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About The Blue Mountain eagle. (John Day, Or.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 27, 2017)
2017 HISTORY EDITION • Section B, 6 Pages W ednesday , s eptember 27, 2017 Remembering the hospital in Prairie City By Angel Carpenter Blue Mountain Eagle W Courtesy photo/DeWitt Museum Dr. Virgil Belknap practiced at the Grant County Hospital and Blue Mountain Hospital in Prairie City. Photo taken in 1920. Courtesy photo/DeWitt Museum Dr. Thesbian practiced at the Grant County Hospital in Prairie City. Photo taken in 1850. hen Wilma Boyer started working at the Blue Mountain Hospital in Prairie City in 1959, the facility had about 15 patient beds and a three-bed nursing home ward. She worked as a nurse’s aide. The doctors at the Prai- rie City hospital, at that time, were Dr. Ted Merrill and Dr. Howard Newton. “Back then, things were different as far as the respon- sibilities,” Boyer said. While there were employ- ees to take care of laundry, it was the floor/nurse’s aides who would dust mop the rooms and hallways. Among Boyer’s duties as a nurse’s aide were bringing pa- tients their meals, and feeding and bathing them, if needed. Boyer said it’s possible she’s now the only living per- son who worked at the hospi- tal in Prairie City. The hospital moved to a new home in John Day in December of 1960, and the Prairie City facility became a nursing home. Today, it’s known as Blue Mountain Care Center, still located at 112 E. Fifth St. Nurse’s aide recalls her duties at hospital “You were taught by the nurses and nurse’s aides that were on duty, and the director of nursing would come around and see that you did what you were instructed.” – Wilma Boyer Courtesy photo/DeWitt Museum This building, constructed in 1902, was a school in Prairie City and later became Grant County Hospital. She continued working at the facility when it became a nursing home, then transferred to the John Day hospital in 1962. “You were taught by the nurses and nurse’s aides that were on duty, and the director of nursing would come around and see that you did what you were instructed,” she said. “If you were assigned to accom- pany the doctor, they would instruct you on how to take care of the patients.” Boyer’s second daughter was born at the Prairie City hospital in 1952, and her son was born there in 1956. When the hospital closed for a short time in 1957, Boy- er’s youngest daughter was born at the office of Martha and Gerold “Jerry” van der Flugt in John Day. “I always enjoyed working in Prairie City and John Day at the hospital and nursing home,” Boyer said. “I enjoyed the fact that I could help them and take care of them.” In 1974, she became a cer- tified surgery technologist. She worked in that po- sition until 1994, when she transferred to the purchasing department, retiring in 2003. She still works at the hospi- tal’s gift shop today. “It’s kind of home,” she said. Jessie Lewis of Canyon City recalls when her young- est daughter, Holly, was born June 27, 1960, at Blue Moun- tain Hospital in Prairie City. “They took me in and start- ed my labor, because Dr. New- ton was getting ready to leave See HOSPITAL, Page B6 Lodging for loggers Growing up in the Bear Valley Lodge Courtesy photo/Adele Cerny Bear Valley Lodge, Seneca. Hines houses workers in two-story ‘hotel’ By Cheryl Hoefler For the Blue Mountain Eagle Loggers working for the Edward Hines Lumber Company lived in comfort at the Bear Valley Lodge. Built in 1939, the two-story facility, some- times called the “Seneca Hotel,” housed single men who worked for the compa- ny. It replaced bunkhouses along the logging road, used for several years be- fore. The lodge had 45 small, simple rooms, each with a bed, table, chair and clos- et. Residents shared bath- rooms and showers on each Courtesy photo/Adele Cerny See HOTEL, Page B5 Lobby of the Bear Valley Lodge, Seneca. Courtesy photo/Adele Cerny Bear Valley Lodge, Seneca. Seneca girl, parents lived with Hines loggers By Cheryl Hoefler For the Blue Mountain Eagle Few girls can say they grew up in a room- ing house for loggers. Shirley (Rushing) Harrison can. In 1953, when Harri- son was 7, she and her parents moved to the Bear Valley Lodge in Seneca, which was built by Edward Hines Lum- ber Company to provide housing for its loggers. Her mother, Billie, man- aged the rooming house while her father, Shade, worked as a master ma- chinist for the Hines Company. The loggers who lived at the lodge, which Harrison said they called a hotel, were all single men. She and her parents had a separate two-bed- room apartment of their own at one end of the lodge. While such living ar- rangements might seem unusual for a young girl, Harrison said she actually wasn’t around the men very much and, over all the years there, never experienced an un- easy moment. “All the men who lived there were very hardworking and man- nerly,” Harrison said. She added, “Nowa- days, I doubt anyone in See LIVING, Page B5 Courtesy photo/Reiba Carter Smith Reiba with her sisters, Neila and Neita, and father, Benton, on a huckleberry picking outing in 1947. Long life in Long Creek full of innocence and freedom Fifth-generation resident reminisces about mill days, mud pies, movies By Cheryl Hoefler ranch had children,” Smith said. And, except for school, ifelong Long Creek resi- most of their time was spent dent Reiba Carter Smith close to home. “We romped and played recalls a childhood of “freedom” and “innocence” all around the ranch,” she in a community she has said. “We were very in- called “home” her entire nocent and isolated until I turned about life. 6.” Smith, “It was a the fifth treat to come generation to town,” she in her fami- added, which ly to live in they did once Long Creek, or twice a said she is “perfect- month. A ly satisfied favorite in- with my life dulgence for and growing Smith on up.” those trips She was was an or- raised on a ange pop ranch a mile Courtesy photo/Reiba Carter Smith from the lo- east of town, Reiba Carter, 1957-58, cal store. along with Long Creek School. A large her three extended younger sisters and younger family, which included 18 brother. Their father, Ben- first cousins on the Carter ton, was a registered Her- side, helped contribute to her eford breeder while their rich and happy youth. homemaker mother, Lo- Major holidays and other raine, kept the home front special family days meant big running. dinners at the home of Smith’s Several other ranching grandmother, Martha Carter. families lived nearby. See LONG Creek, Page B4 “When I was a kid, every For the Blue Mountain Eagle L