Category Archives: Let’s Talk About

Let’s Talk About: Balloons Bomb Oregon?

by Donna Phillips

In the last desperate year of WWII, the Japanese attacked the American continent with thousands of large balloons carrying bombs. 

Using the newly discovered Jet Stream, the first such weapon was  launched from Honshu, directly beneath the Jet Stream, on 3 Nov 1944. U.S. officials at first thought the balloons were errant weather balloons. Between that November and the following July, some 9000 bombs were launched and 268 of them making it to North America. 

Imagine! These balloons were constructed by Japanese school children to paste together paper balloons in seven factories near Tokyo. By 1944, Japan was suffering acute wartime material shortages. 

The only American fatalities were the Mitchell family. On Sunday, May 5, 1945, the Rev. Archie Mitchell and his pregnant wife, Elsie, were taking five of their Sunday School students on a picnic near their home in Bly, Oregon. As Mitchell was parking his car, he heard his wife call out: “Look what we found! It looks like some kind of balloon!” Before Mitchell could warn his wife to keep away, the bomb went off. Elsie and four boys were instantly killed and one girl died later from her injuries. The above image is of a memorial to those dear Americans.

The really sad part of this tale is that the War Department had known about these balloons since December, 1944, but had its Office of Censorship keep information out of the news in order not to cause panic. That press blackout was lifted o May 22 in an effort to prevent further injuries or deaths. 

Sources: Charles Apple’s Further Review in The Spokesman Review newspaper, 4 May 2025;  The Pacific Northwesterner, Summer 1976, article by Randall A. Johnson: image from Wikipedia. 

Let’s Talk About: U.S.-Canada Border Crossings

by Donna Phillips


Ever find a brand new pencil in your desk or cupboard? Looking at it, you wonder where on earth did I pick up this pencil???? So it was with this pencil. Brand new, never sharpened. But it did sprout the idea of a blog to share with you!

According to the Ancestry Family History Learning Hub: The U.S. and Canada share the longest international border in the world with its 5525 miles stretching from Maine to Alaska. The Alaska portion of the border is 1538 miles long! Today, the 120 land ports of entry are busy as folks regularly cross the border for work, to visit family and to vacation. 

The U.S.-Canada border as we know it today only dates back to 1903. It formed as a result of centuries of colonization, war, revolution and land acquisition through treaties with Indigenous peoples as well as through diplomacy. (Dave Obee, www.CanGenealogy.com, gave a great presentation to EWGS couple of years ago on how often ancestors went back-and-forth across the Washington-Alberta-British Columbia border.) If your ancestor lived in either country near the border you might realize this and research accordingly.

Despite all of the conflict surrounding the border, the U.S. and Canada have often worked together to build roads, bridges and canals along it to streamline trade and the movement of people. The earliest cross-border infrastructure projects were in the east…. Niagara Falls, NY, and Albans, Vermont, to name two. The iconic Peace Arch crossing sits between Seattle and Vancouver. Our Washington shares 427 miles of border with British Columbia and has 13 border crossing stations.

My son and dau-in-love (yes!) regularly transverse the Oroville-Osoyoos crossing. Perhaps they picked up that mystery pencil??????

Let’s Talk About: Mourning Rings

by Donna Phillips

Have you a mourning ring in an ancestor’s memorial box? Have you ever heard of mourning rings? Mourning Rings were (and sometimes still are) jewelry worn to remember someone who has died. Such rings ran the gamut from plain bands to diamond studded. 

Mourning rings of yore were engraved with the person’s name and death date and might have contained a hand-painted image or lock of hair. Today, they might have a tiny box for ashes. The tradition of mourning rings dates to ancient times although they gained popularity during the Victorian era. 

The article I was reading gave several examples of metal-detector folks have found such treasures buried in the sand or under a house. 

“If you think one of your ancestors may have had a mourning ring, we recommend searching their last name and the keyword “mourning ring” on the Newspapers.com homepage.”

(Found this in the official blog of Newspapers.com; bit penned by Jenny Ashcraft, 8 Oct 2024.)

Let’s Talk About: Washington Digital Newspapers

by Donna Phillips

Bet you’ve searched online newspapers at the several websites offering such. But did you know that there is a website devoted to our very own state newspapers?? Here’s the fine print in the image: Washington Digital Newspapers brings together over 600,000 pages from Washington’s earliest Territorial newspapers to the present day, freely accessible to the public. And this collection continues to expand! Clicking to the website, you can search by title, by date or by subject.
When I first learned of this resource back in February 2025, I did a search for the surname PHILLIPS, 1900-1960, and got 43,186 hits!  For the surname OSWALD, 3996 hits! For Fort George Wright, 12, 690 hits! 


If you have ancestors, direct line or collateral, and they lived and worked in the Evergreen State, do check out this resource. 

Remember I’ve taught you always: If it’s free, take two! 🙂 

Let’s Talk About: Vinegar Flats in Spokane

by Donna Phillips


Vinegar Flats – The Keller-Lorenz Vinegar WorksJesse Tinsley crafts a Then And Now column in The Spokesman-Review daily newspaper in Spokane. This bit comes from one of his insightful columns:


In an area that was once a seasonal village of Spokane Indians along Latah Creek, a neighborhood was platted in 1888. It became known as Vinegar Flats because of the tangy aroma from a vinegar production plant that opened in 1889……. The Keller-Lorenz Vinegar Company made cider and vinegar and sold the product to stores in bottles or to wholesalers in barrels…. the company grew rapidly and in 1912 the company used 15,000 tons of apples from Spokane’s orchards to make 225,000 gallons of cider and 5,000 gallons of vinegar…. their two primary products were pickling vinegar, made from barley malt and molasses, and apple vinegar which starts as cider…… eight men worked full time at the plant with up to 14 more added seasonally….. 

“When the factory began operations in 1890, vinegar was especially important for the preservation of a variety of foods. In an era before household refrigeration, pickling in vinegar was a common method of preserving fruits and vegetables. The Vinegar Works operated in the three-story building at 11th Avenue and Spruce Street until 1958 producing cider, malt, and white wine vinegar. It wasn’t until the 1930s that refrigerators became commonplace and the need for pickling foods became less important. This new era of both commercial and domestic refrigeration, coupled with better roads for transportation, meant that factories like the Keller -Lorenz Vinegar Works eventually went out of business.”

 Next time you drive south to Pullman from Spokane on Hwy 195, sniff the air. It just might smell a bit tangy still. 

Let’s Talk About: Roxanne Lowe: A Gem Among Us!

by Donna Phillips

Roxanne Lowe is a world traveler; here she is in Switzerland. I know she’s also been to Cuba and several other wonderful places. 
Roxanne lives in McCleary which is west of Olympia a tad bit. She’s been active with the WA State Gen Soc for nearly 20 years and continues to inspire, share and teach us. Short while ago she offered a multi-page handout of FREE GENEALOGY-RELATED INTERNET SITES. Now she offers it again to all of us; here’s the link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ReR_ur57ODbfbp0phtGj_ugocSYoX2F-/view?usp=drive_link

If you’d like to refresh your memory or learn more about Roxanne, she offered a snippet-autobiography to the WSGS Blog on 21 June 2023…. complete with her 3-yr-old pix!


Summer suggestion: On a hot day when you’re already sunned-out, have this handout handy (with lemonade!) and have some researching fun!

Let’s Talk About: Fidalgo Island Pioneer’s 1923 Obit

by Donna Phillips

This Washington-Pioneer-History-Tidbit comes from the Anacortes American, April 19, 1923. Titled “First Fidalgo Settler Buried,” I have excerpted portions from the long (and most interesting) obituary for you.

Charles W. Beale, the first white settler of Fidalgo Island was buried in the Fern Hill Cemetery where he had hunted deer over 65 years ago. Capt. Beale was the oldest living pioneer of the county and six past presidents of the Skagit County Pioneer Assn were pallbearers. 

Mr. Beale is survived by four sons and three daughters; his home was in Anacortes. He was a Virginian and stricken with gold fever crossed the plans by ox team in 1851 landing in Sacramento. He drove a team there for five years and then in 1856 headed out overland to the Fraser River gold diggings. Instead of washing gold, he became a river steamboat captain. While making a trip to Whatcom in a flatboat, he was wrecked and forced some frightened Indians at gunpoint to paddle him to Fidalgo. In 1862 Beale went to the Cariboe (sic) and when he returned in 1866 he found that his claim had been sold. He took up another claim, built his cabin and stayed.

Capt. Beale sometimes told of an experience in the winter of 1859 when the snow was deep and food was scarce and the six settlers on the bay had little to eat save what their rifles brought them. Beale had shot a deep on the slopes of Mt. Erie and packed it on his back out through deep snow and the jungles (sic) to what is now Weaverling’s Spit where his fellow settlers were to meet him with a canoe and take him and any possible game across the bay to the cabins. But the canoe was not there. Night came on and wolves, great gaunt grey fellows, followed his trail through the snow by drops of blood. Beale was compelled to wade out into the water to get away from the wolves bearing the deer carcass with him. In deadly cold water he stood until finally a canoe appeared. 

The Beale children were: Capt. Charles, Jr., John R., George C., Frank D., Mrs. A.O. Clem, Mrs. Lacretia Monroe, Mrs. Emma Laborte. I wonder if any descendants of this Fidalgo Island pioneer are still in the area????

Let’s Talk About: Bison or Buffalo?

by Donna Phillips


Buffalo or Bison? Which do we have in the American West?

I recently taught a lesson to my 11yo and 7yo great-grandkids on this subject. We have BISON in America. Bison have humps, shorter horns, live on the prairies  and are ill-tempered. BUFFALO live in the wetlands of Asia and Africa, have long broad horns and are more mild-mannered, and so in Asia have been domesticated by man. 

Did you know: Male bison an weight up to 2000 pounds and stand 6′ tall. (And we see videos posted on YouTube of stupid tourists in Yellowstone trying to pet a bison and getting gored.) Females are slightly smaller. Bison calves weigh 30-70 pounds at birth. 

American bison are a keystone species that provide many benefits to other animals and the land. Their manure and grazing patterns increase the amount of nitrogen to prairie plants which facilitates plant growth giving habitat to nesting birds. Thick bison fur catches and disperses native seeds. Bison wallows, where the animals roll and scuffle, create specialized habitats for plants and capture moisture. Using their big heads as plows, bison push through deep snow creating paths for other animals such as elk and antelope. 

Bison are the official mammal of America and also the states of Wyoming, Kansas and Oklahoma. But the history of the American bison is full of a lack of appreciation. Long ago, the continent held an estimated 40,000,000 bison. Then came hunting and by 1884 the official estimate of remaining wild bison was a mere 325.

There are volumes more to the full story and there are many books written on the subject of the history of the American bison. Want a good read? 

P.S. Did you catch the phrase “keystone species?” Google that phrase for some really interesting knowledge. 

(Thanks to the North Columbia Monthly, Dec 2024, for this story.)

Let’s Talk About: Remembering Mt.St.Helens

by Donna Phillips


If you were living in Washington on Sunday, May 18, 1980, do you remember what you were doing? I was walking to church on that sunny day and remember hearing what I thought was a sonic boom. (Fairchild AFB is just west of town.) An hour later, I fled home and was among thousands of Washingtonians wondering WHAT IN THE WORLD IS HAPPENING?

At 8:32 that morning, Mt. St. Helens erupted as the result of an earthquake measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale. Here’s what happened:

  • Eruption lasted 9 hours
  • Nearly 230 square miles of forest were destroyed
  • The explosion blew a crater 1968.5 feet deep and almost 1 1/2 miles wide from rim to rim on the mountain’s face
  • The speed of the subsequent landslide was estimated to be between 70 and 150 mph
  • As much as 600 feet of debris were deposited in the nearby North Fork Toutle River
  • An estimated 7000 big game animals were killed in the blast
  • An estimated 12 million chinook and coho fingerlings and 40,000 young salmon were destroyed
  • 60 people living near the mountain were killed

I remember gathering my family close, including my future son-in-law. I remember them playing RISK for hours. I remember waking up Monday and Tuesday morning to everything coated with white ash….. and nobody knew how dangerous it might be to breathe or to our cars. Spokane, among many eastern Washington cities, stood in shocked stillness. 

Now, 45 years later, we still see white streaks in the banks along I-90 when we head west. And I wonder how many baby girls born that day were named Helen or Ashley???
Will Mt. St. Helens blow again? She is considered the volcano in the Cascades most likely to erupt again in our lifetimes,  and scientists expect it to erupt again though the timing and magnitude are uncertain. (So says Google.)