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NORTH COAST TIMES E A G L E , MA Y/JUNE 2002
DRAWINGS BY WILLIAM MICHAEL SCHUSTER
THE PRETTIEST MOUNTAIN
The way popular history has of getting things confused it will probably be common
knowledge in a few years that Harry Truman, who was once President of the United States,
died in the spectacular explosion of Mount Saint Helens on May 18, 1980.
At least sixty people died in that blast, which had the fury of several nuclear bombs.
Thousands of animals were killed Entire forests were obliterated Spirit Lake disappeared
Mudslides and logjams flooded the Toutle River and knocked out several bridges.The Columbia
River channel had to be dredged because mud washed downriver blocked ships. Eastern
Washington was covered with volcanic ash as far as Spokane and pumice littered ocean
beaches. Millions of tons of dust was hurled into the sky and it was thought a ring of dirt and
smoke would form around Earth and reduce sunlight.
Mount Saint Helens was the prettiest mountain in the Pacific Northwest. Its shape
was almost a perfect cone like Japan's Mount Fuji and was usually wrapped in snow. The first
eruption was in late march 1980, and there have been numerous others in the 22 years since
the cataclysmic May 18 blast, though none have approached its intensity or destruction. Lately
the mountain has been quiet. No one is certain if it has shut off its fires or preparing for another
blow.
Walt Curtis wrote in an article for the Times Eagle (June 1982) that male TV news­
casters spoke of the Saint Helens volcano as being an unruly female, and told a corny joke:
"Do you know why Saint Helens erupted? She didn't take her earth control pills.” Curtis said his
65 year old mother responded, "They're so stupid! The volcano is really named after a male,"
an obscure British ambassador whose first name was Allen, spelled in “an old fashioned way.”
“I must admit I have always felt this gorgeous mountain possessed a feminine quality,"
Curtis wrote. “The Klickitat Indians also thought of the volcano as a woman. She was 'Loo-wit,
the snow witch, consigned by the great spirit to reside in snow and ice. Uneasy magic has always
been associated with Saint Helens Miners in the 1920s claimed they were attacked by a family
of Bigfoots, hairy apes. These apocryphal creatures threw rocks and broke out the windows of
their cabin. In March 1980 as the mountain began to rumble, spew ash and soot, belch pumice
and broken ice blocks, we never dreamed these minor eruptions would come to a cataclysmic
conclusion.
“Everytime I look toward the north, enjoying the spectacular scenery of the snowcapped
peaks of the Cascades, known as the 'ring of fire', I see one lone decapitated natural shrine.
Observing the serene and beautiful sentinel, leveled by a cosmic bulldozer, my thoughts become
gloomy.”
Harry Truman, who was not President (but was a drinking companion of Supreme Court
Justice William O. Douglas), became an authentic folk hero when he refused to leave the mount­
ain that had been his home for half a century as proprietor of the popular Spirit Lake Lodge. He
might not have thought he would actually die, but that is incidental to legend. He will most likely
be remembered as William Michael Schuster has portrayed him, eternally linked with Mount
Saint Helens as the man who exploded with the mountain.
- michael M c C usker
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William Michael Schuster and a nephew took a trip to
Mount Saint Helens in search of volcanic ash less than
a month before its titanic eruption, May 18, 1980 The
mountain rumbled and shot the air with steam the day
Schuster drove up to the Plain of Abraham Volcanic
ash fell out of puffs of steam onto snow that covered the
road Schuster and his nephew melted snow in a plan to
recover the ash until they ran out of firewood. That night
a spring blizzard half froze them, and next morning their
VW bus started to vent steam of its own The ash was a
novelty to kin and friends only briefly The H-bomb scale
explosion on May 18 spread volcanic ash all over the
Pacific Northwest Schuster mixed some of the ash with
paints for paintings of Mount St Helens erupting
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