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THE ASTORIAN • THuRSdAy, FEbRuARy 10, 2022
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IN ONE EAR • ELLEDA WILSON
WHISPERING GIANTS
I
t would be hard not to notice the 18-foot high cedar
Indian head statue on the east side of the Astoria
roundabout. So how did it get there?
Astorian Ed Johnson met Hungarian artist Peter
Wolf Toth when he was teaching summer classes in
Reno, Nevada, in the 1980s, and Toth was carving stat-
ues in the city park.
That was when Toth told Ed about his Trail of the
Whispering Giants project, which entailed putting a
statue honoring Native Americans in every state. Ore-
gon didn’t have one — yet.
When Ed got back home from Reno, he started a
letter writing campaign to invite Toth to Astoria to
carve a Whispering Giant here, beginning with then-
mayor Edith Henningsgaard Miller.
Toth accepted, and stayed at Joe Herman’s (who
did the rock work around the base). Carved from a
giant log over several months, Ikala Nawan, or Man
Who Fishes, honors the tribes of the North Coast, and
is No. 57 in the series. It was dedicated in 1987; John-
son family photos are shown.
Toth did not get paid for his work, since he
considers the Whispering Giants a gift to his
adopted country. By the way, there’s another giant in
Hillsboro, Kno-Tah, No. 56, also carved in 1987, and
another was in Vancouver, Washington, which has
disappeared.
So what is Toth doing now? He has completed
74 statues, including in all 50 states, in several
Canadian provinces and in Europe, although several
are now deteriorating or missing. He has a small road-
side gallery in Edgewater, Florida, which Roadside-
America.com says “appears to be overflowing with
art.”
MARKETING MAVEN
GIDDY AND BLESSED
‘A
nother adventure in old house research!” Lauri
Krämer Serafin wrote. She and her husband,
Pete, own the Forsstrom House on Seventh Street, which
was built in 1894, and extensively remodeled circa 1915
by Dr. Toivo Forsstrom — a Finnish physician and sur-
geon who came to Astoria in 1906 — and his fist wife,
Alli.
In researching the history of their house, Lauri real-
ized that little is known about Alli Forsstrom. After the
doctor and Alli divorced, he remarried, and Alli van-
ished from Clatsop County records.
“There was a lengthy memoir in the summer 2021
Cumtux magazine by Paul Fellman,” Lauri noted,
“who was born in the Forsstrom House in 1911. Paul’s
parents, Werner and Helena Fellman … rented the
house in 1911, while the Forsstroms were in Portland
…”
The Cumtux story added some insight, at last, to Alli:
“… She spent money like it was water. She owned a
Stutz Bearcat, had horses, had their house rebuilt, had
the rooms plastered specific colors, then had the walls
papered. She put on recitals in her home, starring herself
before her guests.
“Once she decided she wanted to be queen of the
Astoria Regatta. Votes were derived from the purchases
of merchandise from local merchants. Dr. Forsstrom
spent thousands getting Alli elected … Despite these
eccentricities, she was good-hearted, and most generous
to us kids, not having any children of her own.”
Lauri emailed Paul Fellman’s son, Bill Fellman. “I
sent him the article,” Lauri recalled. “He enjoyed it very
much, and stated ‘it was just like talking to Dad!’ In
return, he has gifted the Forsstrom House with Fellman
family things and photos!”
One of the photos is shown, taken in 1909, near the
time of the Forsstrom’s marriage, at Cannon Beach. Pic-
tured, from left, Alli Forsstrom, Dr. Toivo Forsstrom,
Kasten Fellman and Helena Fellman. So far, it’s the
only known photo of the couple.
“Such history!” Lauri added. “We are feeling giddy
and blessed … Special thanks to the Clatsop County
Historical Society for publishing the memoir, and
enriching my research.”
‘PERILS OF THE SEA’
H
ave you ever wondered who thought of the heart-
shaped box of candy so often seen, and given, on
Valentine’s Day?
History.com
says
that
Richard
Cad-
bury, who went on to inherit the famed British
chocolate manufacturing company, was responsible
for sales at first. The chocolate-making process had
been improved to make a very tasty drinking choco-
late, which also produced excess cocoa butter, which
was then used to make what was then called “eating
chocolate.”
Cadbury turned out to be a marketing maven,
and in 1861 came up with the idea of elaborate
heart-shaped boxes, which he designed, not only to
sell the candy, but to be kept as a keepsake to store
mementos. Needless to say, the box was, and is, a huge
hit.
It’s too bad he didn’t patent the idea, since Answers.
org says that “over 36 million heart-shaped boxes of
chocolates are purchased for Valentine’s Day.”
FEELING OK?
E
ver wonder how your cat is feeling? Well, now
there’s an app for that, too: Tably (sylvester.ai).
Take a photo of your cat’s face, and the app uses arti-
ficial intelligence trained in vet-approved pain scales to
figure out your cat’s discomfort level, “based on subtle
facial cues,” the website says.
“… You won’t have to guess if your cat is comfort-
able, even as they age. Monitor your cat’s health pain-
lessly and easily, with results you can trust”; a win-win
for cat lovers.
T
he 215-foot windjammer Emily G. Reed, launched
in 1880, ran aground on Rockaway Beach, at
1:30 a.m. Feb. 14, 1908, while traveling to Portland with
a load of coal.
Heavy weather was partially responsible for the
grounding, but most of the blame lies with the inaccu-
racy of the vessel’s chronometers. By the time the cap-
tain realized he was too far east, he couldn’t turn back.
The Emily Reed hit the beach hard, bow first, and started
to break up.
The first mate, cook and two seamen set off in a steel
lifeboat. They were immediately swamped, and mistak-
enly presumed dead. Horrified, the captain, his wife, and
the other survivors stayed aboard the ship. At daylight,
a very low tide made it possible for them to safely wade
to shore.
The lifeboat, which had actually been pushed out to
sea in the heavy surf, needed constant bailing. Worse
yet, their hopes were crushed several times when pass-
ing vessels failed to hear or see them.
The first mate’s harrowing account of the wreck and
their 78-hour lifeboat journey, “Perils of the sea,” can be
found in the Barrier Miner of New South Wales.
“The second night out we saw lights ashore, but it
was too dark for us to venture in,” he recalled. “There
was neither food nor water, and we suffered terribly
from thirst.
“Toward evening the cook declared he could not
stand it any longer, and took a drink of sea water. He
soon became delirious and lay down in the pool of water
in the bottom of the boat.”
A few days after the wreck, near midnight, the watch-
man on the deck of the sloop Tesla, anchored in Neah
Bay, Washington, more than 200 miles north of Rocka-
way Beach, heard a “feeble hail.” It was the men in the
lifeboat.
Three were “in a pitiable condition,” delirious, with
swollen tongues from thirst and suffering from exposure.
They all recovered, but the cook had been dead for more
than a day.
The Emily Reed and her cargo were a total loss, but
what remains of the ship peeks out of the sand every so
often as a reminder of her story.
SLIP SLIDING AWAY
W
inter tidbits from The Daily Morning Astorian,
Feb. 10, 1884:
• Several joyous parties of sleigh-riders were out last
evening and enjoyed themselves exceedingly …
• Several sprains and bruises are reported, the result
of coasting: in two instances surgical attendance was
necessary.
• A little daughter of Mrs. Grant’s had a narrow
escape from a dreadful death yesterday.
She was coasting on the hillside by the hospital and
ran off the track into the water by the old mill site, the
tide being at the flood. Her brother and others fortunately
saw her, and she was rescued with no further mishap
than a thorough drenching.
• It is learned with regret that there were various casu-
alties at the scene of last evening’s coasting on Benton
Street (now Eighth Street, which more than explains
the following paragraphs).
The bright moonlight and the superb track brought
out a great crowd, and in the course of the evening there
were many narrow escapes.
John Irving … had his left leg broken below the knee.
Joseph Langdon … had his right leg broken below the
knee, and Al Johnson is reported to have sustained a sim-
ilar injury.
‘FROZEN THEATRICALITY’
T
he Daily Morning Astorian, dated Feb. 10, 1888,
mentioned a peculiar Victorian era form of enter-
tainment, the parlor tableau:
“At the entertainment to be given by the ladies of the
Presbyterian church several young ladies will person-
ate, as living pictures, Cleopatra, Mary Queen of Scots,
Night and Morning, Pocahontas, Sairy Gamp, Betsy Pry
and other celebrated characters.”
The parlor tableaus usually depicted a famous scene
from art, the theater, history, the Bible or a novel. The
catch was the participants could not move or speak while
they held the pose in “frozen theatricality” for a minute
or more.
Robert M. Lewis, author of “Tableaux vivants: Parlor
Theatricals in Victorian America” in 1888, opined that
this peculiar form of entertainment started in England,
on the London stage, in 1811. British actors brought the
first tableaux vivants to the New York stage in 1831; by
the 1840s “living pictures” were a full-fledged Ameri-
can parlor fad.
By the way, tableaux had a comeback with the 2016
Mannequin Challenge; the camera moved, the people
didn’t. Thankfully, it didn’t last.
CLIPPING ALONG
A
110-year-old 131-foot Dutch vessel, De Tukker,
is about to be retrofitted to become a modern com-
mercial sailing cargo ship on the North Sea for Dutch
start-up company EcoClipper, Maritime-Executive.com
reports. She will be the first to ship 50 to 70 tons of cargo
in a “sustainable manner” and “environmentally friendly
way,” the company says, and accommodate 12 paying
passengers. The ship is pictured, courtesy of EcoClipper.
Eventually, EcoClipper wants to build a fleet of 200-
foot long three-masted cargo ships. Each vessel will be
powered solely by around 20 sails, have a crew of 12,
along with 36 trainees and 12 passengers, and carry 500
tons of cargo.
What’s old is new again. Welcome back, clipper
ships.