Branching Out – Connections to Cottage Grove – Part 1

I want to use February to write about some genealogical connections I have found to the town where I now live, which is Cottage Grove, Oregon.

If Cottage Grove is the town where I now live, where did I live before? I was born over 80 years ago in Eugene, Oregon. But that was the location of the hospital not my home. My growing-up years were spent on a farm about halfway between the small incorporated city of Halsey, Oregon and the smaller unincorporated town of Shedd.

Although our address and phone indicated we lived at Halsey, the farm was on the north side of the road, so our voting precinct was Shedd. Therefore you will find me listed in Shedd on the 1940 census. After graduating from Halsey High School, I attended Northwest Christian College in Eugene. It was after college that I moved to Cottage Grove, now just a little over 60 years ago.

Did I have any connections to Cottage Grove before I moved here? The answer is yes. We lived on a rented farm. My grandparents had rented it in the fall of 1914 and after they retired, my parents continued to live there. The owner was Eugene Stockwell. He was the grandson of one of the Cottage Grove area donation land claim settlers, Ira Hawley. Apparently Ira purchased farms for several of his grandchildren. Eugene’s sister, Lena, also was given a farm in the Halsey area. Although I wasn’t actually related to the Hawley family of Cottage Grove, I did have a connection through the farm where I grew up.

It was a few years after I moved to Cottage Grove, August 27th of 1964, when the Cottage Grove Sentinel published an item with the headline, “50 Years on Farm Occasion for Fete.” It began by stating that Mr. and Mrs. E. L. Stockwell and others had spent a few days in Cottage Grove visiting his sister, Mrs. Frank McFarland of Cottage Grove. Then it continued, “During their stay here Mr. Stockwell entertained with a dinner at the Eugene Hotel for the Lester Albertsons of Halsey.” It was to celebrate the 50th year of renting his farm. Lester Albertson was my father and I was one of the 28 people who attended that dinner.