I was intrigued to learn that Umatilla County Sheriff’s Deputy Steven McDaniel was able to solve the mystery of little James Wood, who died at 18 months in east Umatilla County about 100 years ago.

I now have a new mystery for the honorable deputy. In 1958, I observed a cemetery north of Oregon Highway 74 and west of Butter Creek Road in the community of Vinson. In that cemetery I noticed seven boards with the names of seven children, their dates of birth and their dates of death carefully burned into the boards with a heated piece of iron.

Being a young father at the time, I could not fathom the anguish that family must have experienced with each burial of those seven children every two weeks over a three-month period in 1918. I assumed the cause of death must have been the Spanish flu, but was informed by a knowledgeable gentleman in Hermiston that it in fact had been cholera that killed the children.

I do not recall the family’s name. When I returned to the site a number of years ago, where I thought I had seen the graves, there was nothing visible to indicate their presence. It appeared a fire had burned through the area and their wooden markers were destroyed.

How sad. At least James Wood had a gravestone marker.

Carlisle Harrison

Hermiston