Walt Salmon, a Foster Grandparent volunteer, reads to 6-year-old Michael Boling at the Pediatrics Medical Center in Pendleton on Thursday. Umatilla-Morrow County Head Start coordinated volunteer reading sessions around the county this week, during National Literacy Week. This photo appeared in the East Oregonian Nov. 5, 1992.

100 years ago

Mrs. Minerva Morse, one of the pioneers of Pendleton, who came here in 1865, died yesterday at the age of 73. Her death followed a month’s illness during which time she suffered from stomach trouble and heart disease.

Mrs. Morse, with her husband, the late Stephan L. Morse and their children, crossed the plains from Indiana in 1864. Of the long emigrant train of which they were a part, they were the one family who escaped death at the hands of Indians. Seeing others at the head of the train being massacred, Mr. Morse turned his family back to safety and continued the journey later. They settled in California and spent a year there before coming to Oregon.

50 years ago

Two lost elk hunters from Pendleton and Hermiston were found today, tired and hungry but generally in good condition.

A party of volunteers from the Pendleton offices of the Pacific Northwest Bell walked up on the lost men about 10:30 a.m., said Bill Lowery, ranger for the Dale District of the Umatilla National Forest.

The search for Harold Milo Rush Jr., 43, Pendleton, and Donald H. Murphy, 20, Hermiston, centered around Forks Guard Station in the Umatilla National Forest five miles south of Tower Mountain. The search area is just south of the Umatilla-Grant county line.

Lowery said the lost hunters had found each other Sunday afternoon and spent the night around a fire on top of a little hill no more than a half-mile from Forks Guard Station.

25 years ago

The Umatilla County vehicle fuel tax was soundly defeated in Tuesday’s election, as were similar proposals in five other Oregon counties.

According to complete but unofficial returns reported by the county Elections Department, 13,103 voters opposed the county gas tax while 4,231 supported it.

Bill Hansell, Umatilla County commissioner, acknowledged the election wasn’t much of a “nail-biter.” Seventy-three percent of those who voted opposed the measure, which could have raised about $600,000 annually for the county road maintenance and the same amount to be split among the county’s five cities.