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3fiv.Thomas Oliver Kelland

25.8.1882 – 15.8.1929

Thomas Oliver was the last child born to Helen and Robert Kelland and he was born just three months after the death of his sister Ruth Olive Kelland. Maybe he was given the name Oliver in memory of her. His childhood would have been very similar to that of his brother Jud, living and helping on the farm, going hunting and fishing and free to roam the country side once all his chores were done.

Thomas Oliver with his father Robert Kelland and his older brother Jud.

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On leaving school he continued to work on the farm with his father and older brother, but in 1903, when he was 20 years of age his mother passed away. Either later that year or early in 1904 his father Robert decided to take a trip back to England, presumably to visit his sister Mary Ann Kelland Bland, my great grandmother. I assume the two young men, Jud and Thomas were left to run the farm. His father Robert Kelland returned from England in September 1904, but there also arrived from Oldham, England, a young 30 year old lady, Ellen Beech, and her son, Harold. Robert and Ellen were married on December 3rd 1904. I am not sure if Robert and his new bride went to live on the farm when they were first married, but I do know that by 1910 they were living in a house in Portland, Oregon. The farm did stay in the Kelland family, so maybe it continued to be run by Jud and Thomas Kelland until Jud’s marriage on June 6th 1906. After that date presumably Thomas was running the farm on his own, he certainly was, on the 1910 Census, where he is shown as still being single. It was during this period when Thomas was 24 years old that he had a bad accident, as can be seen by the newspaper below.

October 1906.

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!910 census taken in New Era Precinct, Clackamas, Oregon.

It can be seen that Thomas is still single and living alone on the farm. Thomas was married on 29th November 1912, to a Bertha Minnie Bullard from Sioux Falls, South Dakota. There is actually a Family Tree on Ancestry.com, the Bullard-Stebbins Family Tree. Below is an extract showing Bertha and Thomas Kelland, but I am not including any more of the tree as it is available on the web for those who are interested. There is nothing forward of this page for Kelland-Bullard but it does show records of Bertha Bullard’s siblings and her ancestors.

From the Bullard-Stebbins Family Tree on Ancestry.com

The above does show that Thomas Oliver and Bertha Kelland had five children. The first, a daughter, Ruth Olive Kelland was born on 8th September 1913 and she was named after Thomas’s sister who died just before he was born. The next three followed with the usual two year interval, Lorene Anne Kelland, born 1st August 1915, (it is interesting to note that Bertha’s father was called Loren), Thomas Leverne Kelland, born 29th May 1917 and Ophelia May (Kay) Kelland, born 28th November 1919. The family can be found on the 1920 Census for Clackamas, Oregon.

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1920 Census for Old Pacific Highway or South End Rd., Clackamas, Oregon.

This census tells us that Bertha was born in S. Dakota, her father was born in New York State and her mother was born in Illinois. Thomas is a farmer and owns his own farm; it does not give the size or value of the farm. Like most families there are most photographs taken of the first and second born children, but as more children arrive the pictures become fewer!

This is the earliest photograph that I have of Bertha M. Bullard Kelland taken with her husband Thomas O. Kelland and their first child Ruth Olive who was born in 1913.

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These are photographs of Ruth Olive with her sister Lorene Anne who was born in 1915.

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This photograph was taken in 1917. Thomas and Bertha now have three children but the picture includes the whole

Kelland family (by Robert’s first wife) at that time.

Back row L to R. Laura Ellnora Engel Kelland (Jud Kelland’s wife), George Washington (Jud) Kelland, Robert John (Dick) Kelland, Thomas Oliver Kelland.

Second row L to R. Howard Peter Kelland, Robert Kelland, Lorene Anne Kelland,

Thomas Laverne Kelland, Bertha Minnie Bullard Kelland, Ruth Olive Kelland.

Father Robert Kelland moved to San Diego in 1916, so this photograph was presumably taken when he went to visit his family living in Oregon. After the photograph was taken, Thomas and Berth had two more children, Ophelia May, already shown earlier and then a boy Donald Leroy Kelland born 21st September 1925.

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I think this is a photograph of Bertha M. Kelland with her grandson David born in 1947.

They now had a lovely family, their own farm and Thomas’ brother Jud and his family living close by. Life must have seemed good, but sadly this was about to change. While Thomas Oliver was out working on the farm with his team of horses, for some reason they took fright and ran away dragging him some considerable distance. He sustained serious injuries and was in great pain. For some time after the accident he stayed with his brother George W. (Jud) and his family. Thomas’ wife Bertha had five children to care for and a farm to run so he could be better looked after by his brother. Sadly the accident affected him in another way; he became depressed and had a nervous breakdown. I don’t know what the treatment for this condition was like in Oregon at that time but I feel sure very little was known about how to treat such a condition. The breakdown was probably another reason for Thomas to go and stay with Jud and his family as there would have been much more peace and quiet there than at his own home. Eventually he appeared to have recovered sufficiently to return to his own farm and family. Sadly on Thursday 15th August 1929 at about 9 p.m. he left his bed that he had on the porch but did not return. His wife Bertha raised the alarm and a search was organised. His body was found next morning in a clump of trees near the farmhouse and Thomas had taken his own life by cutting his throat. What a very sad end to a life which just a short time earlier had been full of family and expectations, but then ended with the mind seeing nothing worth living for. Everything changed in an instant!

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Bertha M. Kelland is now a widow, has a farm to manage and five children aged between four and fifteen years of age to care for. There must have been times when it all seemed too much with which to cope. If the farm was like Jud Kelland’s farm there would have been no electricity or running water at this time. All the cooking would have been done on the fire and any hot water would have to have been heated in a boiler. These conditions are virtually impossible for youngsters of today to imagine.

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The 1930 Census for South End Rd., Clackamas, Oregon.

This shows Bertha, a widow, aged 43 years who married at the age of 27 years. She owns the farm on which they live and is shown as the manager. The “R” opposite her name records that she owned a radio! As the 1930 Census is the latest census available on-line it is not easy to trace Bertha’s life after that date. I assume she continued to manage the farm and raise her children. While John and I were visiting Oregon in 2009 I was told by one of her grandsons that she actually married again about four years after Thomas Oliver’s death. She married an old School mate, a Dean Nichol, known as Dinkie, but the kids “ran him off” after four to five years! In the diary kept by Jud Kelland’s wife she notes that on 28th July 1933 Bertha Kelland married Mr. Nichol. I don’t know if they divorced but Bertha does use the surname Kelland again, later in life.

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This is a Passenger manifest for a flight from Honolulu on August 30th 1951. The last entry is for a Bertha Kelland born South Dakota and living in Route 1, Box

74, Oregon City, OR. I feel sure this is Thomas Oliver’s widow.

I am pleased to think that in later life she did manage to travel a little and see more of the world.

The above is a copy of an entry in the City Directory for Oregon City, OR., 1953. Bertha and her youngest child Donald are still living on the farm, I do believe.

This is a photograph of Bertha and her five children probably taken sometime during the 1950s. I am guessing as to which girl is which, but would say from left to right:-

Donald L., Lorene A., Bertha M., Ophelia M., Ruth O. and Thomas L.

All that I have left for Bertha Minnie Kelland is a copy of her death record.

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She lived for over thirty years after her husband Thomas O. took his own life and she raised her five children and ran the farm. Amongst the photographs which I have collected is the one below, of which I do not know the identity. Could it possibly be a picture of Bertha’s mother Annie L. Stebbins? The faces do look similar, but this is only conjecture!

Who is this lady? I suppose I just wanted to include the picture!

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Thomas Oliver and Bertha Minnie’s children

Ruth and Lorene.

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Thomas, Kay (Ophelia May) and Donald.

At this moment in time I do not intend writing the life stories of Thomas and Bertha’s children as I am sure that could be done much better by some of “their” own children. A very brief résumé :- Ruth Olive Kelland 8.9.1913 – 31.8.1987. Ruth married an Opal Jack Herrin (15.4.1912 – 7.7.1975) on 18th July 1950 in California. They never had any children, I believe they lived in Oregon with Ruth working in a drug store. Lorene Anne Kelland 1.8.1915 – 11.10.1989. Lorene married Cleo Stanford Wimmer (1.8.1920 – 1.3.1991) on 17th May. They had one son, they lived in Oregon with Lorene working as a teacher. Thomas Laverne Kelland 29.5.1917 – 21.2.1998. Thomas married twice. His first wife was Paula Francis Sexton whom he married on 26.2.1946. and they had three children, two girls and a boy. His second wife was Isobel Elliott but I do believe they did not have any children. Thomas was a farmer and I assume that he farmed his parent’s farm? It is Thomas’ son who bought the photograph album which was found in a second hand shop. Again I believe he lived in Oregon all his life.

Ophelia May (Kay) Kelland 28.11.1919 – 26.5.1996. Kay married twice. Her first husband was Leo Fred Hall whom she married on 22.4.1941 in Vancouver and they had three children, two boys and a girl. Kay worked in a restaurant and they lived in San Diego. I think Kay and Leonard were divorced in Hopkins, Texas, on 7th May 1973. Her second husband was Otis (Curly) Ledbetter but they had no children.

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Donald LeRoy Kelland. 21.9.1925 - . Donald’s first wife was called Jean Lynch and they married on 3.7.1962 but had no children. His second wife was Maxine Robertson and they married 18.11.1980 in Reno, Nevada. Donald was still living at home with his mother in 1953 according to the Oregon City Directory. He did move to the Oregon – Washington border and worked as a log rafter and log dump manager. John and I have met Don on a couple of occasions and he is the most fantastic guy. The community where he now lives all help each other. Don lives on the banks of the Columbia River and catches salmon in the fishing season. He also has his own Smoke House, so he supplies his neighbours with smoked salmon. The lady near by bakes muffins and biscuits for him and the local farmers allow him to pick blueberries and sweet corn in exchange for his most delicious smoked salmon. He even has a friend on the coast who will catch crabs for him in exchange for some of his salmon. It is an idyllic arrangement and a reminder of how life used to be in days gone by. We both feel it has been a privilege to meet Don and just have a glimpse into his way of life.

Picture of Donald LeRoy Kelland taken in 1947 at the age of 22 years.

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Taken from The Sunday Columbian. October 15th 1978.

Log rafting: The old ways don’t die.

By Larry Lange.

Log rafting remains a way of life for men like Don Kelland and Wayne Wilkerson of Woodland, and it still is a part of the colour and romance of the Columbia River. It is also a much-changed art, but not a growing one. Once the main way to move logs between river sawmills, rafting has been stymied over the decades by growing competition from truck transportation and restrictions demanded by environmentalists to curb water pollution. But it has refused to die. Men like Kelland and Wilkerson, who man the Lewis River log dump south of Woodland, work day and night at times to keep up with the flow of logs down the slopes of the Cascades to riverbanks where they are assembled into rafts for the journey to mills. “They used to put everything in the river,” said Kelland, 53, the log dump manager, last week. About 5,000 truckloads of logs are unloaded, sorted and floated into place at the dump each year. “A lot of it has gone to dry land,” Kelland said of log sorting. “But I just don’t think there’s the logs there used to be.” Still, log rafting and log movement by water remain highly efficient from an energy standpoint, taking a fraction of the fuel consumption with tugboats that is required for truck or rail movement. “I would think it a gross mismanagement of our resources, environment or money to stop log rafting,” said Hal Hartman, a member of the Clark County Regional Planning

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Commission and an environmental specialist for the Industrial Forestry Association in Portland. Initially, logs were “flat-rafted,” or gathered individually in single layers inside “boom sticks” that shape each raft. In the late 19th century, “cigar rafts” of logs, bound into huge masses with chains, were moved from river forests to California. Portland timber baron Simon Benson preferred that technique, but ocean waves broke up many of the rafts and the practice faded away. Rafters began making rafts from log bundles in the early 1970s to prevent loss of heavier “sinker” logs in the river. The practice was further encouraged when Oregon State University tests showed bark from rafts can damage aquatic life in the bottom of storage ponds and use oxygen needed for fish life. Environmentalists liked bundling of logs because that reduced the amount of bark exposed to the water. The tests also showed that log storage can bring leaching of wood chemicals that can kill fish. Industry people convinced agencies that the tests weren’t entirely valid because they were conducted with wood placed in laboratory tanks, while log storage actually takes place in flowing streams. But Oregon later placed restrictions on log dumps, and operators have responded, for most of the part, by investing in huge cranes that lift logs from trucks and gently lower them into the water to prevent dislodging the bark. In the old days logs simply were dropped over a dump “brow.” Rafting “requires that we do a good job, environmentally, if we’re going to stay in the business,” said Ed Beall, operations manager for Knappton Corp., the tug firm that does the biggest percentage of the log rafting and towing in the lower Columbia. Last year, more than 264,400 tons of rafted logs were moved on the river to and from points between Astoria and Stevenson. That’s equivalent to about 14,105 truckloads, according to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers figures. Kelland scoots about the half-mile long riverfront storage area in a tiny log “bronc” boat equipped with an outboard motor that swivels in a complete circle to aid manoeuvring the craft. Using the “bronc’s” hull, the men shove log bundles into each of three 20-foot-wide water storage areas marked by boom logs tied to dolphins. Water lapped over the edges of the tiny “bronc,” which weaved and bobbed to and fro Thursday afternoon as Kelland worked. “Just the feel, is what it is,” Wilkerson said of the “bronc” piloting, as he and others watched. “You get to know it after a little while.” He looked into the water and scanned the river bottom. “No fish in here today,” he said. Truckers hand the two dump hands yellow numbered slips of paper recording each bundle dumped at the site. Using the slip numbers and codes for raft buyers, the two men decide where to store each “sort” of logs until they are assembled into rafts, 60 feet wide and 750 feet long, ready to move into the Columbia River. It is not an assembly-line process, the men say. Times for assembly of rafts vary widely. The men recall finishing as many as five rafts in one day, after logs were stored ahead several days. “We’ve got one sort down there, it’s been there five months,” Wilkerson said. “We don’t know what’s going to happen to it.” Knappton pays Kelland a set amount for each log bundle the men move, and from that amount Kelland pays Wilkerson an hourly wage. Extra hands may be hired by Kelland if he feels he needs them. The income to Knappton and other raft-moving tug lines is based on charges on file with a Portland tariff bureau. Rates vary, depending on types of logs (some species

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are heavier and harder to move) and the direction in which the rafts are towed. Towing up-stream brings a higher charge, because tugs work against the current and consume more fuel. Hauling an average log raft upstream from the Lewis River dump to Fort Vancouver Plywood, in the Vancouver port area, for example, would cost the shipper $2.50 per 1,000 feet, or about $1,250 for an average-size raft. Hauling the same raft downstream, to Longview, would cost $1.45 per 1,000 feet or $750. Charges vary in different parts of the river, and raft sizes differ. Rafts moved downriver from Knappton’s Wind River dump are smaller, to fit in the Bonneville Dam lock. Rafted log tonnage in the Lower Columbia River has declined, from 457,700 tons in 1975, to 264,400 last year, due to restrictions on log exports and to the closure of one sawmill in Portland. Rafting remains attractive to shippers, however, Hartman said, because it is the cheapest way to move timber. Knappton officials said a tugboat might burn 1,400 gallons of diesel fuel moving a raft 100 miles, while it would take100 log trucks consuming about 2,000 gallons of fuel to move the same amount of logs the same distance. Water movement of logs depends on the ebb and flow of water in the rivers. “We work the tides here,” said Kelland of the Lewis River dump. That river’s 50-foot-wide channel challenges tug boat skippers moving rafts; the presence of dredges and fishing boats make raft movement hazardous at times. Recently, one tug snared a dredge’s buoy line and the line had to be cut. Last winter’s floods gave boatmen the Lewis River fits when a raft broke loose and it took 14 to 16 hours to recapture all the loose bundles. “That was pretty harum-scarum,” said Rich Roeder, a Knappton tug pilot. Kelland and Wilkerson scamper over the log dump water as nimbly as others walk on the shore. “I feel as safe out here as walking on the land” said Kelland, an 18 year rafting veteran. “If you’re so dam careful that you look everywhere you’re walking, you’re not going to get much work done.” Even experienced hands like Kelland and Wilkerson occasionally slip and get themselves dunked in the river, though, “It goes in spells,” Wilkerson said. “I went without falling in for a couple of years, once, and then fell in on a Friday about quittin’ time – and then fell in again on Monday morning. “That old river’s cold,” he said with a laugh, “even in summertime.”

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Don Kelland in 1978.

For someone brought up in England, like me, the above story is fascinating. The only time I had seen anything about log rafting was in Geography books when I was at school and studying places such as North America. When I was a child I never dreamed I’d meet a real live log-rafter! I wonder what survives of the industry today? The other interesting point is the concern about the environment in 1978; we tend to think it is a modern phenomenon. Don is of course retired now and his main hobby is fishing for salmon. He can run a line down to the Columbia River, across his back garden, and attach a bell to the rod and then wait for it to ring to tell him he has hooked a fish! He also has a small

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smoke house and I must say his smoked salmon is the nicest smoked salmon I have ever tasted!

Don with a salmon caught from off his back porch!

Fishing was not a sport that Don had taken up in retirement, but one he had done all his life.

This picture appeared in the local Clackamas paper in 1967 and shows Don with his Uncle George (Jud) Kelland. Don, aged 42years, had caught an 18 pound fish, while George (Jud), aged 90 years, had caught a 27 pound Chinook salmon.

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This is a photograph of John and I with Don, taken when we first visited him in 2002. We also visited him in 2008 and hopefully we may see him again someday soon.