Patty Bonney 2018

Ken Woodard 2018

By Elaine Shreve, July 10, 2018

Patty Bonney brought her three children to Garden Home in 1960 when she married Bill Bonney. Patty, Ken, Keith and Carolyn all joined Bill in his home on two acres on SW Oleson Road south of the Garden Home intersection near SW 89^th Ave. Bill worked at Tektronix. Bill and Patty soon added Alan in 1964 and Regina in 1966 to the household. Unfortunately, Bill died in 1976.

Bill’s story is also interesting. When Bill’s mother died in 1926, he was about six years old and his father, not knowing what to do, placed him at the St. Mary’s Home for Boys on Tualatin Valley Highway in Beaverton. Founded in 1889 as an orphanage for abandoned and wayward children, today St. Mary’s offers residential treatment and services for at-risk boys. Bill stayed there for a year until his father came for him. Patty says Bill was scarred from his year there and was anti-religious the rest of his life.

As was not unusual in that era, Bill’s family did not support his desire to go to high school. For his senior year he moved into a boarding house in Portland and paid his way working in the chemistry lab at Lincoln High where he attended for three years.

Patty became a faithful volunteer at Garden Home School. In the early days of the 1970s, she worked in Mary Jane Seiffert’s classroom one year and the school library. In the library she volunteered under Ginny Mapes’ direction and helped on the first Garden Home history book, Garden Home – the way it was. In about 1975 she started volunteering in Mrs. Carol Lintner’s classroom. Mrs. Lintner’s name now is Carol Bambace and they live in Lake Oswego. After many years of retirement, Patty and Carol still get together annually for birthdays.

Patty was often seen walking along Oleson Road to her home reading a book enroute. We all knew her, with her sun or rain hat, her backpack, and a good mystery book. This was before the current sidewalks. She also enjoys histories such as Jane Kirkpatrick’s historical fiction about NW women or reviewing her books of true stories about Australia.

Garden Home has an active branch of the Oregon State University’s Extension program, called the Garden Home Families and Community Education Study Group, FCE, (but commonly called Extension). This Extension group has had a long history here in Garden Home and served as a community service organization that follows the OSU Extension education programs. Community service is encouraged for all participants. Patty has enjoyed knitting tiny hats for the gift bags that are distributed to all newborns at the Tuality Community Hospital in Hillsboro during the month of May each year. These gifts bags each contain new books, blankets, and other supplies for the babies. They took 25 decorated bags to the hospital this last May.

Click here to read more about the Garden Home Extension Study Group.

When the Garden Home School closed in June of 1982, the Tualatin Hills Park and Recreation District began to rent a few of the rooms. Many of the school’s library books had remained in the building. Patty and a small group of mothers including Catherine Kent and her daughter Marie Pacella, Helen Sanford and Judy Freck began the development of a community lending library run by volunteers. Judy Freck was instrumental in the organization of library and along with her husband Bill Freck continued to manage the library until it was accepted into the Washington County Cooperative Library Services.

Click here to read more about the the Garden Home Community Library.

Patty, now in her 80s, keeps a very busy schedule that now includes church activities and square dancing. After knitting ‘thousands’ of premie caps for hospital newborns, she now knits scarves from yarn on hand to give to the Northwest Pilot Project, NWPP, a service organization for the elderly poor in downtown Portland. “It’s a good cause and the projects are mindless. I can do all kinds of things with them while paying little attention, suitable for meetings.”

Patty’s dentist, Dr. Steven Little, wrote a laudatory article for the Southwest Portland Post saying he’s seen her knitting while getting dental work done. “you’ll see her laid back in the dental chair, hygienist at work and Patty’s knitting needles up in the air creating one of her precious gifts.” Patty first met Steven as a dental technician at the dental school before he became a fully qualified dentist. Dr. Little says she was his first patient.

Ken and Keith Woodard graduated from Beaverton High in 1967 and 1968, Carolyn Woodard in 1969, Alan Bonney in 1982, and Regina who took her GED (she would have graduated in 1984).

[Editor: Carolyn was our first babysitter for our twins Tom and Andy back in 1967. At first we thought we’d need two sitters but Carolyn proved totally capable and continued with us for several years. – Elaine Shreve]

Ken Woodard – When Bill and Patty married, Ken began at Garden Home School in the 6^th grade. Len Gustafson was the principal. Ken went on through eighth grade at Garden Home and then into Beaverton High for the historic 1964-65 year of the high school running double shifts to accommodate the 4 grades of high school and to serve the large attendance area. The next year Aloha High operated 2 grades out of the Merle Davies Elementary building while Aloha High was being built. Whitford Intermediate School opened in 1963 which soon took on the 9^th grade class of students leaving 3 grades at Beaverton High.

In 1944, voters in Beaverton School District 48 and over a dozen elementary districts approved the formation of a union high school district. Then in 1944 with an increase in the number of students, a high school and 12 elementary schools consolidated to form Beaverton District 48. New school buildings have continued to the present year, 2017-18, when the new Mountainside High School opened off of Scholls Ferry Road. *See School Days by Gerald Varner (book).

Ken’s interest in sports began at Garden Home School where the boys played competitive flag football and basketball against other local grades schools. He remembers the blue and white Wildcat t-shirts. Ken went on to excel in cross country distance running and then became head Cross Country/Track and Field coach at Portland State University in the 1980s and 1990s. His brother Keith was his assistant. Ken is married and built his own home on Oleson at 89^th. Ken enjoys buying old tractors and restoring them to sell.

Ken’s brother Keith Woodard is now head Cross Country/Track and Field Coach and program Director today at Lewis & Clark College., his 11^th year coaching at Lewis & Clark. Both of these men have had outstanding track careers.

* Varner, Gerald H. School Days, A History of Public Schools in and Around Beaverton, Oregon, 1856-2000. Published by Gerald Varner in association with Beaverton School District. 2000

[Read Patty Bonney’s 2022 obituary.]