1. IRMA HARRY told as told in 1982

T. Ralph Harry and Irma Wilson
Voice of Irma Genevieve Wilson Harry
As told in 1982
By Evelyn Harry

I have been a widow for more that fifteen years but I can remember my life with Ralph as if it were yesterday. We had almost 40 years together. Ralph was born on July 12, 1903 in Marshfield, Oregon and he died November 2, 1966 in Portland. He was sixty-three years old. We had a lot of plans for traveling when he retired. We had even bought a big new Impala station wagon so we could pull a trailer house around the country. I drove that car for many years. My husband’s name was Thomas Ralph Harry and he was the youngest son of Even Neva and Phoebe Ann Turner Harry. He signed his name T. Ralph Harry. I don’t quite know why he never went by the Thomas name, but he always went by ‘Ralph’.

My name is Irma Genevieve Wilson Harry. That is Irma with an “I” not an “E”. I was born on July 16, 1905 in the little town of Bridge, Oregon. Bridge and Marshfield are both in Coos County. My parents are Maude and Aaron Wilson. My name is Irma but all over this neighborhood I go by ‘Grandma’ because I volunteer in my son Dick’s kindergarten class at Sabin, the neighborhood school, and all the kids over there call me Grandma Harry. I am pretty proud of the plaque that the Parent Teacher Association of Portland gave me recently which named me as the Volunteer of the Year in the Portland schools.

Ralph and I met in high school, but I was two years behind him in school. He finished his freshman year at Oregon State College. His sister Wanda and brother Alva were going to pay his way through college, but after he finished one year he decided to go to work instead. Ralph and I were married in Coquille, on April 13, 1926. Our early years of marriage were during the Great Depression of the 1930’s. Ralph was very industrious and always had a job, life was not easy but I think it was not as difficult for us as it might have been for some people. When we were on the farm we had food which we grew. We both had lots of family in the area.

(to be continued)