125 years ago
Aug. 19, 1892
From the Globe.
A few days more and the barefooted boy and girl and others may pick hops and earn money proportionate to the amount of labor performed.
George Nelson, the well known railroad contractor, now of Sultan City, was in town Wednesday, accompanied by his foreman and James Murphy of Montesano. They have all located on timber claims near Oakville.
County Clerk Sutton last week filed 557 delinquent tax cases. This week up to date he has 400 more. Each of these cases necessitates a cost of about $3, while some of them involve an amount not to exceed $1, some being only 85 cents. This state of affairs is a result of both carelessness and cussedness. In this land of plenty any one can raise $3 to pay taxes, no matter now poor they may be, if they want to.
100 years ago
Aug. 17, 1917
After several years endeavor on the part of residents of the Wynooche and Wishkah valleys and the residents of Montesano, the much talked of rural mail route to serve the Wynooche and Wishkah valleys has been ordered established and service will commence October 1, provided the families served have their mail boxes in place by that date. The route will be 51.8 miles long and will serve 205 families. The carrier will leave Montesano at 8:30 a.m. each week day and arrive here at 4:30 p.m. Examination for carrier will likely be held in the near future. The salary is $1704 per annum and the carrier must provide auto equipment capable of carrying 800 pounds.
This new service will bring the mail to the doors of many families in a thickly settled portion of the county that have heretofore had very poor mail facilities, being forced to go to Aberdeen or Montesano for their mail and often having no mail for a week at a time or longer.
75 years ago
Aug. 20, 1942
“There are plenty of vital war production jobs that women can do, and I’m going to prove it.”
With these words uttered August 10, Mrs. Elithe Nicholson of Montesano signed for a course in electric welding at the Buckley welding school in Centralia. A few days later Mrs. Nicholson reported to the school, donned her leather jacket, asked for her gloves and welder’s helmet, and set out to be the first trained woman welder in the shipyards of southwest Washington. She now has over 50 hours of instruction to her credit, and plans to leave her welding alma mater within a few days to help actually build ships for the Henry J. Kaiser company at Vancouver, Wash.
Mrs. Nicholson arrived in Centralia and set up housekeeping in a small apartment for herself and two of her children, Peggy Lee (15) and Tommy, age 20 months. Mr. George T. Nicholson has also made arrangements for a course in welding at the Buckley welding school, and plans to take up his training soon.
“There’s no heavy work to it,” said Mrs. Nicholson, “I sit down for most of the work, and the extent of the weight lifting is a ‘stinger’ which weighs only a few ounces. There is enough variety to the work that it does not seem like drudgery at all. In fact, I find it fascinating…and get a real thrill when I can lay a good ‘bead’.”
50 years ago
Aug. 17, 1967
Army Captain Paul C. Fournier, who suffered severe second and third-degree burns when the plane he was piloting crashed on takeoff May 22 in Vietnam, returned to Montesano last Saturday for a 30-day leave.
Fournier, 32, underwent 12 weeks of treatment at Brooks Hospital in San Antonio – including a series of tedious grafting operations – before improving to the point where he could be released for a visit at home.
It is expected that the career Army officer will be sent to another military hospital next month. He has been told his recovering period may continue as long as two years.
The injured pilot was escorted on his flight to Seattle-Tacoma Airport by his brother, Richard Fournier, who now resides in Renton. Both sons have been staying here with their parents, Mr. and Mrs. Paul B. Fournier, 517 Broadway West.
Mrs. Fournier, who stayed close to the captain’s bedside throughout his Texas ordeal, flew home earlier last week to prepare for the arrival of her sons.
25 years ago
Aug. 20, 1992
Montesano native son Eric Fellhauer, the phenomenal, up-and-coming, world class biking champ, won a spectacular victory in a 55K race through the exotic streets of Pisa, Italy recently. He came in first, a full one length ahead of a former champ, reports mom Donna Hagen, of Montesano.
The rest of the racers were five minutes behind the pro pedal pushers.
Back home, the family is continuing efforts to raise funds to keep Eric behind the handle bars for future competitions. Raffle tickets for a beautiful victorian bear, a $250 value, are on sale at Timberland and the drawing is set for September 1.
Meantime, Eric is training five to seven hours daily on his new Klein road racing bike to achieve the perfect balance between man and machine. The custom built Klein was assembled in Centralia especially for Eric’s recent race in the United States National Bicycle Championships in El Paso, where Eric was scheduled to race this past weekend.
10 years ago
Aug. 16, 2007
At a recent Eagles Grand Aerie convention in Spokane, the Elma Chapter learned it ranked second nationally in raising money for diabetes research. A chapter in Ohio was the only one that had raised more.
The Elma Eagles, which celebrated its 100-year anniversary last August, has always been active in local, state and national charities, said member Jack Fordyce.
In 1997, the National Order adopted the diabetes Research Fund, a third charity with the Max Baer Heart Fund and the Jimmy Durante Children’s Fund.
Max Ritter of Elma, currently both the Elma and state Diabetes Fund chairman who had a high incidence of diabetes in his own family, attended that state convention and returned to Elma to fill in the membership on the opportunity to help, Ritter didn’t know then that he would be diagnosed with diabetes himself a couple of years later.
Last year, $5,500 was raised and donated to the University of Washington for diabetes research. To date, the Elma group has donated almost $27,000 to the university for research, Fordyce said.
