Notes
It's always fun when this photoblog connects us with someone from a far-flung corner of the world who has a personal tie to Hood River history. About a year ago a gentleman from Ireland contacted me with the story of his great aunt Ethel Rand. He explained she was the daughter of Ed J. and Luella (Turner) Rand, and was a talented photographer and musician. He wanted to share her photos of D.A. Turner and his wife Mandy with the photoblog. This week we'll get to see a grouping of her photos circa 1912.
We previously saw David Turner in this group of Hood River pioneers. In all the images of Turner in our collection he appears similarly grim and austere. Apparently these images didn't tell the real story. Ethel, we are told, was quite taken with her grandfather's sense of humor and musical ability, and her portraits let the David Turner she knew shine through.
Amanda "Mandy" Jane (Neal) Turner was the daughter of another founding couple of Hood River, Peter and Mahala Neal. Apparently the Turners were also friends of the Davidsons. One image in this series includes Charles Davidson and his daughter Ella May Davidson, who we believe is responsible for many of the images in the Davidson collection.
Category: [Downtown Hood River]
Tags: 1910s Rand_Ethel Turner_DA Turner_Mandy
Comments
Such a fun photo............No doubt summer, as he is "airing" his feet out. I would say this shows he has a sense of humor to allow himself to be photoed thus.
David Turner was 16 years older than his wife Mandy, and that does show in this photo. He married again after Mandy's death to Laura Emerett Frost.
Both David and Mandy are buried in Pine Grove Cemetery.
charlott on 24th March 2014 @ 7:16am
Did men wear long-johns year round? Maybe that's all they had back then.
ralph on 24th March 2014 @ 7:27am
Got a kick out of the long-johns with no socks. Used to wear that 100% canadian wool long-johns as it would keep you relatively warm even when soaking wet. Then when summer come it was like shedding your skin to take it off. Knew a lot of guys who wore it year around. Good for soaking up sweat and helped keep the devils club out of you. The good life.
Buzz on 24th March 2014 @ 7:44am
My grandpa wore his long johns all year around. Think, especially the older men did. I wonder what she has been gazing at through her binoculars?
charlott on 24th March 2014 @ 8:21am
I assume they had more than one pair of wool longjohns for hygienic reasons?
nels on 24th March 2014 @ 10:44am
Nels, there was a reason they were called timber beasts. 100% wool underwear wore out faster if you washed it and it would shrink up so bad that you couldn't wear it again anyway.
Buzz on 24th March 2014 @ 11:30am
Neat photo!
Do you have any idea where this home was located?
Did it look toward the Columbia River? Just wonder if that is the activity she is watching with her binoculars.
l.e. on 24th March 2014 @ 1:39pm
Holy moley Buzz. That's almost beyond my comprehension!
nels on 24th March 2014 @ 3:42pm
Are you sure this is Mandy Turner? She passed away on the farm, five miles south of HR in 1887.
In 1897 David Turner married Laura Frost. He sold the farm in 1902 and they moved into town.
There is a house at 411 12th street that was owned by David and Laura Turner. Constructed in 1907 and sold in 1911.
l.e. on 24th March 2014 @ 4:43pm
Maybe I have left you with the wrong impression Nels. We just wore it to work. Never washed work pants or shirts either. Sometimes if it was real muddy we would lay down in the creek and clean it up. Always took a shower and put on clean camp clothes before they would let us in the cookhouse.
Buzz on 24th March 2014 @ 5:05pm
Amanda Turner passed away in 1887 from tuberculosis. She and David had four children.
William, Roswell, Arthur and Luella.
Luella married Ed Rand. All three boys died in their twenties. It sounds like maybe they also died from tuberculosis. Two of them died in the same week in 1898.
l.e. on 24th March 2014 @ 5:10pm
Be careful Buzz, you will frighten the ladies away and they won't come to the HHR get together this summer.
A lot of laborers who work in the outdoor elements have winter underwear and summer underwear. The first few days after they shed their winter underwear,they will complain about being cold.
l.e. on 24th March 2014 @ 7:17pm
Oops, I believe l.e is correct. This cannot be Mandy as she died many years earlier. As you'll see in tomorrow's image the 1912 date is probably close to correct, so the presence of Mandy Turner is not. I'll correct the post later.
Arthur on 24th March 2014 @ 11:40pm
This house still remains on East 2 first house on the left as you go up the hill, you can see it has been remodeled
ellen on 27th July 2014 @ 10:37pm
this is my great great grandfather, d.a. turner with his second wife, laura.
tuberculosis killed mandy jane (neal) and then her three strapping sons. His daughter (with mandy) was my great grandmother luella turner (rand)-- the sole survivor of her generation. when she died her autopsy revealed scar tissue in her lungs. She had fought TB and beat it. Her son, My paternal grandfather
dewey rand, told me that TB devastated hood river county (then wasco county)
in them days- a man would go to a grange dance, where men chewed tobacco and spit on the floor: go home, take off their boots, rub their face, and go to bed.
warren rand on 28th May 2016 @ 7:09am
The Hood River Glacier, Hood River, OR., February 14, 1896, page 3
"Brief Local Matters"
Mr. D.A. Turner, who buried in his son Mason Thursday of last week, now mourns the loss of another son. When Mr. Turner and friends of the family returned from the funeral of Mason, his eldest son, Warren, who has been afflicted with consumption, passed quietly away.
L.E. on 16th February 2017 @ 8:43pm