in other words
september21
2017
7
The Good Ol ’ Days
By Tobie Finzel
The Keaseys of Vernonia
The Vernonia Pioneer Museum
Board mourns the passing of Ralph
Keasey, a long time board member and
museum docent. Since his departure
last year due to health problems, we’ve
missed his steady guidance and deep
interest in the history of the Upper
Nehalem Valley. With his family’s
permission, we offer this brief account
of the family’s generations here. Our
sources include the article the late Jenelle
Wiggins wrote about him in 1979 for
the Vernonia Freedom series “Nehalem
Valley People,” the January 2011 Voice
article on the Keasey Farm, family
memoirs, and Ralph’s own stories.
Ralph’s
great-grandparents,
Eden and Nella “Ellen” Keasey, moved
to Fort Worth, Texas, from Fayette,
Iowa, in 1884. Eden’s asthma was so
bad, the doctor told him to get out of
Texas. He came to Oregon in the fall
of 1888 and stayed for the winter. Ac-
cording to Eden’s granddaughter, Abbie,
“That year the roses bloomed all winter,
and he thought he had come to paradise.”
Calling it “Garden of Eden,” he applied
for a homestead of 160 acres on Rock
Creek and brought his family out in
1889. The winter was so bad with deep
snows that the split fir and cedar-sided
two room cabin he started wasn’t usable
until April. The family stayed instead in
a house halfway between Vernonia and
the homestead.
In the mid-1890s with the origi-
nal cabin as its core and fifteen hundred
feet of lumber from Isaiah Detrick’s
Pittsburg Mill, Eden and his son, Carroll,
added the two story home that is desig-
nated a Century Farm. The Detricks
and Keaseys thus became acquainted,
and Lloyd’s daughter, Bertha, went for
a time with each of the Keasey boys,
Dow, Dorr and Carroll (known to all as
“Cad”). Cad and Bertha were married in
1898 in St. Louis, Missouri, where Cad
worked for a time as a railroad lineman.
Their first child, Theodore (known as
“Ted”), was born in 1900; when he was
two, the family moved back to Pittsburg
where they lived in a log cabin. Abbie
Keasey was born there in 1903. In 1902,
Cad and his brother, Dow, built the first
telephone line, a ground circuit system,
from St. Helens to Pittsburg and Verno-
nia.
In 1904, Cad and Ber-
tha and their children moved
out to the Eden Keasey home-
stead because the elder Keas-
eys moved to Portland, a year
before Eden’s death. They
stayed there until 1909 when
Cad bought his brother Dow’s
general merchandise store
in Vernonia. Before the deal
went through, the store burned
to the ground, so they bought
Tom Throop’s store and lived
there for about three years.
They purchased merchandise
for the store in Portland and
had it shipped to Clatskanie.
From there, Cad had to drive a
team of horses and a wagon on
a puncheon road to bring the goods to his
store. The family moved to the Willa-
mette Valley in 1912 so that the children
could get a high school education. They
returned in 1918 having rented the farm
during their absence to other people.
Ted Keasey married Hilda Tuck-
er in 1923. The Tucker homestead was
located on Rock Creek, some of which is
now Cedar Ridge Sports Camp and Re-
treat Center. They moved to the Keasey
homestead after Cad and Bertha moved
to Corvallis in 1924. Ted, originally a
logger of old growth fir, became a saw
filer. Filing crosscut saws was a highly
skilled occupation, and Ted was widely
respected as an expert. He worked in
several logging camps in the vicinity for
nine years only coming home on week-
ends. They had seven children; Ralph
was the middle child. It was a hardship
for his mother to maintain the farm and
raise seven children without Ted’s help
during the week. She sold cream, apples
and sheep’s wool from the farm to aug-
ment Ted’s earnings, and each of the
children had chores
In his interview for the 1979
Freedom article, Ralph recalled that
“the railroad grade ran right through our
backyard, and whenever we kids heard
the (daily) train coming we would all run
out to the fence and wave to the conduc-
tor. Every day for years and years we
watched that train load of logs as well
as the passenger trains go by. The Ke-
asey place was a hailing station on the
rail line and went by the name of Home-
wood.” His grandmother, Bertha, had
chosen that name. Ralph and his sib-
lings started school in the one-room
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A young Ralph Keasey; Ralph on the Keasey tree farm in more recent years.
Rock Creek School near Homewood
until the district was consolidated in the
late 1930s. A two year letterman in foot-
ball and track, he graduated from Verno-
nia High School in 1946 and served as
Student Body President his senior year.
When the crosscut saw was
replaced with the chainsaw in the late
1940s, Ted returned home and started a
chainsaw business. Ten years later, af-
ter Ralph had earned degrees in geology
and agriculture and had served in the
Korean War, he went into partnership
with his father and later became the sole
proprietor. Ralph’s specialty was small
engine repair, but he always regretted
that he didn’t learn the art of filing cross-
cut saws. He sold the business to Bill
Hawkins in 1975 and taught Forestry
and Small Engine classes at Vernonia
High School for a few years before be-
coming a paid employee of the Keasey
Family Corporation, established by his
father, Ted, in 1971. By this time, the
original 160 acres had grown to several
hundred through purchases of adjoining
property. Ralph loved his work in the
woods and remained active in nurturing
the timber until near the end of his life.
Back in his great-grandfather’s
and grandfather’s time, there was no ru-
ral mail delivery. Certain homes were
designated as post officers where mail
could be dropped off and picked up.
Eden Keasey was the first postmaster
in 1890 and was succeeded by his son,
Cad. In 1924 the post office was relo-
cated to the Sitz homestead, five miles
further down what was then known as
Rock Creek Road, to better serve the
logging camps. It retained the original
name and thus the railroad switch and
logging camp became known as Keasey.
When the Post Office was re-
naming roads in the area, the Postmas-
ter asked Ralph what he thought about
petitioning to rename Rock Creek Road
to Keasey Road and then asked him to
circulate the petition to the people who
lived along it. Ralph said he was em-
barrassed to do it, but he did indeed go
house to house to obtain the needed sig-
natures.
There is so much more that
could be written about the many genera-
tions of Keaseys who have lived in this
area, but with Ralph’s passing, some of
those stories are lost to us now. We trea-
sure the many anecdotes he shared with
us at the museum and, as with most of
us who have lost older family members,
wish we had asked even more about life
in those early years.
The Vernonia Pioneer Museum is located
at 511 E. Bridge Street and is open from
1 to 4 pm on Saturdays and Sundays (ex-
cluding 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 do-
nations are always welcome. Become
a member of the museum for an annual
$5 fee to receive the periodic newsletter.
We now have a page on the Vernonia
Hands on Art website, www.vernonia-
handsonart.org If you are a Facebook
user, check out the Vernonia Pioneer
Museum page. 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.