Old Missoula

C. E. Woodworth Widely – Known Montanan, Dies

Pioneer Resident of State Since Coming of N. P. in 1880’s

Chancy Erastus Woodworth, civil engineer, surveyor, Wild West show proprietor, abstractor, mining engineer, school teacher, railway land agent, stenographer, bookkeeper, theater manager, rancher, sawmill operator and early-day photographer of Montana, died yesterday in Missoula, his home most of the time for more than a half century.

Mr. Woodworth, who was 84 years of age, was one of Missoula’s best-known citizens and a pioneer of the state, coming to Montana when the Northern Pacific railway was built in the 1880’s.

Born in Jamestown, New York, May 26, 1856, Mr. Woodworth graduated from the Jamestown Collegiate institute, then entered Cornell university. He left the university to follow the profession of civil engineer, working [for] the Pennsylvania oil industry, then in its infancy.

He came West when the Northern Pacific railway [was] being rushed across the continent. He worked as a mail messenger, riding horseback from the nearest town to the “end of steel,” and late as a surveying engineer. Mr. Woodworth surveyed the pass route when Railroad Tycoon Jim Hill planned to build the road over that route to Portland. Portions of the grade still remain in Lolo canyon, besides the ruins of log buildings used to house the crews. This route was abandoned in the midst of construction in favor of the present route.

In later years, Mr. Woodworth was land agent for the road for Montana, working out of St. Paul. It was then that he worked as a mining engineer in connection with the classification of the lands granted the road in Montana.

During his many years of residence in Western Montana, Mr. Woodworth established a ranch near Ovando in the Blackfoot valley, where he also operated a sawmill.

While in Missoula, Mr. Woodworth for many years was proprietor of a cigar store in the early-day Florence hotel building, the predecessor of the one which burned in 1936. He also was treasurer of a wild west show organized in Missoula by the late William A. Simons many years ago. Mr. Woodworth recently recalled that there was considerable trouble with the buffaloes knocking down fences, but that this was remedied by using canvas fences, which the buffaloes would not approach. The show operated under almost continuous rain and finally failed in the Twin Cities.

Mr. Woodworth was also manager of the Harnois theater, later rechristened the Liberty, which when it was built was the finest in the Northwest. He also worked as a stenographer and bookkeeper for G. D. Forssen, local contractor who was long a close friend, and was an abstractor in the office of the county clerk and recorder.

An early-day photographer in Montana, Mr. Woodworth had preserved much of his equipment, which included a portable tent-darkroom such as that used by Brady, the famous Civil war photographer, a large view camera and other equipment. With no photographic supplies available at the corner drugstore in those days, Mr. Woodworth sensitized glass plates for negative material and made hundreds of pictures in Western Montana by the now-obselete wet-plate process. He made printing papers by grinding up silver coins, making a silver nitrate solution, and floating the paper on the surface of the solution to sensitize it.

Mr. Woodworth married Jennie Van Dusen in New York state in 1877, and for three years after traveled back and forth to the West, working for the railroad in the summer and teaching school in the winter. Mrs. Woodworth came with him to Montana in 1880, and two children, Erastus and Dorothy, were born at the Blackfoot valley ranch home. Both died of diphtheria in 1899. Mrs. Woodworth died in Missoula in 1936.

Mr. Woodworth remained in complete possession of his faculties to the end, which came peacefully. An avid follower of the news, he was intensely interested and usually well-informed on the local, national and international affairs.

Until he was taken to a hospital four days ago, Mr. Woodworth took daily walks and was a familiar figure in downtown streets. He frequently visited the courthouse, where he was last employed. He was secretary of the Missoula Country club.

Mr. Woodworth possessed outstanding collections of old coins and rare books, 10 of which he presented to the Montana State University Northwest Historical library in 1933. At that time Dr. George Finlay Simmons, University president, said that the books were an “impressive addition” to the collection of which “the University is very proud.”

Mr. Woodworth traced his genealogy to Walter Woodward, who came to Massachusetts from Kent, England, in 1628. The family name was changed to Woodworth in the second generation. The line is traced through the Colonial period with the family residing in various parts of New England. A son of the fifth generation served in the Revolutionary war and was at Valley Forge.

The above obituary appeared in the Daily Missoulian on February 27, 1941.

https://www.newspapers.com/image/352370317/

Below is one of several interesting Chauncey Woodworth stories that can be found in the Missoulian newspaper:

Flag from Fort Sumpter

Prized Possession of Chancey Woodworth Taken 70 Years Ago.

Amid the din of Civil war, 70 years ago Wednesday, Colonel Harrison of the Confederate states army captured the first United States flag at Fort Sumpter, South Carolina. That was on April 15, 1861.

Among the prized possessions of Chancey Woodworth, Missoula pioneer, is a fragment of that emblem that was taken by a brave officer from his enemy. It was given to Mr. Woodworth by a boyhood friend in Jamestown, N. Y., one Charles Bishop on December 25, 1872, 11 years after its capture, and nearly 60 years ago.

Little more than a decade after Mr. Woodworth became the owner of that tattered piece of red and white cotton, a souvenir of one of the most important events of United States history, he was in Missoula, a representative of the Northern Pacific railway, which was building through Missoula on its westward expansion.

Meets Colonel.

He met a tall, aged but rugged Southern gentleman, with a long flowing white beard and the twinkle of indomitable spirit in his eyes. It was “Colonel Harrison, suh, late of the Confederate forces, but now one of the three members of mineral commission, appointed by the president to separate the mineral lands from the agricultural lands of the vast northwest.” Colonel Harrison was the member from Georgia, and well known to old timers of Missoula.

Mr. Woodworth remembered his bit of flag, its history, and showed it to Colonel Harrison. The aristocratic Southerner’s reserve melted, and the two became devoted friends.

Within the frame with which the flag is enclosed is a card on which is written the history of the valuable souvenir.

Notation.

It says, “This is a piece of the first United States flag captured by the rebels. It was taken from Fort Sumter, S. C., at the time of its evacuation April 15, 1861, and captured by Colonel Harrison of the C. S. army and presented by him to T. Kafman of Augusta, Ga. After which it passed into the possession of E. Peck, Esq., of New York city; thence passed into the possession of B. Benjamin of Jamestown, N. Y., and presented by him, December 15, 1869, to Charles Bishop of Jamestown, N. Y., and presented by him December 25, 1872, to C. E. Woodworth.

“Colonel Harrison and I became acquainted when we worked together in the early ‘80s, he a member of the mineral commission and I, as a representative of the Northern Pacific railway. We were classifying lands of the district.

“Colonel Harrison was past 70 years of age then, and as active as a man half his age. He was a devout rebel, and in his life was never ‘reconstructed.’

Wants to Fight.

“I remember one incident when we were camped near where Libby is now located. Trouble had been brewing between the United States and Spain but none of us thought seriously of it. Then came the time when some old papers were received in our camp, announcing the declaration of war with Spain. Colonel Harrison was the first to read the news. Like thunder, his voice suddenly boomed out, ‘By God, if Colonel Williams can fight for that flag, so can I.’

“And this from a man, past 70 years of age, who believed with all his heart that the federal government had sinned against him, had taken everything he had, and whose soldiers he had fought against.

“Colonel Williams, then a general, I learned, was Colonel Harrison’s commanding officer during the Civil war. That evening the old man wrote a letter to Washington, offering his services in the war.”

Colonel Harrison headquartered in Missoula for four years.

The above article appeared in The Daily Missoulian on April 20, 1931.

https://www.newspapers.com/image/352090434/

Chauncey Woodworth’s name is spelled variously in Missoula history. More often than not, he seemed to prefer using his initials. Woodworth Avenue in Missoula is no doubt named for him, although I cannot find proof of it. Same thing with the tiny village, Woodworth, up the Blackfoot Valley, not far from Ovando. He ranched there for a while. It was also the location of a large logging camp for the ACM Company at one time. He was very active politically, acting as secretary of the Democratic City Central Committee in the early 1900’s. He was defeated several times while running for the office of Missoula County Surveyor.

The University of Montana archives has a collection of several hundred photographs taken by Chauncey Woodworth – listed at the link below: Some are available on line at Montana Memory Project.

http://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv52671

At Rich Martina

A Lively and Prosperous Camp in the Mountains

The Nine Mile Mining Company

What a Missoulian Reporter Saw in and About this Gold-Producing District.

Pretty well up in the Nine Mile gulch, close to the divide between the Flathead reservation and the Bitter Root mountains lies the prosperous and picturesque little mining camp, Martina, the home of the Nine Mile Mining and Milling company and the San Martina Mining company.

The journey to this camp from the Garden City, a distance of 51 miles, is more readily accomplished by team, ‘though a portion of the distance, to Nine Mile station 27 miles, can be made over the Coeur d’Alene branch of the Northern Pacific railroad. The journey from this latter point carries one through the fastnesses of the Nine Mile mountains and some of the grandest scenery in the northwest. The snow at present, while quite deep, is sufficiently packed to insure the best of sleighing and while the traveler bowls along at a rapid gait behind a pair of fleet and hardy cayuse ponies he is struck with the almost indescribable beauty of the surroundings. Tall pines shooting heavenward, in many instances to a height of fifty or sixty feet, with their branches bowed down as though in humblest subjection with the weight of snow; stumps and underbrush capped with the full fall of the season’s snow assuming various shapes and forms; the merry, rippling brooks, gargling and rushing down the mountain’s sides, with here and there a mountain ranch with comfortable home and spacious outhouses, combine to make a picture that any lover of nature might heartily enjoy and the end of a journey which would ordinarily prove tedious comes altogether too soon.

The Prosperous Little Camp.

A sharp turn in the road, about twenty-four miles from Nine Mile station, brings the traveler in full view of the little mining camp, which is scattered along the gulch for a distance of nearly a mile. The first building, constructed entirely of logs, at the south end of the camp, is the Martina store and post office, formerly the property of the late John Voth, but now presided over by Dave Bogart, ex-county clerk and recorder, and here the visitor meets the first of many hearty welcomes. As a merchant “Dave” may not be a howling success, but as an entertainer in his mountain retreat the writer ventures the assertion that this self-same politician and prince of good fellows is without a peer in the land. It is a difficult task to break away from the hospitality of this comfortable and well-arranged establishment, but, this being accomplished, the tenderfoot meanders up a narrow trail in about five feet of snow for a distance of a third of a mile, passing numerous cabins and an occasional liquid refreshment booth and finds himself at the store and office of the Nine Mile Mining company, and here another welcome, the heartiness of which cannot be mistaken, awaits him at the hands of Messrs. J. W. Woodford and “Tommy” Cox, the manager and bookkeeper of the company respectively.

The company carries a complete line of general merchandise for the benefit of the men in its employ and others residing in the neighborhood, as well as to supply the large boarding house adjoining, wherein the unmarried men employed at the works are boarded and lodged.

The Mill and Mines.

Across the gulch and a short distance up the mountain is situated the company’s new 20-stamp mill, one of the most complete of its kind in the northwest. The ore chutes, which are self-feeding, are supplied by a double track gravity tramway which connects with the mines further up the mountain’s side. This mill has a daily capacity of between 50 and 60 tons of ore, and has been running at its fullest capacity ever since its construction several months ago. The tailings from the stamps after running over the plates are carried to the Frue vanners,[1] which are given a slight, though rapid, side motion. These vanners are likewise supplied with copper plates for amalgamating purposes, by means of which the heaviest dirt falls to the bottom and affiliates more rapidly with the quicksilver. By this arrangement it is claimed that the tailings do not carry away more than seventy-five cents to the ton, a very important consideration in the milling business.

The mill is lighted by electricity, as are also the company’s offices and residence buildings, furnished by an electric dynamo having a capacity of four arc lights and twenty 32-candle power incandescent lamps.

The mines of the company which are being operated at the present time are the Hazel Grove Tunnel, Dawn Tunnel, Golden Eagle Tunnel No. 1, Golden Eagle Tunnel No. 2 and the Eagle shaft. The bodies of ore in these properties range from five to ten feet in width and lie in all cases in good shape and between well defined walls. The ore is all free milling gold, running from $10 to $15 to the ton. The company makes what is known in mining parlance as a “clean up” every fifteen days, the result of which is a golden charm, brick-shaped, varying in value from $5,500 to $6,000.

At the present time there are between 70 and 75 men employed at the company’s works, whose daily wages average $3.49 each, making a monthly pay roll of about $7500 – in itself a very considerable item.

Immediately to the west and adjoining the properties of the Nine Mile Mining company lie the claims of the San Martina Mining company, consisting principally of the Grouse and the Little Giant. Like those above referred to these mines are also gold producers and similarly rich. This company is employing only a few men at the present time on prospect work, but the managers are arranging for the construction of a stamp mill in the early spring and before the snow flies next winter there will doubtless be two large and well-equipped mining establishments grinding out golden bricks in this interesting little camp.

The above article appeared in the Evening Missoulian on January 31, 1894.

https://www.newspapers.com/image/349562578/

Big Missoula investors in the Nine Mile Mining Company included attorney W. M. Bickford and T. L. Greenough. Bickford represented Butte Copper King, W. A. Clark, in the Missoula area, while T. L. Greenough contracted with the N. P. Railroad ever since its entry to Montana in the early 1880’s. Greenough continued to invest heavily in many mining properties, mainly in Idaho, where he made another fortune in the Mullan Morning mine. Greenough’s company was still cutting timber for the N. P. Railroad as late as 1895.

A group of Minneapolis men were also involved in the Nine Mile Mines. An article in the Missoulian in 1895 noted that a group of Minnesota investors had arrived in Missoula and were on their way to visit Martina.

Messrs. D. F. Morgan, C. H. Richards and S. B. Lovejoy, all of Minneapolis, came in on No. 1 yesterday. These gentlemen are all heavy stockholders in the Nine Mile Mining company. They will leave for Martina this morning, and while there will examine the property with a view to ascertaining what improvements are needed in the plant and mine. It is intended to put in water-power for the mill and possibly a new tramway to the mine.

The above article appeared in the Daily Missoulian on May 8, 1895.

Directors of the Nine Mile Mining Company in 1896 were Missoula banker, John M. Keith, attorney W. M. Bickford, contractor T. L. Greenough, and S. B. Lovejoy of Minneapolis. Largest shareholders were S. B. Lovejoy, John Woods, and Pat Welch.

Garden City News closed permanently in 2006. An article in the Missoulian on January 3^rd, 2006, explained its demise. The article is quoted below:

Going out of print

Garden City News to close its doors permanently on Jan. 31

By Robert Struckman of the Missoulian

Wayne Burnham watched the glass door of Garden City News swing shut behind a customer. Having just purchased a pair of bridal magazines, she walked away up North Higgins Avenue.

Burnham, the 52-year-old owner of Garden City News, reflected on the range of magazines on his store’s shelves.

“Titlewise? I haven’t counted,” he said.

He has hundreds, if not thousands. They cover every subject. He has 17 titles devoted to woodworking and hand tools and 13 on martial arts, fighting and professional wrestling. The store’s inventory covers everything from cars to country music to cooking and underground art.

He has wire racks of comic books and one wooden stand with 51 books of crossword puzzles.

But not for long. Garden City News – downtown Missoula’s only old-fashioned newsstand – will close its doors for the last time on Jan. 31.

“There’s no money in it,” he said.

Burnham, who owns the building, will remodel the space and lease it to a retailer. He won’t say to whom. The lease isn’t finalized, he said.

The worst financial pressures on the newsstand can be summed up with one anecdote. The wholesale price for USA Today is 72 cents. It retails for 75 cents. When Burnham balked, a USA Today rack appeared outside his store.

“There’s just a point where it’s not worth it,” he said.

Freight costs have hit hard, too. The Sunday New York Times, formerly available for $6, has gone up to $7.50. That’s all due to increases in freight rates.

The box stores don’t help either. Burnham sees books retailing for less than he can buy them wholesale. He sees well-thumbed copies of magazines on box store magazine racks. The readers who thumbed those copies might have bought from him in former days.

But he stops himself when he starts complaining.

“I don’t want to sound bitter,” he said.

Burnham bought Garden City News in 1979. One customer, hearing of the imminent closure, said he’d been buying magazines there for 57 years.

In Burnham’s early days, Missoula’s downtown was full of empty storefronts. He weathered the ups and downs of interest rates and the ebb and flow of area businesses.

He was in his mid-20s. He had a master’s in business administration from the University of Montana and wide tastes as a reader. What wasn’t to like about the newsstand business?

In those days, a newsstand was the only place to find a wide range of magazines and newspapers. The Internet and superstores such as Barnes & Noble Booksellers and Borders Books and Music have revolutionized the media industry, and newsstands across the region have changed or closed.

Burnham doesn’t pretend to know the breadth of the newsstand business, but he knows his corner better than anyone. As the profit margins in newspapers, books and magazines tightened, most newsstands in Montana began to sell expresso or ice cream.

Burnham has always sold cigars as a side business, but expresso? Lattes aren’t for him.

Garden City News remained an old-fashioned newsstand. That was Burnham’s luxury. As tough as the newsstand business had become, Burnham had freedom. He owned his own building.

“That’s the only reason I’ve been able to stay in business as along as I have,” he said.

For more than two decades, Garden City News and Garden City Printing operated side by side in the same building.

Even as the bottom lines of the business narrowed, the three operators enjoyed themselves, lunching together and talking football, Burnham said.

About two years ago, one of them died. About 18 months ago, Jim Dredger decided to close the print shop.

By then, North Higgins was nothing like it had been years ago. The old characters have disappeared from downtown, Burnham said.

“Some of it I will miss. Used to be a bunch of people from Butte would get the Butte paper every day. Some people you see every day, some every week,” he said.

But this is a strange tough time. Businesses downtown are flourishing. The world has simply passed Garden City News by, Burnham said.

That’s a hard thing not to take personally, for a guy who has made a life out of a newsstand. But there’s a flipside.

After Garden City Printing left, the space stood vacant for a time. Then Burnham remodeled it, adding new hardwood floors and lighting. A few months ago, a high-end women’s clothing store called Coco Atelier opened there.

“Judging from the Mercedes and the Lexus pulling up here, it’s been doing pretty well,” Burnham said.

A similar remodel is in store for the Garden City News space.

“It’s my retirement,” Burnham said.

Burnham doesn’t plan to sit still. He has some other projects to concentrate on, he said.

“If I don’t work, I’ll go crazy,” he said.

As for the looming vacuum in the newsstand business downtown, it has some people pondering.

Every summer, Jolie Anderson, owner of Bird’s Nest Books, directs two or three magazine-seekers a week to Garden City News. Could her used bookstore sell magazines?

“I’m thinking about it,” Anderson said.

1972 – 1979

Yates Buys Rudy’s News

Rudy’s News, 329 N. Higgins Ave., owned and managed for 16 years by Art and Mary Evans, has been sold to Claude Yates, owner of Larry’s Magazines and Sporting Goods, 525 N. Higgins.

The transaction became effective June 1.

Yates said he plans to leave his present store, expand Rudy’s into the space formerly occupied by Mau-Jones Sporting Goods, and change the name of the store to Garden City News.

Yates, who has owned Larry’s for the past 5 ½ years, also plans to sell smoking supplies and a limited line of sporting goods.

Under the Evanses, Rudy’s gained a reputation for catering to high school and university students, stocking a wide selection of books dealing with both the arts and sciences.

The Evanses bought the magazine and book store in 1956 from Rudy Rissman [Rissmann]. The purchase, although the culmination of a long-time ambition for the Evanses, also was something of a flier, the general feeling at the time being that television, then in its infancy as a popular medium was going to reduce the reading public substantially.

The so-called paperback revolution arrived, however, and the Evanses found themselves expanding Rudy’s with additional room at the rear.

The couple, in addition to their array of paperback and hardback books, also carried a wide range of national newspapers and intellectual digests. Rudy’s, under the Evanses, became a well-known establishment for the serious reader.

Yates said he hopes to maintain the store’s broad selection of reading matter.

It’s been interesting, Evans said of his years as co-proprietor of Rudy’s. It’s kind of a shock to have it come to an end. I’ve been on the corner for 25 years and I want to see what else there is. Evans worked at the nearby Oxford for several years prior to buying Rudy’s.

Evans, who said one of the best aspects of owning Rudy’s had been the people we met, said he and his wife have lots of things planned for their retirement. One of them, he said, will be to read a few books.

The above article appeared in The Missoulian on June 11, 1972.

Claude Arthur Yates – Obituary – Missoulian, February 21, 1984:

Stevensville – Claude Arthur Yates, 73, died Sunday of natural causes at his home in Hillsboro, Ore.

He was born Jan. 19, 1911, in Stevensville. He received his early education in Victor and graduated from Dillon Normal College. He worked in the railway mail service until his retirement in 1965, and owned the Garden City Bookstore in Missoula until 1978. He also farmed in the Three Mile area from 1953 to 1961. He moved to Hillsboro in 1980.

He married Mavis Sneditgar in 1936 in Lolo, and is now survived by her at the family home in Hillsboro.

He is survived by five sons, Charles W. Yates, Havre, Alan R. Yates, Helena, Philip A. Yates, Missoula, Stephen V. Yates and James A Yates, Hillsboro; two daughters, Judith Webb, Seattle, and Carol Yates, Yakima, Wash; two brothers, Stanley Yates, Spokane, and Leland Yates, Missoula; a sister, Amy Larson, Victor; 17 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.

1956 – 1972

Rudy’s

Authur C., and Mary Dugal Evans, bought Rudy’s News in 1956, without any fanfare, or even a notice in the local paper. Keeping the business name, Art sometimes inherited the former owner’s name when references were made to the business. If he was unhappy about it, he didn’t seem to let it be known. One of his customers wrote an article about him in 1974, shortly after he died.

The article, quoted below, appeared in The Missoulian on November 7, 1974:

In Memory of Evans by C. W. Dolson

I remember the pride we took in being able to tell others, people who knew him less well than we did, that his name was Art instead of Rudy.

There is in this town as I suspect there is in all others a book-loving circle of people, a group that is held together by their mutual love of books. They do not always know each other, these book-loving people, but they do always have a central place and central person.

Here in Missoula the central place was Rudy’s News, and the central person was Art Evans. I don’t know how it was before him or how it will be now that he is gone. I only know that it was that way for almost 20 years.

I remember that Art was the person we went to see when we wanted a book that had been out of print for many years as well as written by an obscure author. He would cock his ear slightly toward you as you told him of your needs and your hope that this unknown book could be found and then, when you had finished, he would smile his very gentle smile and usually say, “Yes, I believe I might have that book here someplace,” and he would disappear into the lower depths of his store and finally reappear with a dusty volume in one hand. He would brush it off and put it in a paper bag for you. As he slid it across the counter you could see by his face that he was thinking about the book. Finally he would say, “I remember some of that book. It isn’t bad.”

Sometimes Art suggested certain titles and authors to me that he thought I might enjoy. I was always pleased by how well he knew my tastes. He once loaned me a book that I took three years to return. When I brought it in after all that time I rather expected him to chide me about taking so long to return it. But he didn’t. He didn’t even seem surprised to see it. It was, as if I had only had it a week. He asked me if I’d liked it. I admitted that I hadn’t very much. He looked slightly disappointed. I felt like a traitor. We both laughed. And he put the book back under his shelf.

He told me a story once about a customer he had known who came in every week and bought a Wild West paperback. After this had been going on for some time the fellow found a week in which he was unable to locate a Wild West that he really wanted to buy. Art had been watching him and had noticed the man’s indecision, so, seeing his opportunity, he asked the man if he might select a book for him. The man agreed. Art picked for him one of William Faulkner’s works.

And he waited with great curiosity until the next week when the man might come in and he could ask him if he had enjoyed the book. Art told me that he had looked up from where he was figuring behind his counter that week and saw the man standing before the rows of Wild West paperbacks. He walked over and greeted the man and asked him how he had liked the book. The man said that it had been pretty good, but it reminded him of eating spaghetti in a restaurant because one had to eat so much spaghetti in order to get one meatball. Art laughed then and told me that the man bought his Wild West and left the store.

Art is gone now and I suspect a new center will be found if it isn’t already. All it takes is a bookstore with a lot of books and a person to run it who knows and loves books and the people who buy them. Without this combination there is nothing, and with it we have something like Rudy’s News and Art Evans.

Arthur C. Evans – Obituary – Missoulian November 3, 1974

Arthur C. Evans, 70, died Friday in a local hospital. He was born June 2, 1904, in Roseville, Calif., and attended elementary school in Folsom, Calif. He graduated from Sacramento High School in 1922.

In 1933 he came to Montana, and married Mary Dugal in Spokane in 1938. He worked for the Army Engineers and J. W. Terteling & Sons during World War II. Mr. Evans returned to Missoula in 1946, where he worked at the Oxford Café. In 1956 he bought Rudy’s News, 329 N. Higgins Ave., which he operated with his wife until his retirement in 1971. Mr. Evans was known as ‘Rudy’ by many of his customers throughout the years.

Surviving are his wife Mary and several nieces and nephews.

Mary D. Evans – Obituary – Missoulian – October 11, 1990

Missoula – Mary D. Evans, 79, of Missoula, died of natural causes Tuesday, Oct. 9, at Royal Manor Care Center.

She was born May 24, 1911, in Missoula to John and Charlotte Dugal. Raised in Missoula, she graduated from Sacred Heart Academy in 1930. She attended St. Theresa’s College in Winona, Minn., and Dillon Normal School, and received degrees in education and library science from the University of Montana. She then taught school at Broadus and Whitetail.

On June 15, 1938, she married Arthur Evans in Spokane.

Mrs. Evans was an assistant librarian at Gonzaga University in Spokane, and worked for a construction company in Oregon and Wyoming before moving to Missoula in 1946. She and her husband purchased Rudy’s News in 1955 and operated the business until the early 1970’s.

She was a charter member of Daughters of Isabella and a member of St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church and St. Anne’s Society.

Survivors include two brothers, Joseph Dugal, Missoula and Peter Dugal, Walnut Creek, Calif., and a sister, Julia Whirry, Denver.

Her husband, three brothers and two sisters preceded her in death.

St. Anne’s Society will recite a rosary 2 p.m. Friday at Livingston-Malletta & Geraghty Funeral Home, followed by a rosary recited by the Daughters of Isabella.

Parish vigil service will be 7 p.m. Friday at the funeral home, Memorial Mass of the Resurrection will be celebrated at 10:00 a.m. Saturday at St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church, with burial at St. Mary’s Annex.

1951 – 1956

Rudy’s

A Grand Opening ad for Rudy’s News, at 329 N. Higgins, appeared in The Missoulian on April 28, 1951. It stated Rudy’s News, formerly Dunstan’s Printing, was now owned by Mr. and Mrs. R. A. Rissmann. Advertised as the largest news stand in Missoula, it listed magazines, stationery, cigars, candy, and cigarettes.

Rudy Rissmann was a longtime Darby resident where his father was an early druggist. His wife, Madge Waldo Rissmann was a daughter of George Waldo, son of one of Darby’s first settlers. As a young girl she worked for a short time editing a local newspaper.

Rudy Rissmann’s obituary below appeared in The Missoulian on May 23, 1983:

Rudolph A. Rissmann

Hamilton – Rudolph A. Rissmann, 79, of Hamilton, died Saturday afternoon at the Marcus Daly Memorial Hospital in Hamilton.

He was born June 28, 1903, at Cleveland to Alexander and Elizabeth Rissmann. As a young boy, he moved with his family to Darby, where he was raised and graduated from Darby High School. He graduated from the University of Montana School of Pharmacy.

He married Madge M. Waldo in Missoula on June 16, 1925.

For a few years, they lived in Darby, where they operated a drugstore. They worked in the Seattle area during World War II. They operated a newsstand in Missoula from 1945 to 1956, when they moved to California. They operated several different businesses in the Long Beach and Los Angeles area. In 1962, they returned to Hamilton where they have since lived.

He was preceded in death by his wife on Aug. 1, 1979, and a grandson, Rudy Rissmann, on Oct. 4, 1980.

Survivors include one son, Gaylord, Hamilton, one daughter, Mary Womack, Hamilton; six grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.

Madge Rissmann’s obituary below appeared in The Missoulian on August 3, 1979:

Hamilton – Madge M. Rissmann, 75, a resident of Hamilton, died Wednesday evening at the Hamilton Hospital.

She was born July 23, 1904, in Darby, and she grew up and attended schools there.

She married Rudolph A. Rissmann June 16, 1925, in Missoula. They moved to Long Beach, Calif., where they operated an ice cream shop for a few years. They returned to Hamilton in the late 1930s.

During World War II, the Rissmanns moved to Seattle, where they lived until 1945. Returning to Montana, they operated a newsstand in Missoula until 1956, when they moved to Los Angeles and operated a liquor store. They returned to Hamilton in 1962. Mrs. Rissmann worked at Tom’s Newsstand.

Survivors include her husband, Rudolph, Hamilton; a daughter, Mary Womack, Hamilton; a son, Gaylord, Victor; two brothers, Bob Waldo, Hamilton, and Tom Waldo, Corvallis, Ore.; three sisters, Maude Rouse, Hamilton; Gertrude Cain, Anaconda; and Bernice Jones, Darby; seven grandchildren; and one great-grandson.

She was preceded in death by two brothers and two sisters.

1902 – 1951

Dunstan’s

“Successors to Emsley’s” – 322 N. Higgins / Books/ Shaving Sets/ Toys/ Smoking Sets/ Calendars & Cards

The founder of Dunstan’s book store, Thomas Dunstan, age 66, died in Missoula in 1932. His obituary stated he had lived in Missoula for 32 years. His wife, Laura, died eight days after him. Thomas Dunstan was born in England and lived in Montana for 53 years. While living in Missoula he ran a commercial printing business and a bookstore / variety store. Dunstan’s advertised Ping Pong, “the fashionable game,” in the Missoulian in 1902, as the successor to Emsley’s. Dunstan’s Printing moved to 329 N. Higgins in 1943.

The Dunstan’s lived in the “double” house at 304 S. 2^nd Street. Upon their deaths in 1932, they left a considerable estate which included the book store and printing establishment, a 10-room house, a second house, and other property. They also left shares of “building and loan” stock, and thousands in cash. Children named were C. E. Dunstan of Oakland, Ca., Thomas H. Dunstan Jr., Edwin Dunstan and Mrs. Hilda Keith. Mrs. S. A. Dittmer, of Salinas, Ca. was also listed as a daughter. Thomas Dunstan Jr., who had been a pressman at the Missoulian newspaper, ran the bookstore with his wife, Helen, until 1951.

Others – 1894 – 1906

Below is a snapshot of several businesses located nearby, beginning in the 1890’s. After a change of ownership, some of these businesses changed their name and moved next door, or close by.

The information below is found in the Missoulian newspaper, unless otherwise noted:

Emsley’s – 1894 – 317 /325 N Higgins – Ice Cream Soda / Candy / Dolls / Toys / Taxidermist

Hoehne [Boehme] University Store – 1898 – 333 N Higgins – Tobacco / Cigars / Stationary / Toys

W. H. Raymer – 1900 – 333 N Higgins – Confectionary / Fruit business

M. H. Keith’s Store – 1901 – Raymer’s purchased by Melvin H. Keith

Gorski’s – 1904 – 1906 – 327 / 329 N Higgins – Candy, Coffee, Chocolate, Baked Goods

 Lombard Block

A short description of 329 N. Higgins was presented in the Missoula Historical Resource Survey. Interestingly, Rudy’s News is never mentioned in this study. See below:

329,331, 333 North Higgins

Owners: Bob Ward and Sons, Inc. (1975)

History: The first name associated with the title to the property was Dr. Charles W. Lombard, who lived at 405 West 3rd South (1890). Lombard was Missoula’s first resident dentist. Other names associated with the title are Agnes Lombard (1929). Maud Thornton (1936), E. G. Mulroney and Bertha Paddock (1949), and Mabel Jacobs (1942). The Sanborn maps date the structure between 1888 and 1891. Businesses located at 329 North Higgins were a storage warehouse (c.a. 1888 – 1891), a tailor shop (c. a. 1891 – 1902, a B&S shop (c. a. 1902 – 1912), the S&K Shoe Shop (1929), John Lissman’s shoe repair (1932 – 1940), Northwest Distributor, and a radio repair shop (1940). Businesses located at 333 North Higgins were a sales shop (c. a. 1891 – 1902), Cigar and Tobacco Shop (c. a. 1902 – 1912), Hogan and Boehme Company, trout fly manufacturers (1922), Boehme – Cumming Company, trout fly manufacturers (1929), Ogg Shoe Company (1932), and Singer Sewing Machine Company (1940). Currently, Garden City News is located at both addresses. The 2^nd floor of the structure is 331 North Higgins. James Kahremanes, a restaurant worker, was the first recorded occupant (1929). During the 1930’s the 2^nd floor became Wirth Apartments. Currently it is known as the Sanborn Apartments.

The structure at 337 North Higgins was currently listed as the Oxford Bar and Restaurant. Businesses located there included a piano and organ store (c. a. 1888 – 1891). A stationery and photo shop (c. a. 1891 – 1902), a drug and photo store (c. a. 1912 – 1931), Peeks Pharmacy (1948).

Robert B Fraser

In 1952, Robert Fraser, of Billings, was one of five U of M students who were selected as candidates for a Rhodes Scholarship. A photo of him appeared in The Missoulian, along with Missoulian Wayne Mytty, who was an MCHS graduate. It wouldn’t have been all that unusual, except that Fraser was decidedly different from the other candidates. In addition to being a senior in economics and an outstanding student, Fraser was a state Golden Gloves boxing champion and an acolyte of noted professional Missoula boxer, James “Spider” McCallum. He was also a top competitor in International horse shows, along with his three older sisters. One of his sisters became a Miss Montana while riding a show horse.

Fraser’s record attests that he was no ordinary local boxer. He was a three-time U of M campus boxing champion, and was the outstanding U of M club boxer in 1951.

A description of one of Fraser’s bouts appeared in the U of M Kaimin newspaper on January 23^rd, 1951:

“Two champions retained their titles, eight new champs were crowned, and two former winners were dethroned in the close, scrappy, hard-fought, 11-bout M club boxing tournament Saturday night before a capacity crowd in the Men’s gym.

“In top shape for the feature event, Bob Fraser, Billings, 145 pounds, fighting for Sigma Chi, not only retained his crown for the second year, but was awarded the trophy for being adjudged the outstanding boxer of the evening. Fraser proved too much for opponent Jerry Wilcomb, Missoula, 155 pounder for the National Guard, and the fight was stopped after the first round. . . “

“Referees were Bill D. MacFarland, veteran M club official and one-time crown holder, and Burt Sommers, Fay Clark and Dean Jones judged the bouts while Tom Kingsford, former Grizzly quarterback, kept time. Master of ceremonies was MSU’s national discus champion, Dick Doyle.”

One of the participants that evening was a Missoulian, Bill Merritt. He would lose his life in Korea the following year. The M-Club tournament in 1953 was dedicated to Merritt.[1]

Fraser won the Montana AAU welterweight title in March of 1951, and in April competed in Boston, Massachusetts for a National AAU title, losing in the first bout. He was accompanied to Boston by “Spider” McCallum, who at the time acted as his trainer and mentor.

The legendary McCallum had worked with groups of young Missoula boxers for years. They formed an unofficial club while he trained them and escorted them to cities throughout Montana and Idaho. He also worked with U of M Club fighters for several years.

McCallum’s remarkable reputation in Missoula is recalled even today. He was a veteran of more than 100 fights who was banned from professional boxing in Montana by State Boxing Commission in 1955 because of his age, 38. He had just won 4 bouts the previous year. Nevertheless, he continued to fight in various places throughout the Northwest, including 2 bouts in the same night in Yakima Wa., in 1957 – winning the first, but losing badly in the second.

Sometimes called the “mayor of Woody Street,” McCallum had been boxing since the age of 12. He was born in Dodson, Montana, in 1912, came to Missoula in 1935, and was later the owner of the Maverick Bar on notorious Woody Street. Evelyn King, a Missoulian columnist, referred to that part of Missoula as the “hot bed of honky tonks.” She once visited McCallum’s establishment and recalled that he was respectable host, wearing a white shirt and tie. McCallum was murdered with an ax at his home in downtown Missoula in 1969. The story of his murder trial would require more pages than are available here.

In 1950, Missoulian Sports columnist Ray Rocene wrote about “Spider” McCallum’s endorsement of Bobby Fraser:[2]

“Spider McCallum is enthusiastic about the Missoula squad entering the Whitefish divisional meet. Spider is “’high’” on Bob Fraser, clever University puncher, who is making admirable progress, showing that he has everything in the ring. Spider says that Fraser recently gave a professional boxer a sound trouncing in a workout in the practice ring, convincing him that the Billings boy will go far.”

 In 1951 Rocene gave the following description of Fraser’s progress with “Spider” in his Missoulian column:

“Bob Fraser, Montana university student, who won the state welterweight title at Billings recently, will fight at Boston Monday in the national amateur tournament.

“’Spider’” McCallum has been giving him doses of all angles, boxing, slugging, moving in, drilling from the inside, and he says the boy is improving. “‘He is not a kayo socker yet, but we’ll teach him that’” says Spider, who has 20 years on Montana fisticuffs. “’Fraser is most conscientious about training, zealous about keeping in top-notch physical condition.’”[3]

In a later column (1952) Rocene noted: “Spider McCallum left Friday to be in Bobby Fraser’s corner at the AAU fights at Billings, called there at the insistence of Bobby’s father.”[4]

Fraser won another Montana Golden Glove championship in the spring of 1952, and then competed in Chicago at the National Golden Gloves tournament, winning the first bout, but losing his next by a split decision. He had flown to Chicago with “Spider” McCallum.

Upon returning to Billings, Fraser was quoted in the Billings Gazette: “Perhaps the main thing introduction of Golden Gloves to Montana and Wyoming has done is the improvement of boxing in the eyes of the public. It’s difficult to explain the general change in attitude of people as they begin to think of boxing the same as basketball, football or any other sport.” Fraser had attended the Chicago tournament, all expenses paid; subsequent to winning a Midland Empire Golden Gloves championship in Billings.

In 1948 Fraser, then a Freshman, and his sister, Carol, a Junior, were both attending the University of Montana. From a Montana ranch background, they were already accomplished horse people and had the trophies to prove it. They rode their own horses in the Chicago International Horse Show where they brought home a total of 18 ribbons, including four first place finishes for Carol and one for Robert.

A Kaimin article on Nov. 14, 1950[5] reported that Fraser was a topflight horseman as well as a boxer. The article is quoted below:

Bob Fraser Wins Honors As Horseman

“Bobbie Fraser, junior in economics from Billings, won national recognition recently when he appeared with the United States Olympic jumping team in the national horse show at Madison Square Garden in New York. The United States riders took first place honors over teams from England, Canada, Chile, Ireland, and Mexico.

“Fraser won his position on the team after taking first and third in elimination trials held in Philadelphia. The trials preceded the team’s participation in the Pennsylvania national and brought together the top riders in the country. The team will travel next to Toronto, Canada, for the Royal Winter fair.

“Although he had participated in a number of riding tournaments in past years, Fraser is probably better known in Montana for his fistic talents. He boxed with the Billings PAL team during his high school years and continued to swing leather after coming to the University. Last year, he participated in the M club tournament and other amateur matches in this part of the state.”

In 1951, Fraser qualified as a finalist for the U. S. equestrian team for the Olympic summer games at Helsinki, Finland. He spent part of a summer at Fort Riley, Kansas, training for the event. He did not participate in further Olympic trials, rather opting to stay in school.

Fraser was involved in many U of M activities and organizations, including Sigma Chi and Silent Sentinel. He was also an ROTC student who would serve in the military after graduation. He was the student chairman at a discussion of the Montana Forum group at the University in 1953. The discussion centered on a proposal to lease state lands for oil development. Fraser’s father, Robert Fraser Sr., owned American Motors dealerships in Billings and Butte, and had been in the car business for over 40 years. He also owned ranches at Pryor, Winnett and Sweet Grass.

Fraser’s family included three high-achieving sisters. They all had connections with Missoula.

Anne ‘Toni’ Fraser Rosell graduated from U of M in 1948. She received her master’s degree from Columbia University Teacher’s College in N. Y. in 1952. She was a guidance counselor at MCHS in 1950 – 51, director of student activities at Eastern Montana College 1954-56, and a counselor for Youth Guidance Council in Billings. Beginning in 1956 she served 3 terms in the Montana House of Representatives from Yellowstone County; the first woman representative elected from that county. She then served four terms as a State Senator, at one point sitting as the minority whip; the first woman to ever hold a leadership position in either house. She ran for the U. S. Senate in 1964, and later lost in a race for Montana Lieutenant Governor, running with Robert Woodahl in 1976. She was also an athlete, winning the Montana State Singles and Doubles championship tennis titles.

Carol Fraser[6] won the Miss Montana contest in 1949, as a 20-year-old student at the University of Montana. While competing she gave a talk on horses, equestrian competitions, and showed pictures of her life as a horsewoman. The previous year she won a world championship in five-gaited competition, which added to her huge trophy collection, amassed over eight years while winning more than 100 first places. She then competed in the Miss America contest riding a 9-year-old mare, hoping to demonstrate fine horsemanship at the convention center in Atlantic City. Sadly, the horse, Victory Belle, slipped on rubber matting on stage and nearly fell into the orchestra pit. Contest rules required her to scratch her first horse choice, Victory Call, since contestants were not allowed to associate with any males. It was the first time an animal was part of this beauty contest. She shared honors for Miss Congeniality and won a $500 scholarship. She was honored with a local parade and the MCHS band performed when she arrived back in Missoula. Nancy Fields (O’Connor) of Missoula was a runner up in the 1949 state competition.

Inez Sue Fraser attended the University of Montana, the University of Southern California and graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1946. She married Sydney Kurth of Fort Benton in 1947. Kurth was a WW2 Marine Corps veteran and University of Montana Law School graduate with a lifelong practice in Billings, Montana. Describing herself as the “least talented of the bunch,” Sue took over the Fraser family’s ranch operation in 1968. Living in Billings, Montana since the 1950’s, they celebrated their 60^th anniversary in 2007.

An example of Robert Fraser, the student, came in a letter to the editor he wrote to the student newspaper, Kaimin, in November 25, 1952.[7] It prefaced a later life that would be dedicated to intellect instead of fisticuffs:

Fraser Uppercuts University Apathy

I would like to call attention to a recent (Nov. 20, 21, 22) Farmer-Labor institute that was held on this campus. The Kaimin evidently knew of its existence for they announced its program. I do not know what limitations of personnel exist on this paper. I do know there were no reporters at the institute’s sessions. It is significant, too, that only a few faculty members and fewer students attended.

There seems to be a serious need for a careful self-examination when we find ourselves in this situation. On one hand we have juvenile efforts to revive school spirit which completely overlook the real basis of pride in school. We have teachers who instruct in facts and fail to instill a desire for truth in students or possess such a desire themselves. (Or are we already so enlightened?)

We get excited over national politics where we have a minimum of voice. And we neglect an opportunity to find out what one segment (they call themselves liberal) of the state’s population finds of vital concern. There’s the Kaimin, too, which fills up entire back pages with advertising – often advertising the Kaimin – for want of material and fails to attempt even a first-hand account of democracy in action.

The people at that institute wanted to learn. While we, surrounded by opportunity, shut our minds and ears to anything outside our specialty. Whether that specialty is Murrillism, Religion, Sports, or “Journalistic methods of appealing to the masses.” Should we perhaps re-analyze our actions in the light of our professed purpose here?

Leaves Montana and Returns

Fraser graduated from U of M in 1953 with honors, majoring in economics, psychology & philosophy. He then served a tour as an officer in the 82^nd Airborne Division, stationed in Germany after basic training at Fort Bragg, N. C. He supplemented his European tour with boxing demonstrations while a soldier.

After his Army tour he attended Columbia University in NYC, graduating with a master’s degree and pursued a Ph.D. there. While still attending Columbia University in 1956 he married Carmen Magrina, a fellow student from Puerto Rico, and a graduate of Wellesley College. He attended Columbia University until 1958.

By 1960 he was back in Montana where he began raising a family and was appointed a director in the Fraser Land & Livestock Company.

In Billings he became involved in fellowship activities through Rocky Mountain College. In 1964 he spoke at a meeting of the Billings Art Association, lecturing on “Creativity and Intelligence.” In 1965 he and his wife led a discussion titled, “On Truth and Falsity” by St. Thomas Aquinas, at the Junior Service League Library. The Billings Gazette noted that in 1966 he chaired a meeting at Rocky Mountain College Great Books Club, on Spinoza’s “Ethics – Part One.” By 1966 Fraser was a leader of the Billings Unitarian Fellowship.

Moves to San Mateo

In 1969 Fraser was chosen as a minister of the Unitarian Fellowship of San Mateo, California. He was a graduate of the Starr King School for the Unitarian Ministry at Berkeley, California.[8]

Fraser quickly embraced the controversy of that era. The Viet Nam War and its repercussions at home were a topic that he met head on as a minister in California. His first year in San Mateo also landed him square in the middle of Berkeley and its social activism. It would seem to preface much of his ministry when he witnessed a different kind of violence first hand, outside of a boxing ring, while he lived there.

Thirty thousand angry demonstrators gathered on the streets near Berkeley’s Peoples Park in May of 1969. Several days of demonstrations had earlier arisen from efforts to stop the administration’s plans to develop this small park. On May 15 Governor Reagan ordered a violent crackdown on these demonstrations; the day now known as Bloody Thursday. Police and Sheriff’s use of firearms and batons, and the presence of 2,700 National Guard troops who used tear gas, sprayed from National Guard helicopters, resulted in many injuries and at least one casualty.

Fraser was the subject of a 1969 article in The Billings Gazette regarding that disturbance in Berkeley, California, quoted below:

Berkeley Clash Was Forced

By Dave Williams

Gazette Staff Writer

“It was a lot of strong reaction by some pretty conservative towns people.”

The bearded man speaking was Robert Fraser, son of Mrs. R. B. Fraser, 106 Clark, and brother of State Senator Mrs. Antoinette Rosell.

Fraser, a recently ordained Unitarian minister and resident of Berkeley, was generalizing about the recent disorder in Berkeley over the closing of the People’s Park.

The People’s Park was a park set up by street people, students and radical activists on property owned by the University of California at Berkeley.

The property was not being used by the university, Fraser noted, and would have made an excellent study center for the university as well as a park.

The university built a fence around the park to keep the users out, and had police in riot gear present to prevent trouble.

Fraser said that the university by putting up the fence had violated a responsibility delegated to it, to develop ways to help people in general and people in the Berkeley area in particular.

“A wide variety of people participated in that park,” Fraser said. “The park was ideal research thing.”

“The decision to put up the fence was one to elicit a confrontation,” he added.

The ensuing clash between students, activists and the police left one person dead and 67 others injured, Fraser said.

“The police provoked them by their presence. It was a mutual thing. The students were mad about the fence, and other things, too,” Fraser said.

The police made liberal, “irresponsible” use of tear gas, deploying it from helicopters for the first time in history, Fraser said.

“No matter what part you had to play, you were aware of the helicopters,” he added while making circles in the air with his finger.

Fraser said he had a lot of friends who had been gassed, one school was gassed, and the university clinic was forced to put some patients in iron lungs because tear gas seeped into the hospital.

The use of gas and seeing the National Guard where children wanted to play influenced him to participate in marches and demonstrations against the park closing, Fraser indicated.

He participated in the Parent’s March. Fraser vehemently stressed the legality of the march, saying it had a permit, went only three blocks and returned, and had monitors to keep the sidewalk clear.

But the police broke up the march as illegal.

“This was a violation of my constitutional rights. It’s strong evidence of how fearful the law enforcement agencies were,” Fraser observed.

In a previous march, Fraser said, about 490 people were arrested and taken to the Santa Rita prison, where they were mistreated and forced to stand for hours without being allowed to move.

The National Guard may have brought readied bayonets and barbed wire, Fraser said, but “the people were glad the National Guard was there, because they controlled the police and cut violence.”

Fraser also participated in the Memorial Day march. “There was a tremendous variety of People – kids, adults, street people, hippies, middle-aged . . .”

The march was impressive for Fraser, and peaceful for Berkeley. Looking up into the readied bayonets of the National Guard, Fraser and his co-marchers smiled and raised their fingers in the peace gesture, he said.

“It turned into a festive thing,” he wonderingly added.

Fraser cited the erection of the fence and overreaction by the police as reasons for the demonstrations. The desire to rid the city of the “occupied city” and “warlike” atmosphere pervaded when the Guard arrived.

Fraser called it “the biggest irony” that the university which is set up to help people and do research, should close the park, forego the chance to help and research, and inflict injury and damages at the same time.

Fraser didn’t back away from later controversies either. He gave an interview to a reporter for the San Mateo Times in 1971, stating his views on Lieutenant William Calley’s trial and the reckoning it was causing with the American public. He identified with the general view that Americans were uninvolved because the war was thousands of miles away.

“The people are identifying with Calley,” he said this week. “He stands for what the war really means. We can bomb and decimate an entire country and then we can stand back and look at it dispassionately. But, with Calley we’re really into it. . .

“This trial has touched the people where they had refused to be touched before. They hadn’t been involved before. We had all learned to accept it in terms of bombings, the balance of power and body counts. We didn’t have to talk about it in terms of the individual soldier. . .

“It’s never been a really military war in the old sense,” he added. “the old concepts don’t hold here. Now, with Calley, we’re finally being forced to think about what the war really is: A war on personal terms, of individuals being killed and killing.

“This is the first war I can remember which doesn’t fall under the banner of national self-righteousness.

“I was a product of the Second World War and that one was easy because you evaluated the objectives and not the effects. But Vietnam is far different. . .”

Reverend Fraser, a former Army paratrooper, said that the Calley case has aroused virtually every thinking American on all sides of the political spectrum.

Did the verdict bother him?

“I felt it when Calley stood there and cried,” he said.

So did the rest of the nation.

Conscious Objectors

In 1972 San Mateo hosted a parade for returning veterans, the Army’s Screaming Eagles in particular. As a member of San Mateo’s Human Rights Commission, Fraser gave voice to a dilemma that returning veterans faced, as well as a lesser-known group of young people, conscience objectors. He was interviewed by John Horgan of the San Mateo Times and elicited some thoughts regarding that subject that were not widely endorsed, nor well understood. The article is quoted below:[9]

The San Mateo parade honoring the men of the Army’s Screaming Eagles earlier this year meant different things to different people.

For the Rev. Robert Fraser, it was a warm, moving experience that had considerable worth. But it also stirred some thoughts about another group of young Americans who have been involved in the war in Southeast Asia in another way.

Fraser, the minister at San Mateo’s Unitarian Church, said this week that it might behoove the city’s Human Relations Commission to consider a probe of the community’s attitude towards the conscientious objector and the young men who have chosen to go to prison or Canada instead of Vietnam.

A veteran of the Korean war, Fraser accepts the fact that much of the city and the immediate Peninsula wholeheartedly endorsed the display of affection and sympathy for the men of the 101^st Airborne Division. However, it is his contention that this other segment of youth has also been affected by the pangs of war and that it has been virtually ignored by the community to date.

Fraser, who is also a member of the HRC, said it was unfair to compare a young man who has been killed in Vietnam with another who refuses to be drafted.

“It is a tortuous process to decide to leave one’s country,” he went on. “It’s not all roses in Canada. We have to learn to deal with this question of punishment. It doesn’t really finish the penalty when a young man is released from prison. Coming home can be a form of punishment too.”

Rather than ask the City Council to endorse some abstract pledge to aid the young men who, through conscience, felt they could not serve in Vietnam, Fraser has asked that interested people here write to the Human Relations Commission to relate their thoughts on the whole issue of the CO, the men in Canada and the question of amnesty.

At his church Fraser has also instituted a Committee for Community Involvement, a major part of which is a program for CO’s.

Gary Gustafson, 22, of San Carlos is one of ten CO’s currently assigned to work at the local church in this program.

It is his job to administer the CO program, Fraser noted. Much of the work of the young men involves tending severely disabled individuals, including some quadriplegics.

Fraser and Gustafson both remarked that the CO issue involves a moral point of view.

“I have the feeling that the CO idea isn’t accepted here,” Gustafson said. “That’s one reason why the parade for the Screaming Eagles was so successful. People here seem to be more conditioned to the concept of welcoming the men coming home from war. But they aren’t so sure about their feeling towards the CO.”

“You know, it’s one thing to talk about a moral issue and quite another to go out and do something about it,” Fraser added. “And this is what the CO has gone and done. It’s a question of conscience.

“I was moved by the response to the Screaming Eagles. A lot of the men had anticipated being put down by the people here. You can’t blame them. Most communities haven’t received the veterans very well when they return.”

The same could be said of the CO’s and the others, he said.

“Now, what about the guys in jail over this thing,” Fraser asked. “I married a couple the other day and the young man was going to have to go to jail for refusing to be drafted. He has accepted this responsibility. The prison experience can be an alienating one. Then, when he comes out in two years, what kind of reception will he get in the community? Will he be shunned? Will employers hold his prison record against him? Really, all of us are victims of this war.”

Fraser said the decision to go to jail may be a tougher one in the long run than actually going to Vietnam to fight.

“What we risk by not fighting is a double penalty,” Gustafson said.

Fraser added that there is a kind of analogy between the treatment meted out to CO’s and the other and to the recent state supreme court’s decision on the abolition of the death penalty.

The basis of that decision was that the administering of the penalty was cruel and unusual punishment and was therefore unfair and illegal.

Fraser and Gustafson said this is the case with the Selective Service system and the Americans who feel, in their consciences, that they cannot kill.

“Many of these men had only two choices: Either go to war or go to prison,” Gustafson said. “They had no other choice. I feel these men deserve some kind of decent treatment. They should not be shunned any longer.

“I like this country. I believe in it. I don’t want to leave it. I want to share this mistake. The tragedy of war is a mistake. But, I’m willing to stay here and partake of the system and its mistakes.

“And what about dignity? For me, the most dignified thing to do is to disassociate myself from the military. But people here feel the military man is the man fulfilling his duty. My duty is to my conscience.”

Anyone interested in responding to some of the remarks and thoughts of both Fraser and Gustafson are asked to write to either the city’s Human Relations Commission or to the Unitarian Fellowship Center, both in San Mateo.

Moves On 

Robert Fraser moved his ministry to the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Rockville, Md in 1977, and then to the First Unitarian Church of Honolulu, Hi in 1985. He still lives Honolulu, Hawaii.

He is married to an old school mate, Beverly (Anderson) Lahr, who was also a U of M graduate. Between them they have 9 children.