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