The Dalles Public Library
722 Court Street, The Dalles, Wasco County, Oregon.
What would I find in here?
Photograph by Patti Alden October 7, 2025
It has been quite awhile since I have posted! I took a long, much needed break from writing. My last post was February of 2025 and since then our spring and summer was full of cross country travel and spending time with family far and near. I am back home and ready to put things down on paper (or out in the blogosphere) and share what I've recently discovered about my great grandfather, Josiah Thomas Boothby.
I specially planned our last camping trip of the year to help me jumpstart my Boothby research again. It was a wonderful fall trip up US 97 to the Columbia River area in central Oregon. We drove north from Reno through pines and yellow aspens and then continued north to the flood basalts of the Columbia Plateau. As far as the eye could see were fallow wheat fields dotted with towering wind turbines.
istockphoto
The Columbia River looking east from the Maryhill Museum of Art. The Sam Hill Memorial Bridge crosses from Oregon to Washington state on US 97. If you look closely, you can see the wind turbines on the top of the plateau.
Photograph by Patti Alden
October 10, 2025
We made our way down through the canyons to the great Columbia River and stayed in Maryhill, on the Washington side of the river.
The Columbia River, Mt. Hood, vineyards and orchards looking west from the Maryhill Stonehenge Memorial, Maryhill, Washington.
Photograph by Patti Alden October 5, 2025
In addition to exploring the area, I wanted to do some archival searches for any information on the death of Josiah Boothby in 1915. I knew very little of why he died or where he was buried. Several side trips took us to The Dalles Library, the Sherman County Historical Museum in Moro, and short visits to Grass Valley and Kent where the Boothbys and the Horners farmed wheat. I met some lovely people who were more than willing to share their knowledge of the area with me. More importantly, I think I gained a true sense of place while we drove through endless miles of wheat fields and passed old homesteads still standing from the turn of the century. If you removed the wind turbines, the landscape would have looked much the same as it did in the early 1900's! We followed the same routes my great grandparents took while living in the area as we drove through the gorge on I-84 heading west to The Dalles from the Sherman Highway on 97 and east towards Rufus.
Google Maps
Lillie Mae Hayman Horner Boothby and Josiah Thomas Boothby. This photograph was taken before the fall of 1915 as Josiah passed away on October 11 in Portland Oregon. He was 59 years old.
Photograph in our family collection.
I previously posted about Josiah's life in 2021 and what I knew about him. Since then, I have done extensive online searches looking for a death certificate to find out what kind of cancer he had or any record of where he might have been buried. The only clues I had to go on were from several online obituaries that stated Josiah had gone to Portland for an operation for cancer and died there. His funeral services were held at the Christian Church in The Dalles. I was having no luck finding anything new on the internet.
I have often wondered what brought Lillie Mae and Josiah to this part of Oregon. They were in Lexington and Heppner working as wheat farmers in 1898 and through the 1900 census. By 1907 they were in Kent where my grandfather Sterl was born. They may have moved because of the damage caused by the Heppner flood in 1903 or after the death of his father Josiah Stewart in 1905. Josiah Thomas leased land in Grass Valley owned by O.P. King and farmed wheat there until his death in 1915.
"Our combine at Grass Valley 1911"
From Sterl Boothby's Photograph Album
I had so many missing pieces to Josiah's story that I needed to fill in. My trip to the library was the first step.
From my online searches I discovered The Dalles Public Library had a genealogy and local history section. So, after a morning spent visiting apple orchards near Hood River, we drove through the town of The Dalles for a bit and then stopped at the library before heading back to Maryhill. I found the genealogy section towards the back of the library and began going through the card catalog.......
Within a very few minutes I had my answers! My great grandfather went to Portland for an operation for stomach cancer and died during the procedure. His funeral was held in The Dalles and he was buried in the IOOF Cemetery. I had filled in two important blanks in his life in the span of about 20 minutes. Someone at some point had transcribed these two newspaper obituaries and added them to the card catalog. The newspapers were on microfilm (and not on Newspapers.com) but because of these transcriptions I did not need to spend time looking in a different section of the library. I am so thankful!
Guess where we headed next....
IOOF Cemetery
Cherry Heights Road
The Dalles Oregon
Find A Grave image
Part 2 coming soon!
Relationship Reference: Me->Dale Richard Boothby->Sterl Kenneth Boothby->Josiah Thomas Boothby->Josiah Stewart Boothby
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