Category Archives: Memoirs

Memoirs written by residents

Kit Bowen Chapter Three

Posted on May 28, 2024 by gardenhomehistoryproject

[This third installment by Kit Bowen was submitted to us via gardenhomehistory@gmail.com on April 28th, 2024. Thanks for this new chapter, Kit! You can read Kit’s first chapter Kit Bowen and his second chapter Wobbling Into My Past by Kit Bowen.] The Portland Golf … Continue reading →

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Ernest and Melba Cook, one of the earliest families in Garden Home

Posted on April 30, 2024 by gardenhomehistoryproject

Submitted by Louise (Cook) Jones, April 2024 Our parents Melba and Ernest Cook, with daughter Patti who was born in 1939, moved to Garden Home in 1941. Their house was second from the corner off Garden Home Road, at 8107 … Continue reading →

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Wobbling Into My Past by Kit Bowen

Posted on February 20, 2024 by gardenhomehistoryproject

[Wobbling Into My Past by Kit Bowen was submitted to us via gardenhomehistory@gmail.com on February 1st, 2024. Thanks for this new chapter, Kit! You can read Kit’s first chapter Kit Bowen.] Obviously Thomas Wolfe had never been to Garden Home … Continue reading →

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Kit Bowen

Posted on June 12, 2023 by gardenhomehistoryproject

We met Kit Bowen at the June 3, 2023 outdoor 40 Year Anniversary, sponsored by the Garden Home Community Library and the Garden Home Recreation Center. Kit was remembering his early life as a first and second grader at Garden … Continue reading →

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Portland Golf Club by Joanne DeHaan

Posted on August 5, 2020 by gardenhomehistoryproject

Portland Golf Club members developed and maintained the first nine holes of their golf course. But, local men, from the Garden Home area, developed the other nine holes – half of the golf course. In 1920, the golf club hired … Continue reading →

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Mark and Leona Whitney and the Whitney Cannery, 1950-1976

Posted on June 5, 2020 by GHHP

[Update: Leona Whitney, 1920-2015. Read her obituary here.] Historic Photos of Whitney’s Cannery Thanks to Shelly Bigley, Old Market Pub and Brewery, for most of these photos collected from Leona Whitney. They help to tell the story of Whitney’s Cannery … Continue reading →

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Harold Gjerman

Posted on May 26, 2020 by gardenhomehistoryproject

Harold Gjerman has lived in Garden Home since 1970, along with his daughter Juli and two grandchildren. They live in the Whitford Park development at the west end of Garden Home Road. Yes, Gjerman is spelled correctly, reflecting Harold’s Danish … Continue reading →

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Hunt Club Childhood of Mike Norris, M.D.

Posted on November 20, 2019 by gardenhomehistoryproject

For children growing up in the Hunt Club area in the 1940s and ‘50s, it often felt like a park. Mike and his friends could be found sneaking through the gate into the Frank farm, shooting pheasants in Gertsch’s pond, … Continue reading →

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Barbara Kiggins Green memoir

Posted on October 8, 2019 by gardenhomehistoryproject

[Editor: See the 2022 obituary for Barbara Ann Green.] By Barbara (Kiggins) Green, 2019 (age 87) I was born in 1931 and we moved to Garden Home around 1934 or 1935. We lived in a small two room house with an … Continue reading →

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The Garden Home Totem Pole, by Andrew Gorman

Posted on August 18, 2019 by gardenhomehistoryproject

[Editor: Many of you who have lived in Garden Home since the 1990s will remember the surprising totem pole standing in the shrubs at the NW corner of SW 82nd and Garden Home Road. Unfortunately it gradually deteriorated in our … Continue reading →

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