An outline of Aunt Bessie Hammell’s life was given in an earlier post, so I won’t recapitulate all that information here. William Hutchins (“Billy,” at least within the family) was born in Nakusp, British Columbia, January 17, 1922 to Bessie and Roy Hutchins. His parents separated not too long after he was born and Bessie brought him back to the US and moved in with her parents for a time. So during the years around when these photos were taken, Billy was living with the Hammells in Albany. Under those circumstances, visits to the McClain farm in Tallman were probably fairly common.

Above, Billy with puppies. The appearance of the puppies would suggest that they were Penny’s.

Billy’s smile looks a lot like his mother’s in the above photo, I think.

Naturally you can’t visit the farm without riding a horse, right?

If I am correctly interpreting the meager evidence before me, Billy was a World War 2 vet and went on to have a career with the Oregon National Guard.

If he were still living, he would have turned 98 just this month. But William Hutchins passed away in October 1979, aged 57.