The Russell CollectionS
William, Jason Hubbard, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jesse, Augustus, Archibald
Children:
Cora Leah Russell Judith Kay Russell
Deston Arch Russell Ray Roland Russell
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Profile/Bio
Occupations:
1940: Surveyor (re: Federal Census)
farmer (re: draft registration)
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Physical
Deston, blue eyes, blonde, light complexion, 5' 10"
Lydia, Mestastisis Malignant Melanoma
Deston Roland Russell
1913-1953
Deston was Arch and Cora Russell’s first child. He was born in Grass Valley as all of his siblings were.
Deston Married Jeanette Shaw in 1937. Deston worked as a surveyor. Within a year of marriage, they had their first daughter, Cora and then just sixteen months later, they had Judy. Sadly, the marriage became difficult and Deston and Jeanette divorced. Jeanette kept the two girls with her. She remarried to Clifford Ziglar in 1945 and they raised the girls.
Deston was remarried to Lydia Sauter and they had two sons, Deston, Jr and Ray. In 1953, Deston died at a young age of forty years old in a gas explosion. His sons were only six and seven years old.
In 1961, Lydia remarried to Clarence Matthews when the boys were teenagers (fourteen and fifteen years old). In only four years, Lydia died in 1965 of cancer. Deston Jr and Ray were 18 and 19 years old, so they went to live with their Uncle Ben and Aunt Delores.
Deston Russell was born on July 25, 1913 to Arch and Cora Russell at Grass Valley, Oregon. He was their first child and the oldest of eight living children. (Mother and Dad lost four boys at birth or soon after. They are buried in the cemetery in Grass Valley.) The other children are Lois, Greta, Forrest, Avery, Alma, Irma and Bennie.
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They were a happy family. The older children helped take care of the younger children. They attended the Baptist Church regularly and enjoyed special occasions when Arch and Cora’s relatives came to visit.
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Several of Arch’s brothers came to help during wheat harvest and Cora’s parents, Bertha and Benjamin Daugherty were there to help where ever they could. Deston, being the oldest, learned early to work hard.
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Deston went to Grass valley grade school and graduated from high school in Grass Valley.
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Deston worked for a time with the C.C.C. building roads, etc.
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Deston got a job in the shipyards in Portland for a time. He also delivered newspapers for many years.
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Arch and Cora moved to Klickitat Heights, near Lyle, Washington with the five youngest children when they lost their 2,000 acre wheat ranch during the depression.
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Deston Married Jeanette Shaw from Hood River in 1936. They bought a farm at Goldendale, Washington from grandfather Benjamin Daugherty. Grandpa Daugherty moved to The Dalles, Oregon.
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Deston and Jeanette Shaw had two daughters, Cora Leah and Judith Kay. While living in Goldendale Deston worked in a sawmill. In 1943, they moved to Underwood, Washington and Deston worked in the fruit warehouse. They were divorced a few years later. Jeanette had custody of the girls. Deston never saw them again. But the girls were reunited with the family when they saw Arch’s obituary in the paper. Also when Frank and Alma were in Vale, Oregon in 1954 on deputation getting their support to go to Pakistan they visited them. The girls were also happy to hear about and meet their half-brothers Deston Jr. and Ray.
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Deston moved to Portland, Oregon and eventually married Lydia Sauter on June 25, 1946. They were both working at the Emanuel Hospital at the time. They had two sons, Deston Arch and Ray Lewis.
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Deston died from fire burns on April 25, 1953 from a freak accident in his garage. It was a very sad time for the family, including his parents. His dad, Arch Russell, died just ten weeks later from a heart attack. Deston and Arch were buried at the Pleasant Hill Cemetery in Pleasant Hill, Oregon. Lidia died of cancer in 1968 and is buried beside Deston. Cora died at the age of 92 in 1982 and is buried next to Arch.
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Lydia married Clarence Matthews, a minister. They moved to St. Paul, Minn. Where Clarence was the pastor of a Christian Missionary Alliance Church for eleven months. They they moved to Richey Montana. After Lydia died in June 1965, the boys, Deston Jr and Ray lived with Ben and Delores Russell in Salem, Oregon until they finished high School.
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MEMORIES OF MOM
Jeannette Shaw (Russell, Zigler) Stamp was one of three children of Charles and Leah Shaw. Jeannette was born on February 2, 1915 at Hood River, Oregon. Then came Edwin on January 3, 1917 and 16 years later came Ruth on January 2, 1933. Early in Jeannette’s growing up years, she began to study piano. This became a source of pleasure and income throughout most of her life. She spoke of receiving a piano on one of her birthdays.
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One of her favorite activities while living at home was to hike with friends part way up Mt Hood…at least to the ski lodge. She never learned to ski the mountain, but was very familiar with the trails and knew “when to turn around” if the weather looked threatening.
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After graduation from high school, she attended Business College. We were not sure whether she ever worked in the secretarial field, but we were impressed by her leather briefcase which she used to organize her music and important papers.
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She married our father, R. Deston Russell, on June 27, 1937. During those early years” we lived in Goldendale, Washington. We moved to Underwood, Washington in 1942. There, we lived in a “big” house with a “big” dog, Colonel, a St. Bernard. In 1945, they separated and divorced. We went to live with our maternal grandparents until later that year, when mom married Clifford Zigler, and we moved to a dairy farm in Vale.
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Soon after arriving in Vale, our neighbors sold us a car they no longer needed, and with the exchange of title, said that the car was used to going to church every Sunday and hoped that the car could continue going to church every Sunday. Apparently Mom and Clifford were impressed with this exhortation, and started attending the Vale Christian church. One of the things she so masterfully passed down to us was the love of God and His word. We were blessed to have Mom and Clifford put God “first” in their lives. Sunday was a “day for worship” and a day of rest. The church family was important to both of them.
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Soon after they started attending church, she was asked to play the piano for worship services and continued in that role for a least 32 years. During that time, she became interested in learning to play the organ, took lessons, got the church to purchase an organ, and then started the integration of having bought he piano and organ played during services. Music was a large portion of her life. Music was her Christina ministry to those in the community. She played for numerous weddings and funerals. She tried to teach us how to play the piano and pass down the love of music to us. We quickly discovered that playing the piano is not as easy as she made it appear. And we found out that we could not lean our room with an opera blaring.
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After mastering the organ, she purchased an accordion took lessons, and quickly mastered that instrument as well.
She had the ability to “balance” her responsibilities during those 32+ years that she was so involved in the music ministry and giving piano lessons. She also taught children’s Sunday school and participated in vacation Bible school almost every summer. Along with those activities, as a farmer’s wife, she joined in the twice daily ritual of milking the cows, planted, tended, and harvested a large garden, grew flowers (lots of roses) and kept the “rather large” lawn mowed. One year she tried to grow gladiolus for one of our weddings. She carefully calculated the days from planting to when they would be in full bloom. Just in case, she planted half of the bulbs a week later, she had a beautiful crop of gladiolus two weeks before the August wedding. It had been an exceptionally hot summer.
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One of the things we discovered you could not do for Mom was prune her roses or “cut back” her berry bushes. One of her best grape vines was high in an apple tree.
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She loved food—both cooking and eating. Her specialties were pies and homemade bread. She would occasionally have us churn the cream until it turned to butter…not one of our favorite tasks.
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She love to sew. She made many quilts. And she was also a pretty good seamstress. She made most of her clothes, our clothes, and passed on that form of creativity to us; she made sure we realized the importance of knowing how to sew.
She was also an artist. She found the time to paint both on canvas and on items of clothing. One of her favorite gifts for male family members was hand painted ties which she had also hand made. Her favorite object to paint was Mt. Hood reflected in Lost Lake.
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During her “middle years,” she enjoyed her grandchildren. She cared for the children of both step-sons off and on for several years, to help them through a difficult time.
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About 1976, they sold the dairy farm and bought a “retirement” farm with a small acreage between Vale and Ontario. Following Clifford’s death in 1980, she married George Stamp whom she had met about 25 years earlier when George married Vera, on of Mom’s high school girlfriends. Vera passed away about the same time as Clifford. She sold the farm and moved with George to a coastal town, Waldport, Oregon. She loved the ocean, the community, and the clam chowder. She made several good friends the 17 years she was there. Again, her church family was very special to her. Even though George did no normally attend church, she had George take her to church. It wasn’t’ long but George accepted Christ as his Savior, and they were both baptized. Oh, yes, one of the “fears” Mom had was the fear of water. She had such a fear of being baptized, that many years earlier, Hugh Foster agreed that she did not actually “have” to be baptized, but that her faith in God and acceptance of Christ as her Savior was sufficient. Later in life, she was obedient in baptism.
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Mom’s later years were difficult years. Besides not able to hear very well, she began to lose her eyesight and went through a cornea transplant and an implant. Reading music became increasingly difficult. One piece of advice she would give to those with their eyesight was to memorize the music so that they could play long after their eyes failed. And she had memorized a lot of music. She acquired a small dog, a Chihuahua, and soon had the dog singing along with her. The dog seemed the most responsive to “You are My Sunshine.”
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Prayer became very important to Mom. During on of our “talks” she carefully explained how important it was to pray for each other. She said, “I’ll pray for you and please, will you pray for me?” We will miss our talks, but know that she is now in a far better place. She is “at home” with Jesus. She is no longer confined to a body ravaged by time and illness. She has been released. We have our memory of her and now we can look forward to eventually being with her throughout eternity…with our Lord and Savior…what a comfort!
Deston , Jeannette and Cora Russell
Cora Pearl Russell (Cora Rob) and Jeannette holding dau Judy with dau Cora and Raymon Macy
Jeanette with daughters, Judy and Cora
Deston and Lydia
Lydia with sons, Deston and Ray
Daughters, Judy and Cora with their mother, Jeanette and Grandkids