6A • COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL • JANUARY 2, 2019
Barklow
from A1
a 20 percent chance it won’t
come back after that,” Barklow
said. “She was constantly going,
going, going, always laughing.
She still uses her imagination
but she gets grumpy and mad
and frustrated.”
Barklow and Syra are staying
at the Ronald McDonald House
in Portland but have to check
out if Syra has appointments
longer than 48 hours apart and
make the trip back down to the
other side of the Willamette
Valley to their home in North
Douglas — a community that
has rallied around the family.
“Syra and her mother were
homeless, staying with a friend
this year. While they were in
the hospital, the shed their
belongings were being stored
in burned down,” Shelly Har-
kins of the North Douglas
School District wrote in a let-
ter explaining Syra’s diagnosis.
“Their circumstances hit our
students and staff pretty hard.”
First, the middle school stu-
dents stepped up. The student
leadership group decided to
hold a coin drive and sent fly-
ers home with students and put
jars in classrooms. Then, Yon-
calla High School showed up,
collecting money at its band
concert.
A parent brought a flyer to
Walmart which in-turn donat-
ed money. In one month, the
community raised $10,266.
“I didn’t know at first that
they were doing it,” Barklow
said of the fundraising effort.
Then, the Christmas cards
showed up.
North Douglas elementary
and middle school students
made the cards and mailed
them to Syra, “for her to look at
while she stays at OHSU during
her cancer treatments,” Harkins
said.
And Syra will be at OHSU for
at least another six weeks where
her father and grandmother
visit her regularly. Her treat-
ment plan calls for 30 radiation
appointments — with a break
in between.
She’s completed two.
“She understands a little,”
Barlow said. “I think she has
a little grasp of it but not so
much. She doesn’t get why she
can’t run around and have fun
or why she gets emotional or
sad.”
The latest test results showed
Syra to be anemic and the need
for a possible blood transfusion
later this month.
“It’s still unreal,” Barklow
said. “I still can’t even, I can’t
even grasp it’s happened. When
the doctor told me everything
froze and it’s been frozen ever
since. I’m just putting it in the
doctor’s hands. I never thought
something like this would hap-
pen with her.”
To donate to Syra’s recovery,
contact North Douglas Ele-
mentary School at 541-836-
2213.
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cision from the South Lane
School District school board
is scheduled for next Monday
(Jan. 7) but based on com-
ments from past board meet-
ings, all indications are that
this will be Latham’s last year
of operation. Regardless of the
decision, the school has left an
indelible mark on the com-
munity since it first opened its
doors all those years ago.
n 1850, Congress passed
the Donation Land Claim
Act. This act shaped the future
of Oregon by providing free
land to men who were white
or, derogatorily considered,
“half-breed Indians.” Single
men who lived in the territory
before 1850 received 320 acres
while married couples who
had been on the land received
640 acres of land. Married
couples arriving after 1850 re-
ceived 320 acres.
“Unprecedented,” said Port-
land State professor David
A. Johnson describing the
amount of land that individ-
uals received during a 2014
talk. The talk, titled “How the
Donation Land Act created the
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PHOTO C/O HOLLI TURPIN
Latham students outside the school building. Date unknown.
state of Oregon and influenced
its history” was put on by the
Oregon Historical Society. “No
previous land law in the Unit-
ed States had granted land of
this extent for free. No subse-
quent land law of the United
States would do so, either.”
One of the beneficiaries of
this deal was Henry Small.
Small, who previously lived in
the Brownsville area, was a re-
cipient of donation land claim
#57. Small wore a number of
hats including serving as the
postmaster at the Latham post
office. He also had school-age
children and decided to set
aside some of the southern
portion of his land to start a
school in 1853.
Education at what was ini-
tially called the Small School
would be unrecognizable as
a school in today’s world.
The school “year” was three
months long, the only books
were the ones that teachers
and students brought on a
day-to-day basis and lizards
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were routinely found in the
cracks of the log cabin building
that served as the school. The
building featured holes in the
walls as the main light sources
and a fireplace, that students
were responsible for keeping
ablaze, at one end.
The school’s first location
was just east of what is now
Sweet Ln. and Hwy. 99 and
near the river. Annual flooding
from the river made it difficult
to get to school and was the
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