Connor-LeVander Family History

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CONNOR-LEVANDER FAMILY HISTORY

Park School was on North about five miles North of Pioneer. Of course we used that until they consolidated with the Pioneer School and I think last year, they tore the old Park School House down, and it was East of Hart’s farm. It was only a two-room school to begin with. They had four grades in the basement and four grades upstairs.

Dad passed away in 1922, and mother only had the two younger boys home to help her farm the place. She was no longer able to manage the farm, so in 1927, she bought a place in the Annex District. It is the same place that I live on now, which is about one-half mile West of the Snake River Bridge, off the River Road. The old timers in the Annex District were the Patch, Grant, and Raney families. Since the Patches had a lot of land, he donated to the Local Progress Club five acres. He donated three acres in 1907 and two acres in 1908. He gave this to the Club to form a cemetery because there weren’t any closer than Weiser or Payette, and I suppose at that time, he figured on an old Pioneer Cemetery. Sadie Joseph was president of the Club at that time, and it was dedicated on June 24, 1917. It was also signed by H.G. Thomas, Justice-of-the-Peace, of the Snake River Precinct, and they called it the Hope Cemetery. The Articles of Incorporation were filed in Salem on March 1, 1907. The Cemetery had no water on it, so there was no perpetual care. In 1950, Judge Stanton, our County Judge at that time, thought it should be put on the Tax Roll and made into perpetual care. He started talking with myself and some of the neighbors and we decided to go ahead and try to make a Cemetery District out of it.

June 5, 1965, a Cemetery District was formed consisting of the Annex and Jefferson voting precincts, and they were taxed to raise money to maintain the Cemetery. Attorney Frank Joseph, son of Sadie Joseph, did all of the legal work involved for nothing. At that time, all of the farmers and the Fern area worked together and they leveled the grounds. The Club made enough money to drill the well. Oliver Comer, my brother, was Manager of the Ontario Elevator at that time, and he donated the grass seed. Since that time, the cemetery has been on perpetual care, and we have had several caretakers. The present one being Fred Weitz, who is doing a fantastic job.

The First Board of Directors consisted of Art Vertner, Carl Ramsey, and Pearl Le Vander. By that time, we decided to change it from the Hope Cemetery to the Fairview Cemetery, and there are 204 buried in the Cemetery at this time. The first interred was a baby, whose father’s name was James Stevens, and that was November 5, 1903. Jennie Patch, who founded the Local Progress Club in 1906, was also buried there in 1950. The Cemetery is located just on top of the hill from Weiser at the Junction of Highway 201, that goes to Ontario and to Huntington, and it is about three miles from Weiser to the Cemetery. We have had several floods in the area. In 1910, April first, Lash Thomas, son of U.O. Thomas, Justice-of-the Peace, used to ride his mare and swim across to the foot of the hill, delivering the mail to the different sites.

In the community that lived up on the hill and could not get into town. December 21, 1972, due to the dam being built in the river, it started freezing and froze from the dam upriver for 35 miles. We moved out and at that time, the ice and water was around our place, and we were completely surrounded by it. Lester always said he wanted to live on an island, and when he got me on one, I moved him out. The buildings are all upon a little knoll, and the water didn’t get into the house, but over around the stores it did.

At that time, the grocery stores were Mack’s Market and the Riverside Grocery. Mack’s Market was owned by Jerry Rollins and his wife. The Riverside Grocery was owned by Ken Rhodes and his wife, and they sandbagged around. They did have to move a lot of their produce out and were closed for quite some time due to the ice and high water. A year and a month later, on January 21, 1974, it froze but not as much. Of course, on both of these floods we were really lucky in that it started thawing down by the dam and let the water loose instead of starting to thaw up near Ontario and bringing the water down on the ice that we already had.

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From Pearl Levander