Welcome to our website about historic Garden Home. In the People and Places pages, you’ll find over a hundred stories and hundreds of photos of vintage Garden Home and residents attending our events.
Upcoming Events
We begin each regular meeting with a 30-minute history presentation at 6:30 pm at the Garden Home Recreation Center, 7475 SW Oleson Rd, on the second Monday of the month:
- May 9, 2016 – Colin Lamb will be presenting slides and discussion of the early days of their Thriftway grocery store and the mall. Do you remember the Big Tomato pizza parlor of the 1980s?
- June 13, 2016 – Shrubs, flowers, trees, a wonderful review of our History & Garden tour, comments about all this beauty in Garden Home!
History and Garden Tour in Garden Home: Saturday, June 4, 10 AM to 3 PM. Purchase your $10 ticket at the Lamb’s Garden Home Thriftway to enjoy all of the nine lovely gardens on the tour in three areas of Garden Home. In an effort to avoid “early birds” the tour brochures and map will be available after 10 AM on June 4 at the following locations:
- Lamb’s Garden Home Thriftway
- 8550 SW Holly Lane
- 6619 SW Hickman Lane
- 8445 SW 80th Ave
The nine gardens may be visited in any order. Look for the balloon posts which mark the gardens! Sponsored by both the Garden Home History Project and the Garden Home Gardeners who maintain the Oleson Road gardens.
Garden Home School and Beaverton High reunion, August 13, 2016: We are planning a reunion event in the morning in the playground behind the Garden Home Recreation Center. More details to come.
New stories on website
SW Oleson Road Gardens update: Review of Terry Moore’s dedicatory speech in 2008 and new photos and update of the gardens in the medians and along Oleson Road. If you’d like to work with this dedicated group of gardeners, check out GardenHomeGardeners.weebly.com
Living on Maplewood Road: Patti Waitman-Ingebretson tells about growing up in the neighborhood just to the east of Garden Home. Home of the fabulous curved train trestle that was finally paved as a street. Great photos.
The other “Garden Home road”: While researching an upcoming story about a 1903 Halloween night slaying on “the Garden Home road”, we discovered the “Garden Home road” moniker was used for the route of Patton Rd to Shattuck Rd to Oleson Rd.
Margaret (Simmons) Patton Mills Welch, 1838-1919, at age 34.
History of the early Patton family: Read about the amazing and difficult pioneer life of Margaret (Simmons) Patton Mills Welch, 1838-1919. Margaret was the mother of Polly Philena Patton Oleson, wife of Ole Oleson, the namesake of SW Oleson Rd.
At age 16, Margaret married John Patton and had four children before John died in a tragic sleeping mishap. John was the son of Mathew Patton, a noted Portland business man and philanthropist. Margaret’s second husband either vanished during a trip to the unpopulated areas, died at Little Big Horn with Custer, or fled to become a Wisconsin school teacher, depending on which family member is asked.
Glenn and Isolda Steele donating a Brazilian amethyst to the Smithsonian
Isolda and Glenn Steele: Many Garden Home School alums remember the wonderful lunches that Isolda Steele cooked. A number of these recipes and household tips are featured in a lovely memoir cookbook. Glenn became known for his rock hobby which culminated with amethyst specimens going to the Smithsonian! Christina Mauroni has researched this story with the assistance of the grandson, Barry Steele. Wonderful photos by Stan Houseman.
Other News
Beaverton High School pre-1949
Beaverton High School Centennial: We want your memoirs! When was the 3rd floor removed?
Stan Marugg remembers the 1949 earthquake that damaged the third floor of the High School.
“I was sitting in one of our milk trucks I’d driven to Beaverton High School and was bouncing up and down during the quake. My dad said he had never seen concrete bend until then. He said it was like a wave moving through the concrete in the dairy barn.”
Colin Lamb, ’62, recalls that there was an unmarked door to the third floor steps.
“A ham radio station was located up there and we operated from that location. Richard Platt was in charge of the ham radio program. We also had access to the roof so we could install antennas. That was in the old days. Our power supply had about 2,000 volts open to whoever was stupid enough to put his hand on it and we did not worry about such minor details.”
The BHS Centennial committee has designated a process to honor certain graduates for their Hall of Achievement. To date, this includes Rod Harman (Harman Pool), and Ross Fogelquist. Lisa Sandmire wants stories and photos of Beaverton High and can be reached at bhscentennial@gmail.com. Click here for a related article by the Portland Tribune.
We are researching the 1949 earthquake that damaged Garden Home School and the third floor of Beaverton High. What do you recall? Leave us a comment.
Kaplan/Miner Century Home (previously Bettendorf home)
We have identified Century Homes in Garden Home that were built before 1916. The program is meant to honor and appreciate the older homes in our community and the role they’ve played in our history. The home owners have been notified that they may participate in this program of a small ceremony of placing a Century Home plaque beside the front door and accepting a nice pamphlet with the history of Garden Home and their home. The two-story house on 76th now owned by Sasha Kaplan and Matt Miner was our first Century home. The owners would like more information on early residents of the home. The attractive plaque notes the age of the house and does not affect the sale or any changes in the property. Virginia Vanture has chaired this committee of Stan Houseman, Nathalie Darcy, Janice Logan and Ginny McCarthy.
Patsy VandeVenter, Virginia Vanture, Elaine Shreve, Carole Vranizan
Get your Historic Garden Home t-shirt now for just $14 for small to XL. Larger XXL and XXXL sizes are $17. There is an additional charge of $9 to mail your shirt. They’re fun! Available at the Garden Home Library’s Community Store or by mail from Patsy VandeVenter, 7520 SW Ashdale Ct., Portland, OR 97223. We thank Jan Fredrickson for a very generous donation to cover the cost of printing the shirts.
Historic Garden Home street sign
Historic Garden Home street signs: We currently have about 35 of the Historic Garden Home street sign toppers in our community. Each sign was purchased by a friend or family member to honor their loved one. Click here to view photos of the signs and for information about sponsoring a sign.
Our generous donors permit us to print and mail this newsletter ($140) for our non-e-mail people and for the Garden Home Recreation Center. We also replace the Historic Garden Home street signs once for signs that disappear, current cost for each sign, $60. With our latest order, we’ll have about 35 signs out in our neighborhoods. We also have website costs, printing, paper, plaques and many other costs of an organization. Donor names are listed on our History Bulletin Board at the Recreation Center. Thank you to all of our donors and to all of our volunteers for their time and skills.
Garden Home History Project 
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