Kimberly A. Cook

Military Romance Author

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Astoria, Captain Flavel And Clouds

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Flavel House Museum, Astoria, Oregon

 

When the going gets tough, I leave town. During the crazy of the web site remodel, construction project and heat wave, a day trip to the coast seemed like the best course of action. My friend and I headed for Astoria for cool breezes, clouds, seafood and research.

We both have wanted to tour the Flavel House Museum for years and finally our timing was right. The Flavel House was finished in 1886 for Captain George Flavel, a mover and shaker in early Astoria.

Captain George Flavel of Astoria, Oregon.

Not only did Flavel see the coming shipping boom, his most impressive feat for me is being the father of the Columbia River Bar pilots. These men and women today continue his legacy of heroic measures to keep river traffic flowing across the Columbia River Bar, considered the most dangerous bar in the world.

Flavel did it with wooden ships, sail and row boats. Yowsa.

So working hard and smart his whole life, he had an 11,600 square foot home built for him and his wife, Mary, and daughters Nellie and Katie. His son, George Conrad Flavel, had married and did not live in the home.

 

The most amazing part of all Flavel’s accomplishments? He was regarded as a fair, good man by the community.  He was truly mourned when he died in 1893, after living seven years in his retirement home.

Music Room.

The house went on the National Register of Historic Places in 1951. The refurbishing of the home over the years has been nothing short of astounding. The additional Carriage House was built in 1887 and now holds the Visitor Center, gift shop, introductory video, and exhibits.

The home and Carriage House take up one whole city block. With a great river view of course.

The Library!! Be still my heart.

This grand old lady is well worth taking a visit to see. The fresh sea air, cool interior and fabulous food in town made for a great day getaway.

New favorite reading chair. Got to get me one of these.

I took more than one-hundred twenty photos and I could have taken more. I’m lazy so I take pictures of the placards so I can read them for in-depth research later.

Astoria is famous for movies being filmed there like “Kindergarten Cop,” “Short Circuit,” “Sometimes A Great Notion,” and of course “Goonies.”

But I think the star of the town is the Flavel House. She was there first and she’s the belle of the town.

For more information:  www.cumtux.org

Then finish your visit with a nice sit by the pond and watch the goldfish. Heaven.

Keeping Pearl Harbor Memories and Sacrifices Alive

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by Kimberly A. Cook             (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

The first war story I recorded for a 1976 school project belonged to John Watson, my brother-in-law’s great-uncle. He worked as a shipyard worker in Pearl Harbor for the U.S. Navy. He was laying in bed on his first day off in thirteen weeks. He and his roommate, Lonnie, heard a lot of firing. They thought it might be practice firing, but it didn’t sound right. They turned on the radio.

The Battleship Missouri Memorial watches over the USS Arizona Memorial on election day, Nov. 6. Copyright 2012 Kimberly A. Cook
The Battleship Missouri Memorial watches over the USS Arizona Memorial on election day, Nov. 6. Copyright 2012 Kimberly A. Cook

“All workmen return to Pearl Harbor immediately, Japs are firing on us,” came across the radio waves. The two men made it to Pearl Harbor thirty minutes later and went through the main gate just as the second wave of Japanese fighters were coming over. “I don’t think they ever caught up with me though,” Johnny joked.

An electrician, Johnny got “juice” on the heavy cruiser San Francisco so she could fire her guns. Her anti-aircraft “one point pom poms” were on the dock so the rigger swung them aboard and they welded them to the deck. She was firing in 20  minutes. “By manual, manual firing them,” he said.

“I’ll admit there were no stops on them and she practically cut one stack off following them planes around. We were firing right towards Honolulu. I had a lot up in the valley I was ready to build a new house on and a 16-inch shell took that lot off the hillside; we found fragments of it,” he said.

“They were firing at anything going away, coming or anything else with anything that would fire. Like I told ya, we fired 16-inch guns at airplanes.”

Last year on the 70th Anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association voted to disband their corporate association on Dec. 31, 2011. The travel is challenging for those in their late 80s and early 90s. The memories are still strong and painful. The challenge for the National Park Service now is how to transition their mission to keep the memories and the sacrifice alive and relevant to future generations.

Education and stories are the key for me. Uncle Johnny’s story became my first official war story to record. That one encounter started me on a lifelong journey as a writer, veteran and military storyteller.  For those of us left behind, we must now step up and tell the stories to new generations for those who have gone before. This Friday, December 7th, remember Uncle Johnny and all the men, women, children and civilians we lost on that day in Honolulu and since.

Freedom isn’t free.