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Marcella Camp
Marcella Camp, a long-time Ashland resident, passed away February 4, 2005 in Portland where she had been receiving care for the last year.
Born in 1908 in Vallejo, California, Marcella lived through a time of amazing change. In 1930 she and William Camp, her late husband, married in Reno, Nevada. Together they lived the itinerant life as Bill served in the U.S. Navy for 25 years and the Department of Veterans Affairs for 19 years. Until coming to a rest in Ashland in 1966, Marcella had lived in over dozen cities and towns including Shanghai and Manilla.
Ashland in 1966 was Marcella's dream town, an affordable place in the state she most admired, populated by long-time residents supported by local merchants. She became a volunteer in her community and made the closest and dearest friends of her life. She lived in the small home she and Bill built until last year when she chose to relocate to Portland for her continued care.
Marcella is survived by her son John of Portland, four grandchildren and two great grandchildren. She will be interred in the Eagle Point National Cemetery with Bill. There will be no funeral services.
Kevan James Thatcher-Stephens
July 8, 1987-February 11, 2005
Kevan was born at home in Norfolk Massachusetts on July 8, 1987. When Kevan was a toddler his family moved to South Pasadena California. Kevan spent most of his life in South Pasadena, going to the beach, playing sports, acolyting at his church and attending local schools. In the summer of 2003, before his sophomore year, Kevan and his family moved to Ashland, Oregon. In Ashland Kevan found a world of wonderful friends, caring teachers and joy.
On the evening of February 11, 2005, an accident took his life and that of another driver. Kevan died at Providence Hospital with his parents and closest friends holding his hands.
This child raced through life filled with genius, joy, love and confusion. Kevan's death leaves a space which will never be filled in the lives of those who remain, including his father James Richard Stephens, his mother Patrice Thatcher, his sisters Annie Thatcher-Stephens and Karma Stephens, his grandmother Rosemary Thatcher, a large extended family and many, many close friends.
Kevan's life will be celebrated at 4:30 in the afternoon on Friday, February 18, at St. Marks' Episcopal Church in Yreka California, the church where Kevan was baptized. Fr. Denis M. O'Pray of Church of Our Saviour in San Gabriel California and the Reverend Julie Honig Smith of St. Barnabas Mt. Shasta will serve with Fr. Morgan Silbert of Trinity Ashland attending.
Flowers are not necessary. Those wishing to remember Kevan might make a donation to Siskiyou or Jackson County Head Start or Early Head Start Agencies. They save children and families.
Olga M. Wade
Olga M. Wade died peacefully in her sleep at almost 90 years old on February 14, 2005.
Mrs. Wade taught fifth grade for over twenty years at the Hardie School in Beverly, MA. Ashland, Oregon has been her home these past three years, living with her only daughter's family.
Olga was born of Polish immigrants, she was proud of the fact she graduated from the University of Illinois during the great depression. She loved to talk of growing up helping in her parent's bakery.
Mrs. Wade was so proud of her many students, especially those who came to visit her and told of their successes.
Olga lived a good life for over fifty years surrounded by her wonderful neighbors on Country Drive in Beverly.
She was married fifty-five years to her late husband, Williams Wade, an engineer and inventor. Bill Wade was proud of his wife, Olga, especially when she received her Master's Degree in Education from Salem State College.
Olga Wade was a member of the Beverly Teachers Association, Beverly College Club, the Christian Women's Organization, The Current Events Club, and contributed time to many local events.
She is survived by her daughter, Margaret Lucy Barth (Wade-Hayford-Stern) of Ashland, OR; and by her granddaughter, Crystal Stern of Clearlake, California; and by her brother, Chester Gawlowicz of New Bedford, MA.
Funeral services will be held at the Campbell Funeral Home in Beverly, MA. Final burial in St. Casmirs Polish National Catholic Church in her family plot in Pelham, New Hampshire.
Arrangements: Litwiller-Simonsen Funeral Home, Ashland.
Harriett Spira
Harriett Spira passed to Heaven on the 11th of February, 2005. Because of her extraordinary intelligence and artistic prowess, by special dispensation from God, she was spared the usual visit to Hell where almost everyone first goes and is made to understand the damages one did to others during one's life. Harriett's extraordinary perception always comprehended any such damage, and she always apologized to the one she had offended.
Born June 7, 1914, she started her artistic work at age 4 when she was bedridden with measles. She drew and drew and drew. At age 7, (1921), she submitted a silhouette cut from black paper to a Chicago newspaper which had a children's page entitled "The Topsy-Turvy Club." Her work won first prize and was published.
Also at age 4, in 1918, she sang "When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again" to a rapt small audience. She was a highly gifted actress and occasionally took a role in her husband's plays produced at the Quartz Theater in Ashland in the 1980's. Harriett loved living in Ashland. The mountains around her stimulated her painting. She loved traveling, and always drew going to strange places.
A peculiar statement of hers last year was, "Why not 1 + 1 = 0?" She had rediscovered the field of two elements, originally discovered by Galois, a brilliant 18-year-old mathematician.
I tried once to get her to convert to orthodox Judaism, (my religion), and she studied hard for a few months and decided against it. She did not want to be restricted in any way.
She took art classes at UC Berkeley, Chicago, Durham NC, Lansing MI, New York, London, Paris. She did drawings and watercolors in Israel.
She had two children, Constance and Bradford, both formidable artists. I eventually adopted them.
Harriett's mother was a painter of realistic scenes. As a young woman she married a charming man from the Midwest, a traveling salesman for a cigarette company. He kept a locked trunk in their bedroom. The maid advised Harriett's mother to open it. She jimmied the lock and found a large number of love letters from women on his route. She divorced him. Obviously Harriett's strong personality descended from both parents.
While Harriett's mother was single again, to make ends meet she rented rooms of her home to Vaudeville performers. Their wild lifestyle greatly influenced Harriett. Her mother eventually married a solid German craftsman interior decorator.
Harriett and Bob met at the Henry George School in Chicago. In 1954 I drove from Berkeley to Chicago in a 1937 black Cadillac, very heavy, and impressively high in gasoline consumption. My sister Leta had been a very skilled and brainy assistant to the School Director, John Lawrence Monroe. She left to devote herself to her classical piano studies. On my landing in Chicago I talked with John and he hired me as an administrative assistant.
Harriett worked there also and was in the middle of a divorce. We went to dinner a few times, and I romanced her by playing the piano in my Near North Side digs. She took me to her apartment on the North Side where I met her two children, Connie and Brad. There was ongoing friction with her ex-husband about getting the children to her on weekends. Seeing the situation I talked her into going with me back to California, and getting the children for a few weeks in summers. Agreement was reached and we married on November 22,1954. We went back to Berkeley, and we both worked while I completed my math Ph.D at UC Berkeley.
In preparation is a set of books compiled from slides of her paintings and sculpture. Harriett wrote and illustrated a children's book "The First Peep." She recently completed a second children's book, "Tick-Tock the Clock" about a clock who one day decided to run backward. It caused trouble for the family at the beginning of the workday.
We spent 50 years together, working in the arts. She brought dignity and a touch of class to all other endeavors.
Survivors are her husband Robert; two children, Constance Simonsen, Medford, OR, Bradford Burdick of San Jose, CA; sister Mignon Winegar, Arcata, CA; grandson Dakin Maher, CA; great-grandchildren Autumn and Merwin Maher, CA.
Florence Ione Bostwick Geiger
Florence Ione Bostwick Geiger, 93, died at Diamond View Assisted Living Community in Meridian, Idaho, on Friday, February 18, 2005.
She grew up in Williams, Oregon, one of six children born to Bert and Josephine Saltmarsh Bostwick. After she married Delos Geiger in 1935, they moved to Crescent City, CA where her daughter Rosalie was born. Then they moved to Billings, Montana, where a second daughter, Delores, and a son, Charles, were born. In 1945 they moved to Richland, Washington, to work at the Hanford Atomic Products operation, contracted by General Electric for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. Another son, Frederick, was born. They remained in Richland until their family was raised and both Delos and Florence retired.
She worked as a custodian for the company for almost 18 years before retirement in 1973. They moved to Big Fork, Montana, and later to Spokane, Washington, before returning to her family's roots in Medford.
Florence was an avid Lawrence Welk fan. She traveled to Alaska, Israel, and New Zealand.
In 2002 she moved to Meridian to be near family where she was content to spend her last years.
She is most well remembered for her cheerful hospitality, generous spirit, and for being a wonderful cook. She was happiest when hosting family and friends.
Her husband and two sons preceded her in death. She is survived by daughters, Rosalie Hughes of Boise, and Delores Glass of Las Vegas; four grandchildren, Eric Olesen, Stephen and Nathan Geiger, and Kellie Whitney; a brother Vyron Bostwick of Portland; and a sister Maxine Neff of Big Sandy, Texas; three great-grandchildren; and nieces and nephews.
A viewing will be held from 6 to 8 p.m., Sunday, February 27, at Litwiller-Simonsen Funeral Home in Ashland. A graveside service will be at 10 a.m. Monday, February 28, 2005 at the Gotcher Cemetery in Williams, OR, where Florence will be buried beside her husband and two sons.
