100 Years Ago

For the week ending November 12, 1922

Seven Women Called For Jury Duty

Deschutes county women batted a thousand in declining to do jury duty at the coming term of circuit court. Seven were subpoenaed, and seven signed the neat printed forms of refusal which the sheriff’s office furnishes. Unless other women who may decide to serve are drawn to fill their places on the regular venire, decisions on cases at the November term will be strictly from the masculine viewpoint.

Clara L. Livesay of Tumalo, Maida Bailey of Sisters, and Mrs. Sarah Hodge, Mrs. Clyde McKay, Mrs. C.P. Niswonger, Mrs. Paul Hosmer and Mrs. Alice C. Foley, all of Bend, all pleaded the exemption allowed by law.

Deschutes county has yet to see its first woman juror. At the last spring term of court when the law became operative, many were called, but only one was willing to aid in trying a case. The one, Mrs. J.F. Arnold, failed to qualify when examined as a prospective juror in the A.J. Weston murder trial.

Start Fund To Build Library

The nucleus of a fund which may eventually be used in financing a county library building is made up of the $400.05 which was cleared by the library association on the annual Hallowe’en ball last week, and $100 which remained from the receipts of the dance a year ago, it was announced today by Mrs. R.S. Dart of the dance committee.

Previous to last year the money so obtained was used in buying furniture and for similar purposes. Since the library was moved to its present quarters in the Ellis building, it has been found possible to save some of this money for a building fun.

Mayor Offers To Resign On Basis Of Vote

Because of the small vote cast for him in Tuesday’s election, Mayor E. D. Gilson, in a special secret session of the Bend council held shortly before noon today in his offices in the O’Kane building, offered to resign as city executive. He was urged to reconsider, and at the close of the meeting had not stated definitely what his course would be. The closed session was protested against by Councilman C.J. Leverett, from whom the report on the mayor’s offer was obtained, the councilman’s objection coming when a Bulletin reporter was denied admission to the room.

Deschutes Netted Gems Win First Prize

Deschutes county Netted Gem potatoes won first place in their class and the sweepstakes among potatoes displayed at the Pacific International Livestock exposition in Portland. The Deschutes county display of 10 specimens of Netted Gem potatoes took second place in their class.

75 Years AgoFor the week ending November 12, 1947

Doctor Honored For 25 Years of Service With Bend Teams

More than 25 years ago, a new doctor in Bend noted that many of Bend high school’s football players were not taking care of their injuries. Cuts and sprains often went unattended and developed into more serious troubles that sometimes kept players on the bench in crucial games.

The new doctor was Dr. R.W. Hendershott, who will be honored at tomorrow afternoon’s football game between Bend and Klamath Falls.

Not long after his arrival he started treating the team’s minor injuries and making more seriously injured boys report to their family doctors. It was not long until the boys started looking around for “Doc” as soon as anything was wrong.

Dr. Hendershott came to Bend on July 17, 1917, planning to stay here just three years and then move onto some larger field. The three yeas passed, then ten, twenty and in July, 1947, Dr. Hendershott had been in Bend for 30 years.

He is unable to recall just when he became “team physician” for the Lava Bears, but it was some time in his first five years in Bend.

Dr. Hendershott has probably seen more Bend high school football games than any other person in the city. He started traveling with the team in the 1920’s and has missed few football trips since that time. At home games he is often on the bench with the players. This year he has missed only one game.

His long service to Bend high school teams is being recognized tomorrow, which has been designated as “Dr. Hendershott” day. He has been elected a lifelong member of the Bend high school Lettermen’s club.

Wickiup Building Bids Are Called

Bids for the removal of 23 buildings from the former CCC Camp Wickiup on the upper Deschutes river will be opened on November 24 at the bureau of reclamation office in Bend. The buildings are to be removed from the reservoir site to make way for heavy storage of water in the 180,000 acre foot Wickiup reservoir this winter and next spring.

Bidders may submit bids for any or all of the buildings and will have to have them removed from the site within 50 days after they are awarded. The persons removing the buildings will clear all scrap, litter and timber foundations. The bid price for the buildings will include all installed electrical, ventilation and other fixtures.

The buildings offered include the supply building, infirmary, canteen, education building, five service headquarters buildings, kitchen and mess hall, tow storage garages, repair shop, blacksmith shop, tool building, office building, two heater houses, office building, two generator houses, a barn and a chicken house.

Work On Arnold Project Started

Replacement work on 4,100 feet of the Arnold Irrigation district flume on the east side of the Deschutes river above Bend has been started with work to be rushed to completion before the beginning of the irrigation season next spring.

The work is being done under the provisions of an emergency appropriation made at the last session of congress. The bureau of reclamation was allotted $100,000 for the job. It is estimated, however, that the total cost will exceed that figure, probably reaching about $150,000.

Bureau of reclamation crews and equipment are at work dismantling the old flume, clearing ground and preparing the site for the new flume. The new flume will be of metal, supported by creosoted fir timbers and will be built somewhat closer to the canyon wall of the Deschutes than the old structure. The flume, with a capacity of 120 cubic feet per second, carries water from a diversion point on the Deschutes river along the canyon wall and to the top, where it enters the canal leading to the Arnold district lands.

50 Years AgoFor the week ending November 12, 1972

Breezeway mannequin stolen

Bend City Police were looking today for a store mannequin dressed in yellow ski pants, a turtleneck sweater and a light jacket. The mannequin is missing from a Wetle’s Department Store display in the breezeway between the Mirror Pond parking lot and Wall Street.

Although the display window was broken last night and other merchandise was scattered around, police suspect the dummy didn’t come to life and escape by itself. They found half a brick inside the display case.

Jack Wetle, owner of the store at 869 Wall St., told the Bulletin this morning that he lost less than $100 in merchandise.

Redmond girls sink Bend

With all the clamor in the Bend gym yesterday, basketball season seemed to be off and running. But a closer look revealed that volleyball was on tap.

The Bend and Redmond girls’ volleyball squads met in a three-game set to send the winning team to the state playoffs. Redmond won the final game 15-5, earning the trip to the state competition. The state meet is slated for Portland State Nov. 18.

Redmond’s starting lineup is Lee Anne Trachsel, Linda Bergstrom, Cindee Braymen, Margaret Sturza, Shelly Perillo and Julie Bratten.

The games themselves certainly didn’t really resemble basketball. The court-splitting net and referee Volney Sigmund standing on a gymnastics bench, not to mention players that would catch any girl-watcher’s eye, all exposed the event as volleyball.

But the crowd was a different story. With half the lower bleachers down for the game, the crowd overflowed along the endline. The fans were just observers in the first game as Redmond jumped out to an early lead and hung on for the 15-7 win.

But they really came to life in the second contest. The noise erupted from both the Bend and Redmond sides of the gym, and got louder as the match progressed.

The girls on the court seemed to appreciate the interest, and started doing everything but climb the net to keep the volley’s going. Diving to the floor and bouncing off walls (and each other) became common practice.

The Panthers fought just as hard as Bend, but were constantly stung by ball-hitting violations. The bears won the second contest, 15-10, but the final game was no contest.

Redmond ran up an 11-3 lead and although the teams traded serves right to the end, keeping Bend hopes alive, the Bears had to far to go. The final 15-5 score gave Redmond the all-important win.

25 Years AgoFor the week ending November 12, 1997

Sky was the limit for WW2 vet

It was 1943, Blanch Osborn was a 27-year-old single woman from Eugene who’d move to Klamath Falls to work and learn to fly at her brother-in-law’s flight school.

World War II was at its height; pilots from around the country were being trained and shipped overseas for combat duty. Soon there weren’t enough male pilots to fly training missions for servicemen in the United States.

So the Army Air Force, with prodding from famed woman pilot Jacqueline Cochran, turned to young women like Osborn, who later married and became Blanche Bross, for help. Bross, who loved flying and was eager to help the war effort, applied and was accepted into a women’s military pilot training program called the WASPs- Women Airforce Service Pilots.

She and the other WASPs were happy to help out.

“We thought we should pay them for flying, because we loved to fly,” Bross, a Bend resident for three years, remembered Tuesday at a Veterans Day open house at Bend Villa Court. Bross and the 1,000 other women who finished the training became the first women military pilots in the United States, although it wasn’t until much later that the women were recognized as veterans.

Bross trained in Sweetwater, Texas, and then was shipped to Columbus, Ohio, to train on the B-17 bomber, known as the Flying Fortress. “(The Army) didn’t know if the women could fly the bigger ships,” Bross recalled. They could and they did.

It was in Columbus that the military snapped the famous photo of four women pilots in front of a B-17. Bross is in that photo, which appeared in Life magazine and other publications. It also was used in a Gap clothing ad a few years back, with the caption “Women at Work.”

And work they did. Bross logged many hours and spent months flying the B-17 and other aircraft in Florida and Nevada while troops of servicemen learned aerial gunnery, ground-firing at moving targets and other aircraft-related training. Other WASPs ferried new planes from factories to points of departure for the battlefront, or flew combat-damaged planes to repair depots. Before the war was over, 38 women had died in the line of duty.

Although they were trained, disciplined and given orders by the military, the women were governed by the Civil Service Commission with the promise that they would be militarized as soon as the details could be approved.

By late 1944, however, male pilots were returning home from the front lines, and the WASPs were deactivated without ever being given military status. The WASPs finally were given military recognition and veteran status in 1979.

For that, Bross, wearing a bright red poppy Tuesday in honor of all the country’s war veterans, is grateful, and it’s why she shares her story.

“It would be nice if people could learn more about us,” she said adding emphatically, “Women did fly in World War II.”

Compiled by the Deschutes County Historical Society from archived copies of The Bulletin at the Deschutes Historical Museum.