Snowy Day

Portland is seeing a strong winter storm now with snow on the ground and freezing rain on the way.   BRRRRR!

However the weather, Dave and I still got to the cemetery to document its changing appearance.  Snow is such a rare occurence in Portland that a few pics are absolutely necessary.

 

This angel is not from Multnomah.  Rather this photo was taken in January 1980 at Lone Fir Cemetery during the remarkable snow and ice storm combination storm that year.  From David A Anderson's photos on flickr.

One thing leads to another

Looking at the above photo of a monument in rather poor condition it is hard to tell what it says. I took the photo of this monument on a recent trip to the cemetery on a whim. About the only thing I could easily read is that this person died in Oct. 1906, they were 60 some years old and 12 days, and they are at rest. I figured I should be able to find someone in the database who died in Oct. 1906 so I searched the spreadsheet and found one person: Eliza Fenton Plummer. you can now make out her name at the top Eliza Fenton, probably the words "wife of" and an 'H C'. The surname is still illegible, but there does appear to be an 'E' towards the end of the name. The date of death can be surmised as '28'. Eliza Fenton Plummer is buried near her husband H C Plummer!
Having looked through Funeral Notices printed in the Oregonian, I've learned there's a pattern in when a Funeral Notice is printed after a person's death; and that is usually two days. But for some reason I went to the Multnomah County Library's on-line files of the Oregonian for Oct 31, 1906 to check if I could find Eliza Fenton Plummer's Funeral Notice. To my disappointment it wasn't there. However, there was a Funeral Notice for a Frank Crupy who was being buried at Multnomah Cemetery. I went back to the data base to find a Crupy being buried there and found only one person with that surname. The only information I found in the cemetery database was for a "Mr. Crupy" who is buried in Section A, Lot 17, grave nr 1. At least now we now have a name for Mr. Crupy and we now know when he died, 104 years ago. There is no marker at A, 17, 1 commemorating Mr. Crupy.

Charles Niblen, 1852-1928

Located near the center of Section A in lot 25 is the grave of Charles Niblen, a Swedish immigrant. It is the only marked grave in Lot 25. Charles came here on March 15, 1928 after his demise on March the 13th, a Tuesday. At least through 1920, as indicated by the 1920 U.S. Census, Charles was a fruit farmer on Section Line Road about a mile and half south-east of the Mount Tabor Post Office. Section Line Road was to later be known as Division Street. During this time Charles lived with a younger sister Agnes who had also immigrated from Sweden, but in 1875.
Charles first appearance in a U.S. Census is in the 1880 Census from Knappa, Clatsop County, Oregon. His surname is spelled Neblin. He is about 28 years old at the time, single, a fisherman and living in a boarding house catering to no less than 17 fishermen. Those fishermen were from Scotland, Norway, Sweden, Ohio, England, Maine, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts ranged in ages from 20 to 36 years old.
Fishing apparently was not to his lifestyle since after that time he is recorded in the Censuses as being a fruit farmer. Sometime after 1880 Charles married and had a daughter, Annie (or Amy) in April 1896. Unfortunately we don't know the name of his wife, but by 1900 the widowed Charles had moved to Portland where he is living with his mother Annie, sister Agnes, daughter Annie, and two boarders, the Tamaschis who were born in Japan. Charles is one of many fruit farmers making a living in the Mount Tabor neighborhood. In 1908 he sells some property, 20 acres in total, to the widow of brewer Henry Weinhard.
We do not yet know where Charles and Agnes' parents, Eric and Annie, are located. but Agnes lived to be 98 years old, finally departing in 1958. She is now located at nearby Lincoln Memorial Park.