World Gone By

In 1991, quick reaction by employees saves Weyerhaeuser sawmill

75 years ago

Oct. 11, 1941

During 1940 more than 200 Grays Harbor crippled children were treated at the Children’s Orthopedic Hospital at Seattle, one of the service agencies incorporated in this year’s Aberdeen Community Chest drive, scheduled for the week of October 20.

Practically all the Grays Harbor children came from families with insufficient means to provide adequate medical care. Yet, through the Aberdeen Community Chest, the Grays Harbor Orthopedic Society and the Seattle hospital, they were given the finest medical and hospital attention possible.

Besides sending cash to Seattle, the Grays Harbor society collected more than two tons of tinfoil for the hospital’s “melting pot.”

Oct. 12, 1941

Sunday, no newspaper published

50 years ago

Oct. 11, 1966

This fall Dr. Jeane Jones, Grays Harbor College dean of women, returned to GHC with a Doctorate in Education from Washington State University.

Dr. Jones, who has been at GCH for 10 years, has taught United States and world history and physical education. She is now a full time counselor at the college.

“I feel it is a privilege, not a job, to work with students,” said Jones, “since it is also possible for me to continually learn from my experiences with them.”

Oct. 12, 1966

At the first fall meeting of the St. Joseph Hospital Service League, members presented the hospital with an infant isolette which will be used as an intensive care unit for premature babies or babies with respiratory difficulties. The gift represents the major fund raising projects on the part of the league members since the start of the organization in January, 1962.

25 years ago

Oct. 11, 1991

Fighting heavy smoke, a few gutsy and well-trained Weyerhaeuser workers saved the company’s historic South Aberdeen sawmill early this morning.

“When we came over the Chehalis River Bridge, you couldn’t even see the mill, there was so much smoke,” said Fire Capt. Steven Mitchell. “I thought, ‘Uh, oh! There goes Weyerhaeuser!’”

The fire department said Tom Howell, Jack Varber and Eric Barre deserve special praise for bravery and quick action. It was security guard Gerald Lake who first spotted smoke in the sawmill.

Using water, workers extinguished a relatively small blaze, and then another worker used a dry chemical extinguisher on a motor in the sawmill. Though the final damage was light, Mitchell said of the workers, “They basically saved the mills. We’ve got a saying — ‘If you don’t get the fire out in the first five minutes, you’re going to be there five hours.’ ”

Oct. 12, 1991

• Ted Bruener was a typical 15-year-old boy who loved hanging out with his buddies at Lake Quinault and playing basketball and baseball for Hoquiam High School.

No one would have guessed that on July 11 the active high school sophomore would suddenly collapse at the family summer home and die of a rare heart condition.

There’s no way to bring him back, but his parents, Ted Sr. and Liz, want to keep his memory alive. They are helping HHS provide extracurricular activities by donating $50,000 to the district. The Theodore Bruener Jr. Memorial Trust fund will give students the opportunity to participate in a wide variety of activities from basketball camp to band competitions.

• Everyone can probably agree that when a woman is told she will lose her job unless she sleeps with her boss, she’s being sexually harassed.

But how about off-color jokes, remarks about personal appearance and persistently asking for a date?

Questions such as these have prompted debates across the country as professor of law Anita Hill accusses Judge Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment during the years they worked together before he was appointed to the bench.

Compiled from the archives of The Daily World by Karen Barkstrom