Just the Other Day…

Siblings drown at 1940 picnic

By sharon nesbit

The Gresham Outlook, Jul 28, 2010

A Gresham woman supported a Congressional effort to make sure movies were held to high standards.

Archive photo / The Gresham Outlook

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1920 – William K. Bartlett of Estacada was named to the U.S. Olympic team 90 years ago and was to compete in the discus events in Antwerp, Belgium. His record was 141 feet, 9 and 3/4 inches.

Bartlett went to New York as one of the athletes from the University of Oregon to compete in the games.

1930 – Gresham’s Maude Aldrich was supporting a bill in Congress 80 years ago that would form a commission (four of whom would be women) to inspect movies in the same way meat, milk and other goods were inspected to make sure they are up to standard and safe for public consumption.

Instead of cutting out offensive parts of film in an act of censorship, she proposed supervision over the making of films in order to apply moral standards. She wanted standards that did not depict “virtue as odious” or vice as attractive.

1940 – Two siblings in the same family drowned at a family picnic on the Sandy River 70 years ago. William Foster, 18, of Portland, attempted to save his sister, Mary Christenson, 25, also of Portland, when she stepped into a hole in the river about a mile from Dodge Park and was swept away.

1950 – Pvt. Robert L. Mackay, 23, of Gilbert in mid-Multnomah County, was wounded in Korea 60 years ago, making him the first local soldier to be hurt in that war. In Portland, at 60th Avenue and Halsey Street, a new modern facility opened to house “wayward youths.” It is still there, the Donald E. Long Detention Center.

1960 – S.B. Hall, a nationally known farmer and Multnomah County’s first extension agent, died at age 75, 50 years ago. Hall, known for the big cigar always clenched in his teeth, was made county agent in 1916. He was a top breeder of Holstein dairy cattle and an international judge of the breed.

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