St. Paul Mission Historical Society
P.O. Box 158
St. Paul, Oregon 97137
Fall 2015
St. Paul Mission Historical Society Newsletter
Mission of Organization: Preservation of the history of early Oregon and the French Prairie region
of the Willamette Valley. Preservation includes establishment of a historical trust for artifacts,
written and spoken history of the St. Paul and French Prairie area, and publication of historical
records of early Oregon.
We hope you enjoy the Fall 2015 edition of the St. Paul Mission Historical Society (SPMHS)
newsletter. We welcome your suggestions for future articles. Please feel free to contact any of
the board members with your comments and suggestions.
Greetings To All Our Members
The Annual Meeting of the St. Paul Mission Historical Society will be held on Sunday, October 18,
2015 at 11:30 a.m. at the St. Paul Fire District office located in St. Paul. A light brunch will be
provided at no charge. In order to provide an accurate head count, please RSVP to
mernst@mtangel.net or 503.845.6208 and leave a message.
On the agenda will be the Society’s annual elections. If you are interested in serving on the
board, please contact Jean Abderhalden at jeanfrank@stpaultel.com. Three Board positions are
open for nominations and they are:
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Jean Abderhalden (President) – 2015
Gertrude Jette (Treasurer) – 2015
Gerry Lenzen (Vice President) – 2015
Maureen Ernst (Secretary) – 2016
George Strawn – 2016
Monsignor Gregory Moys – 2016
Steven Koch - 2016
Dr. David Brauner – 2017
Don Koch – 2017
Miguel Salinas - 2017
Hunter Wylie – 2017
Claudine Smith Lake - 2017
Rosella McKay – Past President
WELCOME NEW BOARD MEMBERS –The SPMHS welcomes new board members Claudine
Smith Lake – “I was born to James and Carol Merten Smith in 1946. I was educated in St. Paul
school, Sacred Heart, Oregon State, and graduated from Mt. Angel College. My majors were
Psychology and Sociology, and my minors were English and Theatre Dance. Les and I raised our
children in Gervais, Oregon in the old Goulet house at Hopmere”, says Claudine.
“Over the years, I always worked from the home, as I had four children in five years. I spent 23
years as a proctor parent for Catholic Community Services and later Oregon Youth Authority. I
retired in 2009 and we rented out our house and bought a house in St. Paul. My interest in St.
Paul history and Oregon history was instilled by my parents, though I hadn't paid much attention
to it until I returned to St. Paul. The decision to return to St. Paul was fortunate, as I love living
in this town again. Currently, I am involved with uploading old St. Paul historical pictures to
Facebook, remodeling our house, playing a lot of bridge, and walking my English bulldog, and
recently joined the St. Paul Historical Society. I am loving life!”
Steven E. Koch, PLS, FASLA is the Principal of Koch Landscape Architecture and a Pacific
Northwest native with 25 years of professional experience. Nationally recognized for his artistic,
sculptural and sustainable solutions to design issues, Steven’s designs have impacted the success
of urban revitalization.
Steven is the current owner and steward of the William Case House 1858-59 restored by Wallace
Kay Huntington and Mirza Dickel. Steven has lived in the Case House since 2013 when Wallace
returned to the Portland after the death of his wife Mirza in 2012. The 3 acre formal garden
designed by Wallace over the course of 36 years remains intact as part of Wallace’s personal
legacy. Wallace died in March of 2015 and is buried next to Mirza in the Champoeg Cemetery.
Steven’s interest in the French Prairie stems from his family ties linking him to many familiar
names in the region. His interest in history is demonstrated thru being a co-founder of the Halprin
Landscape Conservancy in Portland and his participation in The Cultural Landscape Foundation
based in Washington DC.
GUEST SPEAKERS – Cayla Hill and Maryanne F. Maddoux
Title: The Expansion of Catholicism: An Archaeological Exploration
of St. Joseph's College, the First Catholic Boarding School for Boys
within the Oregon Territory.
My thesis and the topic to be discussed within this presentation is
concentrated on a previously excavated archaeological collection
from the site of St. Joseph’s College, located in St. Paul, Oregon,
the first Catholic mission to be established within the Oregon
Territory. I am now a part of the PhD program at Oregon State
University with my research continuing to focus on French Prairie
and the development of the Oregon Territory during the
nineteenth-century.
Editor’s Note: The site of St. Joseph’s College is located across from St. Paul High School
right next to Faber Road.
Cayla Hill
Bio: Since 2011, I have been working with Dr. David Brauner, and have completed archaeological fieldwork
at the Robert Newell homestead site, as well as Fort Yamhill, and will soon be working at Fort Hoskins. This
past December, I finished my Master’s degree in the Applied Anthropology program, with a focus on
Historical Archaeology, at Oregon State University.
Reconstructing Oregon’s History: The Harriet D.
Munnick Collection By: Maryanne F. Maddoux
Harriet D. Munnick devoted a lifetime to diligently researching and recording a diverse
multitude of St. Paul Oregon’s history. The information that she collected has helped to compile
Oregon’s early Catholic Church records, locate land claims and homesteads, and retrace family
lineages. Mrs. Munnick spent much of her free-time walking through French Prairie’s farm fields
searching for ceramics, performing archival research in Portland and Vancouver, or conducting
interviews with local residents. In addition to this research, Mrs. Munnick maintained
correspondence with relatives of St. Paul’s early settlers. Her fascination with Oregon’s history
resulted in a large collection of artifacts and archival materials that range from personal
interviews to ceramic shards, some of which date back to the early 1800s. Mrs. Munnick (1972)
utilized this information to write the multi-volume collection, “The Catholic Church Records of the
Pacific Northwest” in addition to, “Priest's Progress: The Journey of Francis Norbert Blanchet from
the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific in Three Parishes”. Although, Mrs. Munnick was able to publish
many books, the vast majority of her research remains unpublished to this day.
While working with the St. Paul Mission Historical Society over the past two years, I have
continued curating the Harriet D. Munnick collection. The collection consists of an abundance of
filing cabinets and bankers file boxes filled with archival materials. Oregon State University
historical archaeology students have been curating the collection for some time, digitally archiving
the irreplaceable materials collected by Mrs. Munnick. All of the photographs, documents, and
books in the collection are curated. This includes cataloging, scanning, and uploading each
individual item into Past Perfect archival software. This process ensures that archival materials
are preserved both digitally and physically, for future generations to utilize.
Curating Mrs. Munnick’s archives is like taking a journey back in time. Her research took
place in a time when the internet was not used, and information was not readily available or
easily accessible. Mrs. Munnick’s handwritten notes are often found accompanying the original
photographs, documents, and artifacts. She maintained thousands of handwritten 3 x 5 file cards
that include such details as; personal accounts of the flood of 1861, family lineages dating back to
General Sheridan, and correspondence detailing everyday life in the Oregon Territory.
Given the ease of genealogical software and internet search engines today, it is difficult to
grasp the enormous task that Mrs. Munnick undertook while attempting to publish Oregon’s early
Catholic Church records, as well as, the histories of the State’s early settlers. Many of French
Prairie’s occupants were illiterate and had to rely on the courtesy of clergy or strangers to record
their histories and maintain long distance family ties. This often led to the misspelling of names
and the general confusion of dates. One such family recorded in Mrs. Munnick’s notes has two
different spellings for their last name that are used interchangeably. The total family lineage is so
large that it takes up over 25 index cards. Each generation had a tendency to name their children
after the prior generation’s family members. This led to multiple individuals with the same name.
Without accurate dates or spellings many researchers would have abandoned the project.
Contrarily, Mrs. Munnick diligently tracked down additional information and was able to form a
detailed and accurate family lineage.
Although, much of the information in the collection remains unpublished, there is a wealth
of knowledge found in Mrs. Munnick’s research boxes and books. Once the materials are
uploaded into Past Perfect, they will become available for genealogical and historical research.
Furthermore, Mrs. Munnick’s collection, in combination with the artifact collections of Helen Austin
and Joseph McKay, will supply additional information for many long forgotten chapters of
Oregon’s History.
About the author: I graduated from Oregon State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in
Anthropology in 2012. While an undergraduate, I attended the 2011 Oregon State University (OSU) Field
School at Champoeg State Park under the direction of Dr. David Brauner. Over the last few years I have
worked as an intern for the St. Paul Mission Historical Society, performed archaeological fieldwork for a local
cultural resource management firm, volunteered in the archaeological lab at Fort Vancouver, and I oversaw
the lab at the 2014 OSU Champoeg Field School. The focus of my research pertains to the settlement of
the Oregon Territory during the 1800s. My Master’s thesis is an examination of archaeological excavations
conducted at a Chinese laundry in The Dalles, Oregon. I am completing my Master’s degree in Applied
Anthropology and I have been accepted into the PhD program at OSU.
2015 ACTIVITIES: Board members will report on activities this past year.
GRANTS: In 2015, we were awarded a grant from the Helen E. Austin Pioneer Fund of The
Oregon Community Foundation. The grant is allowing SPMHS to use Oregon State University
graduate students to index, digitize and catalog all of the material in the PastPerfect database.
More than 6000 photos are being researched and documented - this is a very time consuming and
labor intensive project. This work is being done under the teaching guidance of Dr. David Brauner
at the OSU Historical Archaeology Lab.
This year, the grant will allow us to use OSU Interns to scan the vast collection of handwritten
letters and documents dating from the early 1800 settlers. Scanning the documents allows us to
preserve the fragile written documents and then post on the website.
Our SPMHS website allows visitors to research all collections. The website is at www.spmhs.org.
We are now receiving requests for copies of photos and documents from website visitors. Future
work includes customer’s being able to order photos or documents on-line and responding to
history/research worldwide.
The website provides query abilities to retrieve documents, photographs and artifact photos. In
addition to the searchable database, there are sections of the website dealing with genealogy and
another with accessing Donation Land Claim Maps for St Paul and French Prairie from the
University of Oregon. Our hope is to convey the true spirit and character of the life of early
Oregon settlers.
We are working with the Friends of Historic Champoeg to include their information on the SPMHS
website.
We have OSU interns that are working on the family diaries. They have created new interest and
energy with other OSU interns. We are confident that the OSU research is in capable hands this
coming year.
We are very grateful to the Helen E. Austin Pioneer Family for allowing us to continue our
research and preservation of French Prairie History. In 1976, Helen Austin, Catherine Zorn, and
Joe & Rosella McKay formed the SPMHS. These community leaders recognized the importance of
preserving history that included valuable documents and artifacts. And, preservation continues to
the next generation!
WEBSITE www.spmhs.com : New! The website has been updated and now includes Facebook!
New! We are receiving lots of interest in our photo collection and historical reference directory so
the photos are now easier to locate. People are interested in studying their genealogy and the
website is a great place to start your searches! New! Noted Genealogist Connie Lenzen is writing
“French Prairie Pioneer Biographies”.
Connie is certified by the Board for Certification of Genealogists and a past president of that organization.
She has served as a National Genealogical Society Director (NGS). She authored the NGS Research in the
States guide, “Research in Oregon” and has written articles for the award-winning NGS Quarterly. She
authored the “Twentieth-Century Research” course for the National Institute of Genealogical Studies (NIGS)
DUES: Lastly, it’s time for our annual dues drive. Below is a membership application form.
Simply complete and return it with your annual dues. If you are LIFE MEMBER OR BENEFACTOR,
please update your membership information so we can keep our files current. Many of our Life
Members continue to donate to the society and we thank you for your support. Our sincere
thanks to all of our members for supporting Oregon history. If you would like to contribute
to the restoration of our museums, your additional donation would be greatly appreciated. See
you on October 18 at 11:30 a.m.
Maureen Ernst
Secretary & Board of Director
e-mail: mernst@mtangel.net
Evenings: 503.845.6208
----------------------------------------------------Name: ________________________________________________
Address:_______________________________________________
City: ____________________ State: _______________ Zip:______
Phone: ______________________________
Email Address: ______________________________________________
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Individual: $15
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Senior: $10
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Family: $25
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Supporting: $75
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Corporate: $200
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Benefactor or Individual Life: $500
St. Paul Mission Historical Society, P.O. Box 158, St. Paul, OR 97137. Thank you!!