This is the fourth in a series of posts concerning individual portraits taken of the children of Nathan and Mary McClain in 1898. More details about that set is in this previous post. The next child in the line-up is Arthur Blaine McClain.

Arthur turned 14 years old in October 1898. He was probably still 13 when this portrait was taken. He turned 17 the year the family moved to Oregon.

Much of what I could say about Grandpa Arthur has already been said in previous posts. I wrote about the period between when they arrived in the Tallman area in 1902 and when Grandpa married Grandma in 1908 in this post.

Between 1908 and 1917 they lived in the house Grandpa built on East Seventh Street in Albany. Three children were born during this time: Florence (Mom), Bernard and Betty. Betty was born just before they moved to Tallman.

The period from 1917 when they moved to Tallman until 1928 when Mom and Uncle Barney graduated from high school was covered extensively during the tour of Mom’s photo album from the period. (If for some reason you wanted to step through those posts, you could do it here.)

In October 1929 a surprise package came to Grandma and Grandpa in the form of a fourth child, Margaret. Sadly she was born with a condition that (at that time, at least) meant she was going to die gradually over an extended period of time. It must have been agonizing. She passed away nine months later. This whole sad chapter deserves a post of it’s own, so I’ll leave it at that for now.

Grandma and Grandpa continued to live on the farm in Tallman until 1947. Grandpa was 62, and caring for the farm was getting to be more than he could handle. He finally agreed—reluctantly—to move into Lebanon. They had sold the farm and were packing up the last things to move. Grandpa climbed into the haymow of the barn to make sure they’d gotten everything. He fell from the ladder and was killed. The cause of the fall is unknown.

Grandma lived on her own in Lebanon for some years after that and worked at Lebanon Hospital. She had a degenerative back condition that eventually made it impossible for her to live on her own. She lived some years with her daughter Betty in Lebanon and finally in a nursing home in Albany. She passed away in 1973.

Here is a quick “rest of the story” on each of their children:

• Florence when to nursing school in Portland after high school and became a registered nurse. She returned to Albany and worked at Albany General Hospital. She married Lloyd Wright in 1933. They lived in Albany until 1944, during which time they had five children. They moved briefly to Monroe, then settled in Junction City where Lloyd owned Farmers Warehouse. In the early 1950s, two more children joined the family. Lloyd retired in the mid-1970s and in the mid-1980s they returned to Albany to be near four of their children who lived there. They lived out the rest of their lives in Albany and passed away a year apart (Lloyd in 2001 and Florence in 2002).
• Bernard (“Barney”) went to business school in Portland after high school, if I recall correctly. He married Esther Turnidge in 1935 (with whom he had been friends for several years, as mentioned in this post). They settled in Portland where they remained the rest of their lives, and where they raised five daughters. In 1954 Barney became president of P&C Tool Company in Milwaukie, a post I believe he held until his retirement in the 1970s. He put those piano lessons from his mother and other teachers to good use as the organist at his church for many years. Barney passed away in 1995 and Esther in 2008.
• Betty attended Linfield College for a year after high school. Then she moved to California for a year to attend college there. (During this time she kept up an active correspondence with her parents and with her boyfriend Lee Scott. Lee was just starting a plumbing business. Their daughter Susan has posted these letters at http://leeandbet.blogspot.com/.) Betty returned in 1937 and she and Lee were married. They lived most of their lives in Lebanon and raised six children there. Betty returned to school and got her degree in Education in 1970 (age 53). She taught second grade in Lebanon for some years. Lee passed away in 1995 from the effects of breathing asbestos during his years as a plumber. Betty moved to Albany for a period in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but ultimately to Dallas (Oregon) to be near her daughter Susan. She passed away in 2014 at age 97.