Tell Your Oregon Story

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Oregon Stories

Text Story
Monday, November 23rd, 2009

Whatever Happened to Caliphobia?

Lori Cronwell
Portland

by Lori Cronwell
Portland, OR
Five year ago I drove across the Oregon border and stopped for gas. The smiling station attendant greeted me with “Welcome to Oregon.” Seeing my California license plates and my PT Cruiser packed to the ceiling, I’m sure he thought, “Just another California refugee.” And that I was.
Yes, I was one of [...]



Text Story
Thursday, September 24th, 2009

Around the Horn

Marcia Allen
Oregon

by Marcia Allen
Cottage Grove, OR
Upon my engagement in 1940, I was delighted to find that my future husband also claimed elite forebears in the settlement of the early Oregon country. This story is about a young man who “sailed around the Horn”. Imagine my delight in later years to find an article [...]



Text Story
Thursday, September 24th, 2009

Pony Express & Stagecoach Routes

Susan Reed
Northeastern Oregon

by Susan Reed
Beaverton, OR
While growing up in Eastern Oregon there were quite a few stories about the Pony Express coming through there. My dad, Harry D. Proudfoot Jr., had a place named Sarvis Springs Ranch. It was 40 mi from Pendleton, 30 mi from Heppner, and 20 mi from Hermiston on Butter Creek. Our address [...]



Text Story
Thursday, September 24th, 2009

Learning male driving habits

Robert Canaga
Lebanon

by Robert Canaga
Eugene, OR
My dad enjoyed driving as much as I do. On random Sunday mornings, very early, he would say “Let’s go!”.
We usually drove east and he NEVER turned around and seldom stopped. My mother would see something of interest and point it out as dad drove passed, oblivious. We once ended up at [...]



Text Story
Thursday, September 24th, 2009

Twentieth Century Pioneer

Ric Minich
Boring, Willamette Valley Plus

by Ric Minich
Portland, OR
From my youth, having been born and raised in Delaware, the west coast was my dream destination for life. Opportunity arrived in the Spring of 1974 and like the forefathers a century before, our family (my wife, two sons, and I) left Pennsylvania headed for the Willamette Valley. A week before the [...]



Text Story
Thursday, September 24th, 2009

January 7, 1979

Rose Garacci
Grant County

by Rose Garacci
John Day, OR
I arrived in Eugene Oregon, at 6pm in the evening on January 7, 1979. It was raining and cold. The trip was long, coming from the bayous of southern Louisiana. I stayed the winter in Eugene, but fate took me over the Cascades into Eastern Oregon, Grant County, [...]



Text Story
Thursday, September 24th, 2009

My Way Here

Marilyn Moore
Portland to Sheridan

by Marilyn Moore
Sheridan, OR
The year was 1980, my husband at the time was in the military, and we were to transfer from California. Our choices were Detroit, Michigan or Portland, Oregon. We chose Oregon to remain close to our families. We divorced shortly there after, and he transferred away, and I decided to [...]



Text Story
Thursday, September 24th, 2009

Sixty Years Later

Helen Torney Randall
Portland/Oregon

by Helen Torney Randall
Portland, OR
When my husband and I drove into Eugene in September 1949, we had been married only two weeks. Neither of us had ever lived in Oregon, and we thought our stay would be temporary, a year or two, while my husband worked on a graduate degree at the University of [...]



Text Story
Thursday, September 24th, 2009

Call Me Oregonian

Kathleen Lewis
Provo, UT

by Kathleen Lewis
Provo, UT
The first mark of an Oregonian is that we actually refer to ourselves as Oregonians. Nobody else in the nation even knows that that’s what you call somebody from Oregon. The second mark of a true Oregonian is a near obsession with the rain. And I’ve got it.
I love the summer sun [...]



Text Story
Thursday, September 24th, 2009

Summer Days on the Farm

Susan Wheeler Woods
Lebanon, OR

by Susan Wheeler Woods
Salem, OR
I was born soon after my father returned from World War II, the second of 10 children. We lived on a farm that our ancestors had homesteaded in 1853. As soon as I could walk, I got to help bottle-feed the orphan lambs in the barn. Soon, I [...]



Text Story
Thursday, September 24th, 2009

Two friends , a burned down Capitol and the key

Jamie Harwood
Salem

by Jamie Harwood
Lake Oswego, OR
My great-grandfathers were good friends as well as colleagues in the house. One, was the Secretary of State, Earl Snell and the other was Daniel J. Fry, the Democratic Representative from Marion county. Dan was given the key to the capitol by Earl on February 5 1935. [...]



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