Godfred Erickson

Godfred, like so many Swedes seeking a btter life in America, immigrated to the U.S. in 1905. We don't yet know what part of Sweden he came from, but we do know that in 1910 he is living in Nehalem, Tillamook County, and working on the railroad. After working for a time in Tillamook he moved south to Coos County to again, work on the railroad. We know that from his death certificate.
Whatever Godfred's dreams were they were cut short by the Influenza pandemic of 1918. Godfred has the unfortunate disctinction of being one of the first people to die in Multnomah County from Influenza in the late fall of 1918. He wasn't the first to die, but he is the first to die of those unfortunates who died of Influenza in that terrible winter and who are buried at the Park. He became sick on October 10th, had pneumonia by the 13th and was gone just after midnight on the early morning of the 17th.

UNDERTAKER: Final Journey Begins Here

Back in the good old days Funeral Homes did not exist. Rather, the people who would frequently undertake the final preparations of a person's final trip would be a furniture store. One of those furniture stores in Portland was the A D Kenworthy furniture store in Lents. They were located on the ground floor of the IOOF Halls on "Main" Street, Lents at what is now the corner of S.E. 92nd Avenue and Ramona Street.

The building still remains, but the furniture store "undertaker", like many of it's customers is now long gone.

Jay Dee Boyer

Located in what was the wilds of western Washington County, Oregon is the now former town of West Timber, where a Post Office and railroad station were located west of the town of Timber. This is where J D Boyer found employment after moving from Pennsylvania to Oregon in the early twentieth century. The trees would have been big at that time since that was before all the big ones were laboriously cut down, and before the Tillamook burn fires occurred later on a few miles west. What prompted Jay Dee to move from home in Pennsylvania where he was born in 1895 to parents who moved from Germany we will most likely never know. But move to Oregon he did, and found a job working for the Eagle Timber Co., in West Timber.

We know little of Jay Dee's life, other than his parent's names were Chas., and Veronica and they were both born in Germany. We know that Jay Dee was single at the time of his death from heart issues and pneumonia. Jay Dee died at St Vincent's Hospital on 9 October 1927. According to his Certificate of Death he was buried two days after his death on 11 October 1927. A funeral service to which friends were invited was held at St Stevens church at E. 42nd and Taylor on Wednesday, October 12, 1927. Jay D Boyer is buried in the back of the cemetery in Section G.

J D Boyer, 1895-1927

People...

I love humanity - it's people I can't stand. People have been defacing monuments from the time they were put up. Don't understand it though. Probably the worst example of monument destruction in recent times were the Buddhas destroyed by the Taliban in Afghanistan a few years back.
Someone knocked over at least five monuments in the cemetery sometime between Saturday evening - the last time I was there - and Monday morning.

I can't believe it's been just a few short months since Eric and I have undertaken this project of ours. In this short period of time we have added over 4,000 names to the Find A Grave website database. In the beginning we were transcribing information from photographs taken in the cemetery, but now thanks to Metro we're using data from their database. Still a time consuming process, but it is much easier and quicker using data already on spreadsheets. We've also taken over 5 photos for people with relatives in the cemetery.

During this time Eric has also dug up the history of the Morningside Hospital to which Alaska sent it's mental patients until the 1960's. Several of the patients who died while at the hospital are buried here at Multnomah Park.

This is the marker for Harry Loud, or Lold, who died in 1915. His marker is along the fenceline at the back of the cemetery, along with several other Morningside patients.

Neither Eric or I know where this project will lead us, but we would like to have a user friendly website showing the cemetery and the lots, photos of the markers, and a brief bio of each person. Wouldn't that be grand?!