A8 • HERMISTONHERALD.COM
COMMUNITY • FROM PAGE A1
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2017
Back from Down Under
Mission gives
Hermiston couple
feel for life in
Australia
By JADE MCDOWELL
Staff Writer
Unexpected
glimpses
into the lives of everyday
Australians
punctuated
Garry and Sheila Reynolds’
life for the past 18 months.
The retired Hermiston
couple returned home last
week from a mission for
The Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints in Mel-
bourne, Australia, where
they spent 40 to 50 hours
a week preserving digital
copies of historical docu-
ments at the Public Records
Office Victoria.
“It gave us real insight
into the type of life people
lived,” Garry said.
That life was often a dif-
ficult one. Death inquests
from the 1800s, for exam-
ple, discussed women who
died after their heavy skirts
caught fire while cooking
and children who fell into
tubs of scalding hot water
used for laundry.
“There would be a fisher-
man who got a hook caught
in his hand, and from that
he got gangrene and died,”
Garry said. “It was an unbe-
lievably dangerous time.”
Other records provided
more light-hearted quirks
of personality, such as Lou-
isa Elizabeth Morant’s offi-
cial, notarized last will and
testament from 1938 that
for some reason had a lem-
on butter recipe scribbled
upside-down on the bot-
tom, perhaps as a last-min-
ute bequeathment.
Sheila snapped a picture
of the recipe and tried it lat-
er.
“It was delicious!” she
said.
There was also a
will that had a precisely
trimmed rectangular hole
in the center. Someone had
apparently taken the phrase
“I’m cutting you out of my
will” literally.
In a collection of “petty
sessions” court records (the
equivalent of today’s mu-
nicipal courts), whimsical
doodles covered the mar-
gins next to descriptions of
the proceedings.
“The clerk evidently
was getting bored, because
there were beautiful little
sketches all through the
book,” Garry said. “I doubt
the judge knew that was go-
ing on.”
Those little flashes of
personality have been pre-
served in boxes at the Pub-
lic Records Office Victoria,
known more commonly as
the PROV, in a vast ware-
house of shelves Garry de-
scribed as reminiscent of
Indiana Jones and the Raid-
ers of the Lost Ark.
Each day Garry, Shei-
la, and four to eight other
church volunteers would
pull documents out of box-
es and gently remove the
string or ribbon that held
them together. After press-
ing the creases out, they
would use a machine with a
mounted camera to create a
high-quality digital picture
of the document.
The pictures will be
available to the public
through the PROV, but —
in return for all the free
The Reynolds noticed a
recipe for lemon butter
written on a will they were
archiving in Australia.
volunteer labor provided
— will also be made avail-
able to the LDS church’s
family history website
familysearch.org, where
volunteer “indexers” from
all over the world can type
the document’s details into
a digitally searchable da-
tabase for people looking
for clues to their ancestor’s
past.
Although most people
associate Mormon mis-
sionaries with pairs of
young men going door
to door in shirts and ties,
married couples whose
children are grown can
also apply to go on service
missions that can include
anything from running a
church welfare ranch to
giving tours of Temple
Square in Salt Lake City.
While the Reynolds
worked to help others with
their family history, Garry
also used the opportunity
to collect more informa-
tion about his own. His
father, a Merchant Marine,
met his mother while sta-
tioned in Australia and the
two were later married by
CONTRIBUTED PHOTOS BY SHEILA REYNOLDS
Sheila and Garry Reynolds pose for a photo during a weekend outing in Melbourne, Australia.
proxy over short wave ra-
dio so she could immigrate
to the United States. Liv-
ing in Australia gave Gar-
ry the opportunity to meet
relatives on his mother’s
side and to find family his-
tory documents including
the World War II service
records of his grandfa-
ther, who was wounded in
France.
“He knows what his
grandfather looked like
now,” Sheila said.
On weekends, eager
to escape the windowless
rooms in the PROV, Sheila
said she and her husband
enjoyed getting to know
Melbourne and the sur-
rounding area.
“It’s very artsy, with 4
million people, and parks
everywhere,” she said.
The climate was warm
and
temperate,
with
sweet-smelling Eucalyp-
tus trees and flocks of red
and blue parrots known
as Rosellas that would de-
scend on the street where
the Reynolds lived in a lit-
tle third-floor walk-up.
“They mate for life, so
you’d see little pairs,” Gar-
ry said.
The couple fell in love
with the beauty of the coun-
tryside, the brilliant blues
of the ocean and Austra-
lian landmarks such as the
“massive” Sydney Harbor
that Sheila said was like
nothing she had ever seen.
Garry said it wasn’t a pleas-
ant sight to be greeted with
snow when they landed at
the Pasco airport.
“We had just come from
a beautiful summer day,” he
said.
Even though Austra-
lia is an English-speaking
first world country, there
were still differences in
culture, language and food
to get used to, as well as
PARK:
Go vote
continued from Page A1
than the next highest proj-
ect.
“We’re going to be hit-
ting radio, newspapers,
social media, et cetera to
really get people mobilized
to vote for Hermiston,” said
Hermiston parks director
Larry Fetter.
Work is already under-
way to redesign and ex-
pand Sunset Park, located
on Northeast Fourth Street.
Fetter said crews started
landscaping the area last
fall, and tore out an asphalt
driveway that led into the
Public Works Department
on Fourth Street in order
to move the entrance onto
Elm Avenue. That, he said,
will allow the park to com-
bine with an adjacent city
lot, giving kids a couple of
acres to play — about twice
as much room as before.
It also will fill the need of
bringing more recreational
opportunities to Hermis-
ton’s east side, Fetter said,
as the west side of the city
has most of the city’s park
acreage.
To vote for the
Hermiston Sunset
project, go to www.
trailblazers.com/
assists.
AP FILE PHOTO
Portland Trail Blazers’ C.J. McCollum and Damian Lillard
celebrate a basket by McCollum against the Dallas Mavericks
in Dallas, Tuesday, Feb. 7.
The city removed outdat-
ed playground equipment
last summer, which Fetter
said did not meet safety
standards. If they are se-
lected, Fetter said the Moda
Assist Program would dou-
ble their budget for install-
ing a new playground at the
park. He said the equipment
would be similar to what
was installed recently at
Victory Square Park near
West 11th Street.
“We could get a very
nice play structure,” he
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the animal life. Sheila said
she missed cottage cheese
but enjoyed the abundant
fish and chips, and they
found out that Australians
eat pumpkin on just about
everything, including spa-
ghetti and pizza.
While in Australia the
Reynolds befriended their
neighbors, including a
woman who worked as a
solicitor (a type of attorney)
in the court system. When
she found out Garry is a
former attorney and retired
Circuit Court judge, she in-
vited them to a sentencing
hearing and to tea with the
judge so they could learn
more about Australia’s
court system.
The courtroom is much
more formal, Garry said,
with the attorneys in robes
and wigs and everyone
bowing to each other.
“It was fun to see how dif-
ferent things are,” he said.
said, estimating the payout
to be about $20,000.
Fetter said he was con-
tacted directly by the Moda
EO FILE PHOTO
Sunset Park in Hermiston could get a new playground funded
by Moda Health if fans vote for it through a Portland Trail
Blazers fundraiser.
Assist Program two weeks
ago, which was looking for
parks to feature in Eastern
Oregon. Sunset Park fit the
bill perfectly, he said, and
they are excited about the
possibilities for the neigh-
borhood.
“It’s really a gem,” Fet-
ter said. “I’m excited to see
more people out there.”
The winner of this year’s
Moda Assist Program will
be announced and present-
ed with a check at center
court on Saturday, April 1
when the Trail Blazers host
the Phoenix Suns.