World gone by
Published 1:30 am Friday, April 3, 2026
85 YEARS AGO
March 29, 1941
One of two “chillers” on the D and R bill this weekend is “The Monster and the Girl.” The other is “The Mad Doctor” with Basil Rathbone and Ellen Drew. Bud Abbot, Lou Costello and the Andrews Sisters star in “Buck Private,” a hilarious comedy about army life, starting Sunday at Warner Brothers’ Aberdeen theater. The romantic team of Errol Flynn and Olivia DeHavillan star in “Santa Fe Trail,” now showing at the New Bijou theater.
March 31, 1941
Uncle Sam took over the Danish motorship Nordvest in Aberdeen last night, held its captain, engineer and steward aboard and sent the rest of the crew to detention quarters at Port Angeles.
The Nordvest halted in Aberdeen almost a year ago when Hitler marched into Denmark. At that time, last April, it was loading lumber for the Orient. The captain tied up his ship, held the crew aboard and waited developments. As Hitler invaded Denmark, the ship was berthed at the old Donovan dock and her lumber load was taken off.
Many other foreign ships seized yesterday suffered sabotage at the hands of crew members before American forces could take command, but Nordvest crew members emphatically denied that the any part of the vessel was damaged.
News of the Nordvest’s “capture” last night brought more than 50 Aberdeen friends of the captain and crew to the dock. Some were “girl friends” of crew members, tearful at the enforced parting.
With agility belying his 70 years, Alfred A. Templet today leaped aboard a switch engine step for the last time in more than a century.
Fifty-two years is a long time in any railroader’s life. But it’s longer still in the game yardman play. Day after day, Templet gambled his quickness and skill against the grinding wheels of switch-engines, jumping to the step and off again, leaping atop box cars and scrambling down steel ladders.
Where many men have lost a leg or a life in the swift, dangerous game of herding engines and cars through a track-maze, Templet came through more than half a century unscathed.
“But I guess it’s time to quit,” he grinned today. “No use pushing my luck too far.”
April 1, 1941
Three more Harborites have been chosen as candidates for the coast artillery school at Fort Monroe, Virginia. They are Master Sergeant Paul King, Staff Sergeant Sam Pearsall and Sergeant Robert Bocek. They will travel by bus to San Francisco where they will board an Army transport and travel through the Panama canal to Brooklyn whence they will go by train to Fort Monroe near Washington, D.C.
April 2, 1941
Four men were shot to death and five others were wounded today at the Crummies creek coal company bituminous coal fields. Fighting started when several hundred members of the United Mine Workers (CIO) went to the mine, one of those closed during the work stoppage ordered by the UMWA, and sought to enroll non-union employees who were lounging about the mine company.
Grays Harbor veterans are organizing to forestall establishment of a work camp for conscientious draft objectors at the federal transient quarters at Wilderness on the Humptulips river, it was learned today.
April 3, 1941
His father is in a Russian prison camp or dead.
So is his eldest brother, his home is a rubble of smashed stones and timbers, wrecked by Russian bombs. His birthplace, once proudly Finnish, is now abjectly Russian.
But Heima Haitto, 14-year-old Finnish boy, is not defeated, any more than his country was defeated in its war with the soviets.
Acclaimed world-wide as one of the finest juvenile violinists ever to wield a bow, the youngster plays tonight in the Aberdeen junior high auditorium with part of the proceeds to go to help Finnish veterans maimed in the war.
He started his American tour about a year ago, chiefly to raise money for his war-ravaged homeland. He scored as soloist with the Philadelphia symphony, rated America’s greatest. U.S. critics hailed him as a “junior Menuhin.”
April 4, 1941
President Roosevelt announced today he had allocated another $500,000,000 from the $7,000,000,000 lend-lease fund for 212 new merchant ships and about 50 or 60 new shipways.
He told a press conference he also had authorized expenditure of another $500,000,000 for existing military equipment to be turned over to nations resisting aggression.
60 YEARS AGO
March 29, 1966
Constructed in the late 1800s, the Dowell home at 505 10th St. in Hoquiam housed the inventor/photographer Josiah O. Stearns until his death more than 25 years ago and now is occupied by the elderly Mrs. Sophia Dowell who has spent most of her life there, first as a cook and housekeeper for Stearns and later as the owner.
Although a century of time has embarrassed the structure by transforming a one-time monied neighborhood into a railroad track neighborhood, its distinctive shape adorned with scalloped shingles still holds the air of its day of respectability and hints of the eccentric inventor/photographer who spent his hours there.
The house, surrounded by shrubs, leafless wintered trees and an unchecked lawn, sits on a triangular lot bordered by Tenth and L streets and the railroad track.
March 30, 1966
The Aberdeen Rotary Club’s answer to inflation — a real oldtime country store offering everything from teddy bears to electric ranges — will open with a flourish at 6 o’clock tomorrow night in the old Harbor Hardware Building.
Mayor Walt Failor will cut the ribbon giving the customers the signal to rush in and hunt for bargains. He will be assisted in the ceremony by Ed Maxey, Rotary president, and Richard Weathermon, president of the YMCA, which will be a major beneficiary of the store.
March 31, 1966
A playful grey whale, dubbed Barney by Harbor tugboatmen, was seen frolicking in the Chehalis River again yesterday afternoon and this morning.
About 10 o’clock last night, the whale, described as grey with a white belly, startled boommen at Anderson-Middleton by surfacing suddenly within 20 feet of the workers and spraying the men. Tugboat workers also got a close look at Barney, so named because of the cluster of barnacles on his hide.
April 1, 1966
Aberdeen High School may have its best baseball team since the 1948 championship crew that included Marv Rinker, Tom Raby, Bud Tomzuk and Kenny Palmer.
This year’s team includes fireballing righthander Walt Failor, southpaw Gary Hopkins, a big 6-6 moundsman, and 6-5 Jim Richardson as Aberdeen’s impressive pitching corps.
John Augustine is a solid fixture behind the plate. There’s also first sacker Don Narrance, a smooth-swinger with the stick, keystoner Mike Hoonan and quick Don Mehlhoff at short. Stocky Randy Hancock is a free-swinging longball threat.
April 2, 1966
In the past 2 1/2 years the number of employees of Lamb Grays Harbor in Hoquiam shot up from 254 in 1963 to over 500 presently, making the company one of the fastest growing industries in the state.
The phenomenal 15-to-20 percent yearly growth rate the company is enjoying can be in part attributed to a rapidly expanding world-wide pulp and paper business, according to Dennis Tippets, assistant personal manager.
35 YEARS AGO
March 29, 1991
Trooper Marvin K. Peterson of Aberdeen retired from the Washington State Patrol last Friday after 30 years and three months on the job.
Peterson, 55, a Cosmopolis native and 1953 graduate of Weatherwax High School, had served at the Hoquiam division since May 15, 1969. Peterson received his original appointment to the State Patrol in 1960 as a drivers’ license examiner, after serving four years in the Air Force.
The new 4,000-square-foot home of the law firm of Parker, Johnson, Edwards & Parker is shaping up along the banks of the Hoquiam River. Partner Dave Edwards said the firm’s four attorneys and five staffers expect to move in July. The building permit estimates its value at $192,000.
March 30, 1991
The Vaughan Company, located in Montesano, which did $827,000 business in February, is founded upon manure. There’s really no politer way to say it.
It started back in the 1950s when local farmers came to Jim Vaughan’s small welding shop in Elma, saying they wanted a gadget that would pump manure and water together and not get fouled by the manure.
Jim Vaughan, was a high-school dropout and was used to doing simple jobs of welding for farmers and loggers, but he managed to build a pump which chopped into bits any solid material that went through it.
Within a few years, son Larry was helping his dad, and they built “chopper” pumps by hand, using the ordinary materials and tools of a small-town welding shop. They cut the metal, they drilled it, they welded it.
In 1960 they moved to their present factory, just east of Montesano on the Monte-Elma Road.
Vaughan chopper pumps are selling in places as far away as Italy and Thailand. Cities like Boston use them in their sewage treatment plants.
Larry says the success of the company, which recently passed a goal of a $5 million sales year and is now shooting for a $10 million dollar year, depends upon aggressive selling, upon the value of the product and upon the quality of the workers.
March 31, 1991
The Rev. Allen Hull, pastor of the First Baptist Church who volunteers as chaplain for the Elma Police Department, was named Elma’s “Citizen of the Year” Thursday night at the Elma Chamber of Commerce’s Community Recognition Banquet.
Ralph Frederick, a 1941 Elma High School graduate who served on the City Council for seven years and was mayor for 10 years, shared “Long-term Distinguished Citizen of the Year” honors with GH Port Commissioner John Stevens who retired from Simpson Timber Co.
April 2, 1991
Karen Durham, community affairs director and sales executive for radio station KXRO/KDUX, was recently honored as one of the five outstanding Jaycees in the state at the Winter Board meeting in Moses Lake.
Durham will take over as the president for the Harbor Jaycees this month. The local organization has 57 members and are just one of the 50 units active in the state.
April 3, 1991
It’s amazing what you can do with a piece of cloth, especially if you have the creativity of Gail Brown.
The Hoquiam businesswoman, who is a renowned sewing journalist, will be talking about her latest book tomorrow on KING-TV’s “Seattle Today” show tomorrow morning.
“Quick Napkin Creations” is her 10th sewing book. It’s a Book-of-the-Month Club selection and is recommended by the Better Homes and Garden Craft Club, she said.
A home economics major who began her career some 20 years ago in New York City, Brown works now from a home office.
He sold his house and resigned from his job. Now. Lt. J. Scott Finlayson of Logan, Utah, who thought he was Hoquiam’s new police chief, has found himself caught smack in the middle of a squabble between the mayor and the Police Officers’ Association.
Finlayson, 37, a 10-year veteran of the Utah State University Police Department, had been set to start as Hoquiam’s new chief this Monday.
Mayor Shrauger called him on Tuesday to tell him a court order had forced her to delay the appointment.
April 4, 1991
Westport was buffeted this week by stiff winds, stinging rain and the ferocious waves that make for vintage storm-watching.
In a classic Westport ritual, people drove to what is left of the Westhaven State Park parking lot throughout the morning and watched the waves for five to 10 minutes. After seeing angry waves batter the South Jetty and having rain and sand hammer their cars for a matter of minutes, most spectators had seen enough.
Berkley Barker, who owns and operates the Hungry Whale Enterprises gas station and convenience store, said storm-watching is primarily a Westporter’s delight. Barker noted that he enjoys storm-watching himself and explained why. “There’s a certain awe, I guess, to watching the power of the ocean,” he said.
Compiled from the archives of The Daily World by Karen Barkstrom, Editorial Assistant at The Daily World. You can contact her at karen.barkstrom@thedailyworld.com or call her at 360-537-3925.
