OFF PAGE ONE
Wallowa.com
Friendship:
Continued from Page A1
“We sat on her grandpar-
ents’ porch in the summer-
time and I would massage
her feet and we would pon-
der the future,” Bob said. “I
would visit with her in the
evening after school, after
ball practice or whatever we
were doing. … We would
be inside and her granddad
would come out about mid-
night and say, ‘Well, this boy
needs his sleep. It’s time to
go home.’ My neighbor was
working at the mill and if I
timed it right, I could get a
ride with him home. Lots of
times I didn’t time it right
and I’d end up walking home
4½ miles. Sometimes in the
summertime I rode my bicy-
cle. Then, after I got a car, we
rode around in style. It was a
Model A Ford.”
Married young
When they got around to
getting married, he was just
18 and she was a few months
Death:
Continued from Page A1
information offi cer.
The OHA did confi rm
to Ty Barnett in an email
Josh Barnett shared with
the Chieftain that it does
use the phrase “COVID-
19-related deaths” and that
it could mean a person who
had COVID-19 died, but
that it wasn’t necessarily
the cause.
“The deaths we report
each day include people
who died with COVID-
like symptoms, which in
some cases means that
a person did not neces-
sarily die as a result of
COVID-19.
Sometimes
public health cannot deter-
mine (the) exact cause of
death, so our data focuses
on people who most likely
or defi nitely had COVID-
19 and died, based on local
reports,” the email stated.
older at 19. Her grandparents,
with whom she lived since
her sophomore year in high
school, had a typical reaction.
Her grandmother was Hat-
tie Fisher, who taught in Wal-
lowa for about 40 years.
“They thought we were
too young, which we proba-
bly were,” Shirley said.
Bob’s
parents
were
enthusiastic.
“They loved her. My
mother told me, ‘I expect you
guys will have some trouble.
If you do, Shirley’s always
welcome here; you’re not.’
That was kind of funny,” he
said. “As I recall, to get mar-
ried, I had to be 21 and she
had to be 18 without parental
permission. I wasn’t 21 and
I was petrifi ed. I went to my
dad and he didn’t have any
problem, but he said I needed
to ask my mother. I fi nally got
up the nerve enough to ask
her and I swear she could’ve
done a backfl ip because she
was so happy to turn me over
to somebody else.”
After marrying at a church
in La Grande, they both con-
tinued in the jobs they’d got-
ten. He was working for a
neighbor’s ranch.
“Just before I graduated
high school, the neighbor lost
his hired man so after I grad-
uated, my dad came to me
and said, ‘Bob, you’ve grad-
uated. It looks like you have
two options. You can leave
home or you can leave home
and get a job.’ So I went over
and applied that day to be the
neighbor’s hired man and he
hired me and I went to work
the next day,” he said.
Shirley attended a year
of college at Eastern Ore-
gon University and went to
work for the Wallowa Record
newspaper doing some deep
investigative reporting.
“I was the one who went
around town and asked who’d
been to La Grande shopping
and that sort of thing,” she
said. “You know, really excit-
ing stuff . I also did the sports
things, but the coaches helped
a lot with that.”
The OHA’s Investiga-
tive Guidelines state that
any of the following are
considered a COVID-19-
related death:
• “Death of a confi rmed
or probable COVID-19
case within 60 days of
the earliest available date
among exposure to a con-
fi rmed case, onset of symp-
toms, or date of specimen
collection for the fi rst pos-
itive test;
• “Death from any cause
in a hospitalized per-
son during their hospital
stay or in the 60 days fol-
lowing discharge and a
COVID-19-positive lab-
oratory diagnostic test at
any time since 14 days
prior to hospitalization; or
• “Death of someone
with a COVID-19-specifi c
ICD-10 code listed as a
primary or contributing to
it.”
Josh Barnett believes
the numbers are infl ated,
and points to the fact
that individuals who die
directly from COVID or
die of a diff erent cause (but
have COVID) are counted
together.
“They’ve
already
admitted there is a diff er-
ence (between) dying from
COVID and dying with
COVID,” he said. “I think
they’ve been confl ating the
two on purpose to make
the numbers look as bad as
they can.
“I don’t believe the state
has been giving the right
answers for a long time.”
As for his family, he
said he wants the truth —
whatever it ends up being.
“I just want the record
straight in terms of being
honest,” he said. “...I don’t
want my family or any-
body else’s to be used, not
as a pawn, but as ‘chalk
up another line to it.’ … I
know that OHA is saying
it’s a COVID death when I
was there the whole time.
I know that’s 100% false.”
Careers in education
The Crawfords left Wal-
lowa in 1954 and worked at
various jobs, but mostly as
Wednesday, February 9, 2022
educators, both as teachers
and Bob as an administra-
tor. After Wallowa, they lived
and held various jobs in Pilot
Rock; Walla Walla and Tekoa,
Washington;
Lewiston,
Idaho; Adel and Lakeview
before retiring to Enterprise.
During those years, they
had three sons and a daugh-
ter who have produced 11
grandchildren and nine
great-grandchildren. It was
while they lived in Lewiston
that they decided to go back
to school and got their teach-
ing credentials before return-
ing to Oregon.
One of their most unique
situations as educators was
their fi rst teaching jobs at
the tiny town of Adel, east of
Lakeview, where they were
the entire faculty for seven
years in a community they
loved. The folks around the
small town found it inter-
esting that the school’s two
teachers were married.
“They accused us of hav-
ing our faculty meetings
in bed every night,” Bob
laughed.
“They were just joking,”
Shirley said. “It was a great
community to live in.”
The small school had just
22 kids when they moved
there and the student body
had increased to 50 by the
time they left. They kept in
touch with the folks there,
even attending funerals for
many of the parents and some
students over the years.
Their last teaching posi-
tions were in Vale, where
Shirley retired from Willow-
creek School in 1993 and Bob
retired from the high school in
1996.
Retiring to Enterprise
They bought the land
where their current home on
Alder Slope is in 1979.
“When I was in high
school, I would drive up here
and look up the slope and see
the place across the road and I
told myself then that I wanted
to live up there sometime,”
Bob said. “We came up here
when we were going to retire
because we didn’t plan on liv-
ing in Lakeview or Vale and
we came up here and made
an off er on the place and they
A7
turned us down, so we went
back home disappointed.
Then, we got a letter from a
realtor who said he had 10
acres he’d like to show us, so
we came up here and looked
at this piece — it was just
an alfalfa fi eld at the time —
and made an off er and they
accepted it.”
The Crawfords started
building their home two years
later.
“The fi rst two years, we
had the well done and the
excavation and the septic
tank,” Shirley recalled.
“One of my sons came
over and helped put in the
footings,” Bob said.
They’ve lived in their
comfortable home on their 25
acres on the slope since 1996.
As for the coming Valen-
tine’s Day, they’ll probably
take it easy. It’s likely it’ll be
much like the fi rst Valentine’s
Day of their married life that
wasn’t very memorable.
“He was probably feeding
and milking cows,” Shirley
recalled.
“It pretty much took all
day,” Bob agreed.
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Sale Good Feb. 2nd - 28th
OUR VOLUNTEERS GAVE OVER
TEN THOUSAND HOURS OF THEIR TIME IN 2021!
Thanks “Pet Of The Week” Ad Sponsors:
Les Schwab Tires, Enterprise Animal Hospital, Carpet One,
Double Arrow Veterinary Clinic PC, Susan Gilstrap CPA,
Main Street Motors, Ed Staub and Sons.
Thanks, Jennifer Cooney and the Wallowa County Chieftain
for these sponsors.
In 2021, Wallowa County Humane Society put over
$44,000 into our community for animal care!
Thanks to Donations, Grants, and Fund-raising Events such as
Annual Bake Sales, Summer Dog Washes, Silent Auction, Barn Sale
and the support of our local community, schools, and businesses-
Thank you BRONCS & BULLS and MAIN STREET SHOW & SHINE !
A Special Thanks
A very special Thank You to our local Veterinarians
to students of Joseph Charter School for their hard work
to raise funds and pet items donated to WCHS!
Double Arrow Veterinary Clinic PC &
Enterprise Animal Hospital!
BE SURE TO VISIT OUR
RE-TAIL BOUTIQUE and INFORMATION CENTER
119 EAST MAIN STREET IN ENTERPRISE, OREGON • OPEN THURSDAY-FRIDAY-SATURDAY 11 AM - 3 PM • PHONE 541-426-2619
We now have the Second Printing of “TRUE TAILS ~ The Human-Animal Partnerships of Wallowa County, Oregon ”! By noted local author and photographer Ellen Morris Bishop.
Also available at The Bookloft in Enterprise, The Dog Spot and Copper Creek Mercantile in Joseph
THANK YOU TO OUR
COMMUNITY AND
OUR VOLUNTEERS!
OUR MISSION:
WALLOWA COUNTY HUMANE SOCIETY IS
COMMITTED TO THE WELL-BEING OF COMPANION
ANIMALS, WORKING WITH THE COMMUNITY
FOR THE BETTERMENT OF ALL
Visit our website at www. wallowacountyhumanesociety. org to see pets for adoption, schedule of events, and meet our board members. WCHS is an all volunteer Non-profit 501(C)3 organization.
WCHS receives no funding from any national humane organizations. Donations may be mailed to WCHS, PO Box 565, Enterprise, OR, 97828, or thru PAYPAL on our website or call 541-263-0336.