No matter what holiday you celebrate, November and December usually involve a lot of family togetherness and a lot of feasting! Instead of overeating this holiday season, I’m suggesting we all feed our hungry hearts with genuine connection to others. We know that we nourish our bodies and our families’ bodies by cooking and eating healthy food. Who and how do we nurture our souls? Have an Encouragement Feast!
Encouragement Feasts are a time when family members (or classmates, or members on a team, or colleagues) take turns saying positive things about each other and to each other. Encouragement Feasts helps us teach our children values by acknowledging progress, growth, and improvement, as well as recognizing the small kindnesses and acts that build character. Encouragement Feasts can be done anytime… to kick off family meetings, to celebrate birthdays, before big events like a test, a performance, or a game, or just anytime you feel like connecting or someone needs their spirits lifted.
ODT Inspire is a non-profit all-star competitive cheer and dance team serving individuals with special needs. The team is open to all skill levels, male and female, ages 5 and up. The team practices hard every Sunday for two hours in Beaverton. There are 23 athletes, 20 volunteers and 2 coaches. Four of the athletes and two of the volunteers go to school in Tualatin. One of the Inspire coaches is also the Varsity Cheer Assistant Coach at TuHS.
Martinazzi Avenue is a familiar name in our city but few may realize there are several strong women with that family heritage still making their mark today.
The most widely-known Martinazzi (rhymes with “snazzy”) is Loyce whose articles on Tualatin area history are widely followed in these pages. She lives in nearby Lake Oswego. Big sister Jo has relocated from Oregon to Arizona. Sister Toni settled in Kentucky. Only Rochelle still lives in Tualatin on part of the original 50-acre home place
In 1937 their parents Art Martinazzi and wife Ann Chapman (from nearby Stafford) purchased the land which had been farmed by the Jurgens family (their relatives) since 1869. Today’s Apache Bluff subdivision once grew Martinazzi berries and hay in addition to a Grade A dairy. Rochelle’s driveway entrance still displays Art’s coveted Century Farm sign awarded to any Oregon farm continually operating for at least 100 years. His mother Nettie Jurgens was born in a house still standing on Shasta Trail.
As 2016 comes to an end, it’s a good time to reflect over the last year and begin to contemplate the future. We’ve certainly seen a lot of changes here in Tualatin over the last year, and as we look forward, it is apparent that more change is in the air! We’ll have a new president who’s likely to shake things up on the national level, and here in Tualatin, we’ll soon have some new ideas with the addition of City Councilors Robert Kellogg, Paul Morrison, and a third, yet-to-be named councilor that should be appointed in the next couple of days. Welcome aboard! We’ll also be saying good-bye to outgoing councilors Ed Truax, Monique Beikman and Wade Brooksby. We thank them for their years of hard work and service to our community.
We’re also seeing a lot of physical changes transforming the landscape of Tualatin. Sadly, one of the biggest changes we’ve seen was the destruction of the Clark Lumber building. The Clark family continues to operate from the site and I was very happy to accept an advertisement from the company in this month’s issue (see page 3). We’ve seen many new businesses come to town over the last year… and it looks like even the Cracker Barrel that everybody’s been asking about has finally broken ground and will be opening early 2017!
Here at Tualatin Life, we’ll be contemplating a few changes as well. The first change you’ll be seeing is the transition to a true monthly. Moving forward, look for your monthly copy of Tualatin Life in your mailbox on or about the first of every month. We’ll also be revamping and adding new features to our website (www.tualatinlife.com) over the coming months. More on that later…
Please remember to keep our advertisers in mind as you make your purchasing decisions. It is through their support we’re able to continue bringing you this community forum.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
Michael Antonelli – Publisher
mike@tualatinlife.com
503-692-9215
Son, Jerad Summers, is Industrial Arts teacher at Hazelbrook Middle School – Bradley was liberated on April 29, 1945 by US Army 14th Armored Division
Bradley Summer’s knew he was in trouble when the B-17 he was co-piloting fell behind the squadron formation on the return trip to England after participating in a WWII bombing raid on Hamburg as part of Operation Gomorrah, targeting strategic shipyards, U-boat pens and oil refineries. German fighter planes, Messerschmidts and Fokwolves, were blowing his plane apart. Forced to bail out, he was momentarily dazed when hit the ground, then found himself staring up at a double barrel shotgun held by a farmer. He said he “decided best not to test if shotgun was loaded.”
Air Force 2nd Lieutenant Bradley Summers.
Bradley was sent to an interrogation center called Dulag Luft in Frankfurt. He was surprised to find that the ever efficient German military already a folder with his name on it and notes including his home address and military training. He limited his answers to Geneva Convention requirements. Because not cooperative, he was ordered to solitary confinement. But after that was not interrogated again. He was given script which enabled him to buy toothpaste and personal care items at the Camp PX. He got a pair of black GI shoes, two sizes too big which he wore throughout his entire prison stay. From Dulag Luft he was sent to Stalag 3, a Luftwaffe-run prisoner-of-war Camp 100 miles Southeast of Berlin that housed captured air force officers. He was incarcerated there for two years.
Bradley wrote “although Stalag 3 was considered the country club of German prison camps, it lacked a lot of being a country club”. Initially he was put into a compound occupied by both U.S. and British officers. Several months later, Bradley and other Americans were moved to an American compound. Eventually the camp grew to 60 acres in size, housing 2,500 Royal Air Force officers, 7,500 U.S. Army Air Force and 900 officers from other nationalities. He quickly learned the daily routine of life. Twice a day, a nose count was conducted, called “appell”. The prisoners would line up in a formation. Two guards would count, one in front and one in back. They wanted to make sure that the number of prisoners in each barracks matched the number assigned. Each prisoner received an 11-pound Red Cross food package weekly to supplement German rations, which were usually potatoes and when in season, cabbage and other vegetables. Cooking was done in each barracks, with prisoners taking turns. The Red Cross package included cigarettes, coffee, tea and chocolate bars. Those items were the medium of exchange for the prisoners. Mail call was slow. Prisoners were allowed to send several letters or postcards a week but it took several months to get an answer. The War Department provided special parcel labels that allowed families to send four care packages a year, each weighing up to 11 pounds. Additionally tobacco companies sent packages “in bond” at the request of families. Bradley said one of his care packages included “Seaforth aftershave lotion”. Word got out and guys traded a candy bar or a cigar to get a splash.
POW barracks at Stalag 3.
Stalag 3 was the camp where the tunneling for “The Great Escape” was done. Bradley was aware of the preparation activity underway but was in a different compound when the prison break occurred. Some 76 prisoners escaped. Three made it out of Germany, 50 were shot and the remaining returned to the camp.Even though under stressful conditions, Bradley said the POWs managed to have fun, with good natured pranks on each other, sports and even prisoner performed theater and music. His notes give validity to some of the zany activities depicted in the TV series Hogan’s Heros which ran from 1966 through 1971.
When Russian troops were near, the POWs were marched 34 miles in below-freezing temperatures. After a 30 hour rest, they marched another 16 miles to a railway stop where they sent by train to Mooseberg. After freed by US 14th Armored Division on April 29, 1945, Bradley wrote “we saw the old American flag rise up on the flagpole on top of the city hall over in Mooseberg and man, don’t you think that is a beautiful sight. Boy, we were really proud of that moment. We knew we were liberated then.”
Machine gun watchtower at Stalag 3 POW camp.
German soldier guarding POWs (in Stalag 3).
POWs in Stalag 3 moved Northward as Russian troops close in.
An Allied tank that liberated POWs.
Brad Summers POW ID card.
1940 Ford convertible that Bradley bought with two years back pay for time as POW.
Teachers are superheroes without masks or capes. They give their time. They pour themselves out, teaching all that they know to hundreds of kids over the years, and often multiple generations. Beth Yancey is one of these heroes.
Beth’s career has always been unconventional. She taught fourth, fifth and sixth grade in Indonesia from 1973-1975. In 1981, she started assisting in her daughter’s preschool class in Tualatin. She was soon on staff as a classroom aide, then teaching the following year. She taught in the preschool for an accumulative seventeen years. During her time in preschool education, she wrote a book as well.
Helping children explore the consequences of their choices is much different from imposing consequences on them. Exploring invites the participation of children to think for themselves and figure things out for themselves. Exploring invites children to decide what is important to them, and to decide what they want. The end result is focusing on solutions to the problem, instead of focusing on consequences.
It’s Annual Enrollment Period time again and you just received a huge package in the mail containing your Annual Notice of Change. Now what? Understanding Medicare and its coverage should not be this hard.
One of the biggest secrets about all of those Medicare Advantage (MA) plans out there is, they all basically cover the same thing. In order to be a MA plan it has to cover the same services that Original Medicare covers. Now some plans may throw in a little vision coverage, maybe a little dental coverage, and it may provide you with a membership to a health club, but when it comes down to medical coverage, they all are generally the same, coverage wise.
Are you ready to take your family back in time? Want to make some family memories you’ll treasure forever? And would you like to have a blast as you do it?
Then reserve December 3, 2016 from 3:00 pm – 6:00 pm for A Night in Bethlehem! And it’s FREE!
Longtime Tualatin resident Jeanette Chaffee appeared on the popular telecast 100 Huntley Street television show. It aired Thursday, October 13 on GEB America Network. It can be seen on demand at tinyurl.com/zcjx2kk.
Jeanette is the author of Extravagant Graces: 23 Inspiring Stories of Facing Impossible Odds, which showcases real people challenged by situations including the deaths of family members by murder and cancer, drug addiction, and the loss of home and possessions. She also includes her own harrowing story of survival of a terrorist bomb explosion on TWA Flight 840 to Athens in 1986. Her book has been well received and became an instant classic, garnering dozens of five-star reviews on Amazon.
