Branching Out – Connections to Cottage Grove – Part 5

One of my connections to Cottage Grove lived here from 1932 to 1972. So he was living here when I moved to Cottage Grove in 1961. But he had moved to Eugene before I started researching my family history in the mid-1980s. He was the son of my grandmother’s oldest sister, so he and my mother were 1st cousins and that makes me his 1st cousin once removed.

This photo is of his parents, George and Margaret (Bond) Pullen and probably their two oldest children, taken about 1903.

According to his obituary from the Eugene Register Guard, Perry LeRoy “Roy” Pullen was born in Halsey in 1909. His grandparents, John and Mary Bond, were enumerated on the 1910 census in the Halsey precinct. Perry was listed with his parents on that census in Halsey, living on 5th Street. Apparently the Pullen family did not stay in the Halsey area because they are listed on the 1920 census in Pleasant Hill precinct and he was listed there as Leroy P Pullen, age 10.

Before the 1930 census was taken, two major events happened in Leroy’s life. In June of 1928 his father died and in September of 1929 he was married to Pearl Johnson. It is evident this marriage did not last as Leroy married Dorothea Cranmer on Christmas Eve in 1932. The 1940 census noted he was living in Cottage Grove in 1935 but had moved out to the Culp Creek area by 1940. Another major event happened in Roy’s life in May of 1948 when his 11 year old son drowned in the Bohemia Lumber Company mill pond at Culp Creek.

He found a new interest in the early 1950s when he joined the Cottage Grove Riding Club. He apparently became quite involved and was a board member during the mid 1960s. One of his daughters was rodeo queen in 1957 and his other daughter was a rodeo princess in 1964. He moved to Eugene in the 1970s and later in the early 1990s to Arlington, Oregon, where one of his daughters lived. He was called back to Cottage Grove in 1994 when he was the grand marshal for the Cottage Grove Rodeo.

It was the next year, February of 1995, when Perry or Roy died. Although he died at Arlington, his memorial service was held at Cottage Grove. As I had done enough family research by that time, I realized he was a cousin when I read his obituary in the newspaper. So I did attend his service and introduced myself to some of the family to let them know that we were related.

It seems a little sad that we can have relatives living in the same town and not realize it at the time. So again I had another connection to Cottage Grove and because of his interests it was a connection to the Cottage Grove Riding Club.