80 YEARS AGO
January 19, 1945
Between 600 and 700 Aberdeen Elks, their wives and friends last night filled the lodge room to capacity for the annual “Ladies Night” vaudeville show and party. It was the largest attendance since the annual event was started, Exalted Ruler Ed Copeland said today.
Evelyn Fechter Hunter, former Aberdeen musician and now with the Seattle symphony orchestra, played three selections.
Vaudeville highlights were Lee Marx in a comedy juggling act; Isolde Czukor, singing several selections; Richard Hayman, harmonica artiest, Ted and Ethel Walker in comic songs and tap dancing, and Sam Sweet, master of ceremonies, in comical tricks of magic.
January 20, 1945
Staff Sergeant Glenn Black, 24, B-17 Flying Fortress ball gunner from Taholah, who has flown over 25,000 miles in more than 30 8th air force attacks on German war targets, has recently been awarded a fourth oak leaf cluster to the air medal for “meritorious achievement.”
Son of Mr. and Mrs. Johnson Black of Taholah, Sgt. Black won his wings at Laredo, 1943. A brother, George Black, is serving with the army in Italy.
Sgt. Black has manned his tail turret guns in numerous attacks on enemy front line positions in support of Allied ground forces. During the recent prolonged air offensive against the Nazi’s oil resources, he took part in assaults on refineries at Hamburg, Merseburg and Lutzkendorf.
January 22, 1945
Help build the B-29 Superfortress (the big new Boeing bomber).
Boeing representative now interviewing in Aberdeen. Free transportation to Seattle. Men especially needed. Physically qualified women also eligible. Good pay. Excellent working conditions.
Don’t delay. Apply at the United States Employment Service Office of the War Manpower Commission, 500 E. Wishkah.
January 25, 1945
Like Rip Van Winkle who saw a changed world after his 20-year nap — Frank Green, 80, Aberdeen resident on his first visit to Seattle in 51 years, saw a thriving metropolis instead of the small waterfront town he remembered.
“I don’t see how they could build such a big city on those hills,” he said. “It must have cost a pile of money. The hills there used to look just like Think o’ Me does now,” he said as he pointed to the rolling green hill that rises from the banks of the Wishkah river near his home.
“I was longshoring on a bark there 51 years ago and knew the waterfront pretty well then. It has changed a lot, but not as much as the hilly part of the city. Why those buildings and streets go up and up where there used to be stumps and trees.”
“I wouldn’t want to live there now,” he added. “It’s so crowded and I’m so slow that I’d be the last person on the last bus to get home at night. And it would be so expensive.”
55 YEARS AGO
January 19, 1970
Bold burglars invaded the Pacific County Auditors office in the courthouse over the weekend taking an estimated $1,400 in cash and stamps, according to a preliminary estimate by Mrs. Verna Jacobson, auditor.
The safe was burned with a cutting torch.
The auditor’s office was open Saturday for sale of motor vehicle licenses and most of the missing cash came from that source.
January 20, 1970
Tuesday evening TV shows include “Huntley-Brinkley News,” “Early Edition Cronkite,” “Mob Squad,” “I Dream of Jeanne,” “Debbie Reynolds Show,” “Julia,” “Red Skelton” and “60 Minutes.”
January 21, 1970
“He kills us with these little guys!” lamented a Raymond rooter. “Where the hell does he find ‘em?”
John Donahue will never tell.
Little Bobby Matson, a guard for all seasons at a towering 5-7, directed the Elma attack with poise and daring last night. And unheralded Mike Hermsen out-scored a host of hotshots as the top-ranked Eagles put together a victory over a rugged Raymond club that came to win.
The 77-66 decision was the 14th straight for Donahue’s Blue Buzzsaw, now all alone atop the league as well as the state A-division polls.
A turn-away partisan crowd of nearly 1,400 (they started lining up at 4 o’clock!) blew its collective mind when the Eagles broke it open, accelerating to a 14-point margin with three minutes remaining after repulsing a Raymond rally that cut a healthy lead to 4 counters.
January 22, 1970
Bill’s X-L Bakery’s special this week is a loaf of Swedish limpa rye bread for 33¢. The bakery is located at 2324 Simpson in Hoquiam and is open from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday.
January 25, 1970
Paced by John Matisons with 23 points, the Wishkah Loggers took command of second place in Pacific League standings with a narrow 59-52 win over the Valley Vikings Friday night in Menlo.
The win was the first ever for a Wishkah cage team over the Vikings.
Logger coach Chuck Borberg pointed out Matisons 30 rebounds, 17 caroms by John Davis and Keith Eager’s outstanding defensive job on Viking star John Cable as key factors in the win.
January 26, 1970
When Bob Carey learned that his wife was pregnant, he decided that the first hand to touch their baby would be his.
Although he had never witnessed the birth of another human being, Carey began making plans to deliver the baby himself.
Friday, on a mattress laid on the bedroom floor of the comfortable home where Carey, newly-hired director of the Youth Action Center, and his wife, Joy, are staying.
Carey, reported that Christopher Emmanual Carey, the couple’s first child, arrived without a hitch. “I did it because I wanted to share the moment of bringing forth the new life that the two of us had created,” Carey explained.
30 YEARS AGO
January 19, 1995
Senja Antilla was snuggled in her futon in her 100-year-old home in the seaside town of Ashiya, Japan when Tuesday’s catastrophic earthquake hit.
“I was pulled — kind of lifted up — and some doors fell on me, but fortunately they were mostly made of rice paper,” said the 39-year-old former Raymond resident, who went to Japan for a year to teach English.
The death toll has now surpassed 4,000 making the quake the deadliest in Japan in more than 70 years.
Antilla, the daughter of longtime Raymond residents Ralph and Dorothy Antilla, was packing to move from her damaged home Wednesday, but doesn’t know where she will go.
Her parents, former owners of Antilla’s Jewelry & Gifts store, have been in constant touch with her by phone.
January 20, 1995
Star Shipping, a Norwegian cargo line with a commitment to call on Grays Harbor once a month for the next two years, began loading lumber and steel coils at Port of Grays Harbor docks Thursday night in its initial voyage here.
The Star Merit is picking up 3.9 million board feet of Weyerhaeuser lumber and 950 tons of steel coils shipped here by rail from Pittsburgh.
The vessel is bound for Japan and will also call at Coos Bay, Ore., and Vancouver, Wash.
Lumber for this shipment came from Weyerhaeuser mills in Aberdeen, Raymond and Snow Falls near Tacoma. Future shipments are likely to include veneer from Pacific Veneer, the Weyerhaeuser-Bank of Tokyo veneer mill in South Aberdeen.
Star Shipping, based in Bergen, carries almost 6 million tons of forest products a year on a fleet of 45 vessels.
January 21, 1995
Music so loud you can hear it pounding in your head. Sleek bodies that never break a sweat. And lean, mean instructors.
That’s not the state of Jazzercise on Grays Harbor.
Here, they scoff at the “hard body” types.
In Gretchen Brennan’s morning exercise class the music is soft and there is evidence of gray hair and spreading middles among the participants.
The younger crowd in the evening classes taught by Kathi McMaster likes the music a little louder.
But neither class is anything like the mental image many people have of Jazzercise, McMaster, 36, of Aberdeen says.
The low-key approach has brought success. The two instructors and 20 of their students have earned the Presidential Sports Award. In a special presentation today, the fitness enthusiasts will receive these awards from regional Jazzercise leaders.
Brennan, 57, of Aberdeen, says she has been told they are the only Jazzercise members in the Northwest who even tried for the fitness awards.
January 22, 1995
Students at Simpson Elementary School in Montesano are exhibiting some unusual behavior lately upon entering the library.
Some cringe. Some squeal. Some are just filled with awe.
No, it isn’t a new book that has them captivated. It is a beautiful 4½-foot-long boa constrictor names Over Dewey — or Dewey for short.
The snake has been the subject of study and the focus of attention since he came to live at the library at the beginning of the year.
“There’s probably been 40 to 50 kids just standing around watching him do nothing,” says Joe Tyndell, the fifth-grade science teacher responsible for the snake.
Librarian Ruth Hundtofte often uses Dewey, a mild-mannered snake believed to have been raised in captivity, to get students interested in reading and learning about reptiles. He’s been effective.
“Definitely, as far as making the library a fun place to come,” Hundtofte says. “There have been so many more snake books checked out this year.”
January 25, 1995
Fans of the Stafford Creek prison site were cheering like they’d won the SuperBowl Tuesday.
“I think the whole town is kind of experiencing a victory. We won!” said Dorothy Voege, the former Aberdeen City Council member who was co-chairman of the Yes! Stafford Creek Correctional Facility committee.
The Department of Corrections named the site southwest of Aberdeen the site for the next state prison Tuesday. The site off the Westport Highway beat out others in Grandview and Goldendale for a 1,936-bed prison. It will house minimum-medium- and maximum-security prisoners and is scheduled to be built during the 1997-1999 biennium.
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.
