandson of Franklin, and his wife, Helena, donated these artifacts and made a generous grant to the museum that has greatly helped preservation efforts. Many current and former Vernonians receive frequent email correspondence from Bob New, a 1947 graduate of Vernonia High School. Bob has been the unofficial Vernonia historian for several years and regularly provides reminiscences, digitized photographs, video and slide shows of Vernonia events, and obituaries of Vernonians to those on his distribution list. He has generously provided copies of his DVDs and CDs to the museum for resale to our patrons and for our archives. In future columns, we will share some of his great stories about Vernonia in the “good old days.” From Virgil Powell’s Diary Virgil Powell was a long-time resident who had a farm somewhere in the Upper Nehalem Valley between Natal and Pittsburg. Each year from 1906 until 1955, he kept a diary with a brief entry almost every day of his activities. He noted what he did on the farm that day, what the weather was, if he worked in the woods or delivering mail, and what entertainments he attended. In the 1960s, then-curator John Stofiel transcribed the diaries to typewritten pages; both the original diaries and the transcriptions are kept the museum. Here’s what Virgil wrote in February 1908: Saturday, Feb. 15: Carried the mail to Mist. Got to Mist at 11 A.M. Grange day at Natal. Pretty fair day but rained after I got home. Had a fine time down at the store talking basket social for next Saturday night. Saturday, Feb. 22: Carried the mail down to Mist. Got to Mist at 10 A.M. Left Mist at 1 P.M. Got home at 2.25. Stayed home till 3.10 then started for the doings at Vernonia at 4.45. From Mist to Vernonia 3 hours. Had a deuce of a time. Did not start home till 7 A.M. Good fine day. Tuesday, Feb. 25: Sawed wood all day. Shot at some salmon in the afternoon but did not kill any. Cloudy and looks very much like rain. Received a postal from Florence Williams. The Vernonia Pioneer Museum is located at E. 511 Bridge Street and is open from 1 to 4 pm on Saturdays and Sundays (excluding holidays) all year. From June through mid-September, the museum is also open on Fridays from 1 – 4 pm. There is no charge for admission but donations are always welcome. Become a member of the museum for an annual $5 fee to receive the periodic newsletter, and if you are a Facebook user, check out the new Vernonia Pioneer Museum page created by Bill Langmaid. The museum volunteers are always pleased to enlist additional volunteers to help hold the museum open and assist in other ways. Please stop by and let one of the volunteers know of your interest in helping out. VPMA is a non-profit, all volunteer group organized as a heritage program of Vernonia Hands-on Art and is an affiliate of the Columbia County Museums Association. Columbia County leases the building, the former headquarters of the Oregon-American Lumber Mill, from the City of Vernonia and pays the utility costs. Volunteers are responsible for managing the artifacts and staffing the museum. Voices From The Crowd: Just Another Day in the Life of a Timber Faller By Dennis Nelson I was working for Don Hood back in the early 80’s. We were on a job off of Keasey Road where we were thinning a fifty year old Douglas Fir stand that had big old growth cedar snags scattered throughout. One morning my boss led me up to the biggest snag on the claim. It was situated just below the top of a deep canyon. There was a skid road pushed to within 100 feet of the snag’s base. The boss asked me if I thought I could wedge it uphill onto the skid road. I looked it over pretty carefully, walked around the snag a couple of times, judged it to have only a slight downhill lean and told him I thought I could. The next morning, with the boss home doing paperwork, I set about to fall that snag. With the face removed I could see that it was mostly good sound wood with a little rotten hollow in the middle. So far, so good. The tree was five foot in diameter so it took a little beavering with the saw held at head height to get This was all taking too much time. After more the job done. than an hour of beating wedges I was getting exhausted I cut and wedged and cut and wedged until I and a little frantic. If the boss knew how long this had reached the point where I feared taken and I ended by losing the to cut any more. There was too snag into the hole, he would not much rot in the center to totally be amused. I ran to the crummy and trust the strength of the holding I slammed on those wedges found a couple more wood in the hinge. By this point and cut a tiny bit more. By this wedges and some broken I’d lifted the tree with wedges time I’d lifted the back of the chunks and drove them several inches and the downhill tree about eight inches; I didn’t in too. lean seemed to be gone, but it dare cut anymore and my wedges showed no inclination to fall ei- were buried. The snag was starting to ther. The snapping and popping talk to me, snapping and I cut a little bit more was getting intense when finally, popping deep inside. and drove my wedges in deeper. with a groan, the big tree leaned Pretty soon I had all my wedges forward into the face and with an in, stacked on top of each other. incredible crash down through the They were in so deep I couldn’t drive them any further. standing timber, fell into the skid road exactly where I I ran to the crummy and found a couple more wedges wanted it. and some broken chunks and drove them in too. With a huge sense of relief and after a little bit The snag was starting to talk to me, of rest, I set about measuring and bucking this monster. snapping and popping deep inside. The old snag was a little over five feet in di- I didn’t know if it was getting ready to ameter with hardly any taper. It was missing several fall over backwards, shoot off the stump like feet of top but was still well over 200 feet tall. a rocket and disappear down into the depths Right after lunch the cat skinner yarded our of the canyon or what. prize out to the road. The next day the boss came back and was he happy! You could see the dollar signs danc- ing in his eyes. We left the job that night with those big logs on the road feeling pretty proud of ourselves. Monday morning when we came back nothing was left but strips of sawdust in the mud where our old Small and Large Animals growth cedar bonanza had been. The cedar thieves had struck. We were outraged and heartbroken. The boss was out a lot of money. In those days old growth cedar for the shake and shingle market was the hottest thing in timber country. Crummy’s coming out of the woods piled high with shake bolts were as common as loaded log trucks. Thieving was rampant and the roads weren’t gated like they are now. I knew guys that made more money stealing cedar at night and on weekends than Mon, Wed & Saturday they did on the day jobs cutting timber or working on the rigging. 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. After too many big fires the state of California Call for Appointments outlawed putting cedar kindling on roofs, most of the (503) 429-1612 old growth cedar was gone, the market petered out and Or 24 hr. Emergency Number (503) 397-6470 another era in the local economy ended. 700 Weed Ave. Vernonia, OR Vernonia Veterinary Clinic Now Open
