Five Generations
by Laurel Emery
Seal Beach, CA
Five generations of my family, the Emerys, have visited Oregon from 1921 to the present. My grandparents, Laura and Will Emery, came from Long Beach with their son Ed and daughter Hazel looking for a summer home. I have letters describing the long road trip, camping all the way. They loved what they saw in La Pine but decided it was too far away. In 1938 Hazel and her husband Randall Mills moved to Eugene from Berkeley California. They built a home. Rand taught at the University and wrote several books. He and Hazel made many trips to the coast, Columbia River area and Portland. My parents, Ed and Mary Emery, in 1939, went on their own camping trip from Berkeley to Astoria enjoying the wild splendor of the Oregon coast. The third generation to visit Oregon was myself, my brother and sister. Michael and Grandpa Emery took the train to visit Aunt Hazel and Uncle Rand in 1943. He liked the big logging trucks. My family drove from Minneapolis Minnesota in the summer of 1949 stopping in Eugene to see Hazel and Rand on our way to Long Beach.
In 1959 we lived in Seattle for the summer and on our way south we again stopped in Eugene, this time visiting with journalism friends, Chuck and Gretchen Duncan and Warren and Lillian Price and families. I remember going to the coast for the day and enjoying the lovely sandy beach. We picked wild berries along the road with Gretchen. She went home and made a pie which was very good. In August 1978 the fourth generation made their first visit to Oregon. Maria, Annie and Shannon drove with their father, Mike, from Santa Monica to Florence to meet Ed, Mary and the their youngest daughter, Alison. They camped on the beach. Aunt Hazel came down from Olympia. In 1992 Maria’s job was transferred to Portland. She soon met her future husband, Ed Endner, and in November 1993 the fifth generation came for a visit. Ryan Scott, Annie’s oldest son, flew with his parents to celebrate Maria and Ed’s wedding. Maria and Ed have our first native born Oregonians, Nathan and Shannon. Their cousins, Ryan and Patrick, came for a visit in 1997, going to Mt, Hood where their great grand parents had stayed seventy-six years before. In 2007, my sister Alison and I met in Portland and with Maria, Nate and Shannon we went to the Adobe, a favorite hotel of out late Aunt Hazel, and enjoyed a trip up the Oregon coast. I am planning on more visits to Oregon, hopefully to see the sixth generation living there.
