Marrying Mormon Miles

John Henry William Miles kept two families.

My great-grandfather George Edmond Miles was born in 1866 in a London slum, the son of an unmarried woman named Jane Mary Wyatt. 

His natural father, John Henry William Miles, was the proprietor of a pub called the Red Lion. The pub now carries some fame; it is thought to have been in the Miles family pub that eleven-year-old Charles Dickens asked for his first pint of ale and with it received a kiss from the proprietress, an incident he would immortalize in David Copperfield. 

John Henry William Miles,
proprietor of the Red Lion Pub

Eliza Horne Miles, his unhappy wife

Managing a successful pub located between 10 Downing Street and the Houses of Parliament allowed John to maintain two families, and ensured that his legitimate children were well educated and his illegitimate ones housed and clothed. George Edmond was one of a set of twins who, along with elder siblings Henry and Edith, made up the illegitimate side of John's family. Their existence was kept completely secret to the businessman's legal family, but his wife Eliza suspected his double life. Their arguments were fierce, and she left her husband when their eldest was fifteen years old.

The eldest legitimate Miles son was named John Horne Miles. John was a headstrong boy with little respect for either authority or family; from an early age the boy had plagued his mother and defied his father, and was blamed in part for his mother’s discontent. John Horne had his own ideas about how his life would proceed.

John Horne Miles, fiercely independent

At the age of twelve young John had fallen in love with his second cousin, a beautiful thirteen-year-old girl named Caroline Horne Maile Owen. Caroline, who had been born to parents named Maile but raised by relatives named Owen, was a beautiful girl with fair hair and a round, sweet face. Though they were both neighbors and cousins, the difference in social station between John, a tavern-owner's son, and Caroline, the only adopted daughter of a High Constable, was great. Nevertheless as the years went on she came to eagerly return his youthful affection and the two became secretly engaged. Certain that neither his parents nor hers would have approved the match, they were forced to hide their promise to one another until John gained his independence.

Caroline Horne Maile Owen,
beloved of John Horne Miles

It was possibly in consequence of this frustrated romance that John decided at the age of sixteen to defy his father's wishes and sign himself into a 3-year indenture as a merchant seaman. John H.W. Miles was heartbroken by his son's choice. The old Red Lion had been in Miles' hands for generations, but his eldest son was determined to have nothing to do with it. After a period of fruitless opposition during which neither father nor son would bend, they parted on bad terms.

John, along with one of his best friends, Ebenezer DeFriez, set out to sea in 1870. Early in the voyage John was forced to admit what those around him already likely knew, which was that John Horne Miles and hard work were a poor match. He used his first shore leave to return home and beg his father to pay off the indenture early -- he would become a teacher, a writer, an intellectual, anything but a sailor! The older man, however, could not be moved, and his refusal to aid John in this only deepened the chasm between them.

Ebenezer DeFriez,
friend of John Horne Miles

After nearly three years at sea John and Ebenezer arrived in Sydney, Australia, when their ship, the SS England, put into port long enough for the two to explore the bustling city. While wandering the streets together a strong, pleasing voice reached their ears and they found themselves listening with fascination to a young man preaching a new and strange gospel. They left the scene with a Book of Mormon in their possession and the lingering notes of the missionary's words in their ears. Back aboard ship John sat down to read it while Ebenezer took his shift at guard duty; by the time Ebenezer returned, John was persuaded by the new gospel. Less than a month later both had been baptized by missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Sydney.

The SS England, aboard which John and Ebenezer
were indentured

From Sydney the England went on to Japan and from there to Portland, Oregon. John Horne had been counting the days until the expiry of his indenture; the moment they put into port he gave his notice and left the ship behind, while Ebenezer followed the next day. Together they made their way to Utah to join their new Mormon brethren, full of hope for the future and giddy with excitement about what lay ahead. Optimistically, the nineteen-year-old John wrote to Caroline Owen to tell her he would soon be a wealthy man and to ask her formally to be his bride.

On arriving in Salt Lake City John Horne and Ebenezer were welcomed as new converts and their skills assessed. The two were called into Brigham Young's office in the center of the shining new city and interviewed by the leader of the church himself. Young saw use for their seaman's knot-tying skills in the construction of a new temple being raised in St George, and bid them go down to the `Cotton Mission' being established in the southwestern corner of the state.

St George was an early outpost of Mormondom in Utah's South, founded as part of Brigham Young's ambitious scheme to form a self-reliant community of Mormons who could exist outside the reach of the rest of the United States. Salt Lake City was green and pleasant despite its salty plains, but the area lacked essentials that would bind them forever through trade to non-Mormon `gentiles'.

In the late 1850s Young had visited the Mormons' sparse Indian Mission in Santa Clara on the Virgin River and tucked away in his mind the possibilities of loamy soil and arid heat in the area. Some years later he hatched a plan to grow cotton in Utah's `Dixie' when initial efforts to mine iron from the southern Utah hills failed. In 1861 he called together 309 Mormon families, all of hardy stock and loyal disposition, and sent them south to scrape a city into the inhospitable desert landscape along the Virgin. In order for the colony to survive Young knew they would need a powerful symbol of their faith to cling to; St George, he decreed, would boast the first Mormon temple to be completed in the new Zion of Utah.

Utah's "Dixie," near Santa Clara on the Virgin River

It took three years after the St George temple was begun for the foundation alone to be completed. The swampy valley ground and crumbling sandstone hills made setting the foundation a near-impossible task which only extraordinary amounts of sheer willpower and back-breaking labor could overcome. As it happened John and Ebenezer arrived in Utah as the walls were finally beginning to rise, and just as the complex knots and pulleys they'd used aboard ship would be most critical. Their expertise would prove invaluable in completing the temple's construction.

Not long after their arrival in St George John and Ebenezer made the acquaintance of a fellow seaman, a wind-beaten, bearded Saint by the name of George Jarvis. George and his wife, Ann Prior Jarvis, had converted in England in 1848 and they and their young children had traveled across the ocean to join their brethren. The Jarvises were among those Saints who had made the difficult trek from New England to Salt Lake City almost entirely on foot. In 1861 George and Ann had answered a new call, this time to Utah’s Dixie.

George Jarvis, an old sailor

Ann Prior Jarvis, his much-loved wife

George Jarvis and Ann Prior were a fascinating couple; they had fallen in love at first sight at a party in London in 1845 and married just a few months later, he a gangly young seaman and she a cheery-faced, delightfully plump girl of sixteen. Queen Victoria had been crowned less than a decade earlier and was a great heroine of Ann's; family legend says that the resemblance between young Ann and the young Queen was often remarked on.

When Ann was fifteen her mother Catherine took her aside and entreated her to stop speaking so openly about her admiration for Queen Victoria, remarking mysteriously that they were more closely related than anyone could know. Catherine then confessed that her husband had learned in his mother's dying breath that he was the son of Edward Augustus Hanover, Duke of Kent and father of the queen, in whose household his young mother Elizabeth McDonald had been employed for a time before being sent away in disgrace after falling with child. William had died years before, as had the duke, so no proof of the connection could be obtained. Ann's mother spoke regretfully of being treated ``very ill" by the current queen, who was determined to erase all memory of her father's numerous indiscretions. Ann, however, was so enamored by the idea of the queen's being her half-aunt that she clung delightedly to the idea and tried even harder to emulate her. Years later she named her second daughter Victoria Josephine and informed the young girl that royalty was in her blood, if only she would live up to it.

John Horne Miles’ first meeting with the Jarvis family is recorded in Mary Miles Kleinman's record of the Jarvis family history, titled The Essence of Faith. In it she writes, ``Ebenezer DeFriez and John Horne Miles became regular guests at the Jarvis home, joining in with the others who frequently gathered there to visit and sing."

When Ann Prior Jarvis enquired whether John was searching for a wife among the local girls he spoke feelingly of his ```fine beauty’" Caroline in London, proclaiming that he ``was not free." But as time went on and no word from Caroline arrived, he began to change his tune. In language typical of his famed grandiosity he declared to the Jarvises: ```I submit that Caroline has probably become espoused to some wealthy ass, probably a lord; no miserable chimney sweep for someone with Caroline's pulchritude. Though I'll wager that if she is lucky enough to see me again, she'll rue the day she married that opulent greenhorn.’”

While working on the temple John boarded with a widow and her two teenaged daughters, Emily and Julia Spencer. The girls exuded youth and health, and perhaps most importantly possessed the advantage of bearing little resemblance to Caroline. Where Caroline was delicate and prim, the sisters were ruddy and kindly-faced; where Caroline was fair they were dark. Caroline's hair was frequently styled into a curling blond halo around her head, whileas Emily and Julia pulled theirs back into simple chignons more suited to hard work and a desert climate. Time passed, and he was charmed by the girls' innocent faith and dedication to the new Church as well as intrigued by their openness to the gospel of plural marriage, which had been officially sanctioned by Church leaders in 1852. Not long after abandoning hope of a reply from Caroline he persuaded both the Spencer sisters to be his brides.

Emily Spencer

Julia Spencer

As the temple neared completion another obstacle arose when the beautiful baptismal font arrived at last from Salt Lake City. It consisted of an enormous iron bowl that was to be seated on the backs of twelve cast-iron oxen, a room-sized full-body spiritual bath. The bowl alone was shipped in six pieces and on arrival was found to weigh no less than nine tons. How to lift the massive vessel onto the backs of the iron oxen was a puzzle indeed, and concerned citizens sent to Salt Lake City for extra manpower. 

St George's baptismal font on the backs
 of iron oxen

In the meantime the old sailor George Jarvis felt that the task was a manageable one; he had lifted just as much weight with fewer men over docks in China and London. He submitted a proposal to the city leaders and enlisted John Horne Miles, Ebenezer DeFriez, Ebenezer's brother Charles, and a fourth sailor named Thomas Crane to man the system of pulleys he devised. Most of the town showed up to witness the feat, their eager chatter for a time drowning out Jarvis' instructions. At last the townspeople were silenced and watched in awe as Jarvis directed the four men using precise maritime language to lift the nine-ton bowl effortlessly onto the backs of the waiting oxen. Applause erupted the minute the font settled onto the oxen, the accomplishment considered a minor miracle by those who saw it. The sailors were hailed as heroes, and for years afterward the five men would puff up their chests with pride whenever the majestic baptismal font was mentioned.

St George temple under construction

John’s idyllic life with the Saints would be interrupted, however, by his call to serve a mission to England once the temple was completed in 1876. He finished his long circuit around the globe as a missionary of the new faith, at last arriving on his aged father's doorstep only to find the older man near death. In anticipation of the Red Lion passing out of family hands, John H.W. Miles had sold it and purchased a pub in Surrey called the George. As a final gesture of reconciliation he left all his money and property -- a large inheritance -- to his eldest son. On his deathbed he revealed to the young man the existence of his second family, and entreated his heir to assist both his legitimate and illegitimate families with the funds.

John Horne was stunned to learn of his four half-siblings. After his father's funeral he made his way to the center of London where he met with Jane Mary Wyatt and the four Wyatt children. He moved them to better lodgings at once and endeared himself to all of them, assuring them that they would receive the protection of their father's name and family. He also preached to them of the Mormon faith and found little resistance to their conversion. In a letter to his mission headquarters in London he reported: ``Yesterday I had the inestimable blessing and privilege of baptizing my three youngest brothers and sister, together with their mother; they will be only too glad to gather with me to the Zion of our God when I return. I am happy to say that the disposal of my father's estate nears completion.”

John also visited Caroline Owen and was astonished to hear that she had written to him of her acceptance of his offer of marriage but that the letter had never arrived. In what must have been a painful conversation he was forced to admit to her that he had become engaged to not one, but two other ladies during their estrangement.

Shocked but still in love, Caroline agreed to convert to Mormonism and follow him to Utah under the condition that he sever his engagements to Emily and Julia. He refused to break his promise to the young ladies. Forced to concede, Caroline capitulated on that point but insisted on being his first wife, with the Spencer sisters to come second to her in rank. He agreed to her condition and they, along with Jane Mary Wyatt and her four children, began the long journey to Utah.

So it was with the grandiose, self-assured John Horne Miles that 12-year-old George Edmond Miles and his family placed their trust. They arrived in Utah in 1878, making the trip across the sea and the eastern states in relative comfort but finishing with a rough 318 mile, 14-day journey from Salt Lake City to St George by mule-drawn wagon.

As soon as they arrived John set about planning his weddings, but to his dismay found that the Church would not allow him to marry a younger woman as his first wife; Emily, as the eldest, must come first. When Caroline learned of the church president's decision she protested against the position into which she was being ensnared. Faced with the unpleasant alternatives before her: to return to England alone, make her way in the States as an unmarried woman or marry the man she still loved, she crumbled. ``I will marry you," she snarled at John in the church president's office, ``but I will either poison or kill you afterwards.”

John's solution to Caroline's jealousy was to marry Emily in the morning and Caroline in the afternoon, only revealing that he had married Emily that morning by bringing her to Caroline's wedding reception and introducing her there as his wife. It was at the reception, then, that Caroline's frustration with John reached its breaking point; enraged, she commanded Emily to vacate the piano stool where she sat only to have John come to his first wife's defense. In answer Caroline walked straight over to Emily and slapped her across the face. When John moved to chastise her, she spat: ``If you don't shut up I'll slap you too" and left the reception forthwith.

A dramatic scene ensued, ostensibly involving John Horne chasing poor Caroline around her bedroom. At last she escaped, broken-hearted and spitting mad, to plead with authorities to save her from her husband. The state court convicted John of bigamy with scarcely-contained glee, but he appealed the verdict at once. So began the federal case of the United States vs John H. Miles, a well-publicized trial of outlandish and sensational Mormon practices.

Throughout the ordeal John begged Caroline to drop charges against him. Multiple accounts testify to the fact that Caroline was ever the first lady of his heart even if he had married Emily before her; in the court records it is noted that ``after the arrest, but before indictment, he promised to give up the other woman and make Miss Owen his first and only wife, if only she would come back to him," but she refused under any circumstance to return to his side.

The trial was a sensation across the country, its sordid facts revisited in each appellate court. One transcript hedged around the issue of consummation, with Caroline questioned as a witness about the extent of her relations with John on the night of their wedding. She stated that she was in her bed when he came to her room, and that he stayed there all night despite her objections.

``How much did you object?" the judge enquired.

``I wish you could have been there to have seen how much," Carrie answered.

To this the judge drolly replied: ``I wish I had too."

Ultimately John Horne was found not guilty by virtue of the fact that his first bride, Emily Spencer Miles, could not be located to testify to her marriage -- this was the standard evasion used by Saints cornered in polygamy cases.

Julia refused to marry John after the debacle, but Emily bore him eleven children. Years later their granddaughter lamented the outcome, stating that ``[Grandma Emily] knew [Grandpa] John had never stopped loving Caroline; all his life he loved Caroline. After she'd borne him all those children, Grandma awoke one night and John was talking to Caroline in his sleep. Next day he was mean as hell with Grandma. He didn't love Grandma and she knew it.”

Emily Spencer in later life

As for Caroline, she returned to the East Coast and settled into life as a single woman in Washington D.C. She passionately fought against Mormon interests, speaking before crowds of the horror of her experience and the unjustness of the Mormon way of life when it came to the rights of women. In her mid thirties she married a divorced man fifteen years her senior. She bore Thomas Widdecombe two sons but died two weeks after the second was born, likely of childbed fever.

John Horne Miles in his teaching years

Despite the upset of his younger years, John settled into life in southern Utah and managed to install himself as a respected citizen of the county. He also succeeded in avoiding manual labor for the rest of his life, working and advertising himself as a teacher who had attended ``Eaton" college -- his claim was one final dastardly move, as few of his countrified pupils would have realized he did not attend the homonymous Eton. He lived a long but thenceforth unremarkable life, and died in 1925 at the age of 71.

Coming soon - "Is that your own hair, or do you wear a switch?" - or, the courtship of George Edmond Miles

The Hundred-Year-Old House

James E. Breed was an upstanding but unfortunate man.

Exactly a century ago, he built the house I’ve lived in for the last twelve years. This is the story of his life, and of those who lived with him in this house.

James' father was a civil war soldier, imprisoned at Andersonville. Their male lineage went back to the owners of Bunker Hill, also known as Breed’s Hill, infamous battle site of the Revolutionary War. 

Restless, James Purington Breed had gone west to Illinois in 1859 and taken a job with American Express there after the war. James Edward Breed was born in Chicago in 1877, the second of four sons. He went into the credit business, and was a bachelor until his thirtieth year.

Olive F. and James P. Breed, James' parents

James (left) and his three brothers

James Edward Breed and two brothers

Helen Vincent Stanton was born in Jeffersonville, Indiana, in 1873, to Florence Lyon Stanton and Charles Benjamin Stanton. At the time of her birth her parents lived in a highly unusual octagonal house built by Florence’s father. They were well off – Charles had attended Amherst College – and Helen, her sister and two brothers were all educated in Europe, where Helen took up the violin. Her father’s work in the insurance industry took them persistently west, and the family relocated from Indiana to Western Springs, Illinois, when she was a toddler.

At the age of twenty Helen married Lorin Andrews Etter, a railroad agent with the West Shore Fast Freight Line. Their marriage was an unhappy one; when their son Sidney was six years old she filed for divorce, and Lorin died of consumption in Denver less than a year later.

While her parents remained in Illinois, Helen and her son stayed nearby. It was there that she became acquainted with the young credit man, James Edward Breed, who was some years her junior and still unmarried. He was tall and slender, with blue eyes and dark hair. They formed an attachment and were married in 1906 when her boy was twelve years old, and within a year they were blessed with a daughter, Helen Vincent Breed.

Little Helen was less than a year old when both James’ and Helen’s parents pushed further west, the Breeds to Portland, Oregon, and the Stantons to Tacoma, Washington. James and Helen, along with their two children, relocated to Tacoma alongside her parents.

In Tacoma the Breeds took up residence at 1206 South Tyler Street, just two doors away from Helen’s family, who were at number 1216. Helen’s two unmarried siblings, John and Mary, lived with their parents at the ages of 36 and 34, respectively, and John worked as a manager at the Fidelity and Guarantee Company.

The Stanton family were members of the Christian Scientists and John was clerk for the new Tacoma chapter – John wrote a “dear beloved leader” letter to the church’s founder Mary Baker Eddy informing her of their progress. Charles and Florence enjoyed a quiet life in retirement, engaging in reading and gardening. John found a chaste romance with a Miss Kate Derickson, daughter of an army captain. The fourth child, Victor, remained in Chicago with his wife.

In August of 1912, however, tragedy struck. Charles and Florence traveled by train to visit their son in Chicago, but on the return trip Florence fell to the ground dead at the train station in Denver. It was thought that the altitude must have affected her heart. Her remains were brought back to Tacoma, but the family had little desire to remain in the town after her death. The Breed family, followed by the widower Charles, then John moved down to Portland. The Breeds took up residence at 1030 East Seventeenth Street North (now 4904 NE 17^th Ave), where James’ mother Olive was grieving her husband, who had died the year before.

Across the street from the Breed family lived a young widow named Leona Meadows Smith Czaia and her two children, teenaged Emmett and nine year-old Edith. Leona had recently been remarried to a man named Charles G. Czaia, a waiter at the downtown Benson Hotel. Emmett and Sidney became fast friends, being of similar age and sharing the burden of a step-father – though Czaia was a far cry from James Breed, having recently pled guilty to the crime of contributing to the delinquency of a minor girl.

As soon as Emmett graduated high school the two boys sought adventure together. In the spring of 1914, just as war was threatening in Europe, they each packed thirty pounds of camping supplies and obtained a letter of introduction from the mayor of Portland, H. Russell Albee. The Oregon Daily Journal wrote: “Sidney Etter of 1027 East Seventeenth Street North and Emmett Smith of 1030 East Seventeenth Street North, will leave Portland Monday on a hiking trip to Los Angeles. Their jaunt will be purely for pleasure, and time will be no object. It is possible that they may be able to go as far as New Orleans. Returning they will make their way to a seaport and work their way back.”

A week later the News-Review of Roseburg in southern Oregon wrote, “Two husky young boys arrived from Portland Saturday evening…and state that with the exception of a few lifts, they have walked the entire distance this far.”

The next that is known of the two boys is that Emmett Smith died in Los Angeles just over one year later; he was only nineteen. It is unclear if Sidney remained in California as long as Emmett, but he almost certainly attended his friend’s funeral at River View Cemetery in Portland. The cause of Emmett’s death has been lost to history.

When Emmett was buried the Breeds were already wearing black for seven-year-old Helen, who died at her parent’s home eight weeks before Emmett’s death. War had broken out, though the United States was not yet formally involved. The Breed family needed a change.

In the meantime, Southeast Portland was coming into its own. The little town of Sellwood, shortly downriver from Portland on the Willamette’s east side, had been officially incorporated in 1889. In 1903 a public ferry was established at the site of the current Sellwood bridge, encouraging traffic across the river. Between Sellwood and Portland was a swath of livestock farms divided by a north-south highway and Crystal Springs creek. Closer to the river, unpaved Milwaukie avenue paralleled the north-south streetcar rails to Sellwood.

The Ladd Estate Company, formed in 1907 partly to avoid legal trouble for the Ladd family of businesses, had come into possession of the Crystal Spring Farm. They donated forty acres for an academic institute on the east portion, now Reed College, and divided the grazing land into Westmoreland in 1909 and Eastmoreland in 1910.

Bybee overpass looking toward Eastmoreland, 1906

In 1910 the Oregonian wrote: “Rapid development of the large additions opened in the south East Side, and the large tracts to be opened during the ensuing year, demonstrate that Portland is extending south as well as north. Westmoreland, part of the Crystal Spring farm, opened late hast year, made remarkable progress. Out of the 700 lots in the addition a considerable portion have been sold, and about 40 attractive homes have been started.” The same article announces a plan to pave Milwaukie avenue.

Two months later the newspaper reported, “There is no mistaking the remarkable effect of the location of the Reed Institute in the South East Side. Of course the platting of the Crystal Spring Farm into Westmoreland and Eastmoreland was the beginning of a progressive movement, as this big farm had long stood in the way of development…Milwaukie avenue has at last subject to the control of the city for its entire length. Before, it was both a street and a country road, with the result that it was never in good condition. It will now be possible to have it paved to the end.”

Advertisements touted the benefits of the new Westmoreland neighborhood, which was designed for white collar workers commuting into Portland. Among them were “unexcelled beauty of surroundings,” “residents will pass through only the best parts of Portland to reach their homes,” “is lighted at night” and “electric light and telephone.” A minimum price for home construction in the addition – $1500 – provided “absolute assurance of high class homes.” Despite the fast-growing automobile trade, horses were widely used for transportation and Westmoreland’s sidewalks were dotted with iron rings to tether horses while visiting.

James Breed was doing well for himself. He continued his work in the credit industry with Rosenfeld-Smith Company tobacco, and was able to support his wife, stepson and mother. He had joined the local tennis league and taken up golf. The idea of a new home must have attracted him, and lured by advertisements he purchased Lot 17 of block 35 in Westmoreland in 1916.

Breed chose the plans for his house from Earl G. Cash, architect, and commissioned Ward & Moe as builders. Construction was begun in March of 1917, and on May 20, 1917, the Oregonian ran a photograph of the nearly-completed one and a half story frame structure at 1295 East 22^nd Street South, located about halfway between Claybourne street and Tolman street. The lots to either side were undeveloped, giving the small house a wide vista to the south, north and east toward Mt. Hood. Around this time Breed gave up his work with the tobacco company and began working with the Oregon Casket Company.

House under construction, May 1917

In late 1917 the Breed family moved into the home, which had a large first story, an unfinished basement and a finished attic with three large rooms and a bathroom. Also in 1917, James Breed and Sidney Etter were required to register for the draft. The United States entered the war, and Sidney and his uncle, Captain C.W. Breed, were sent to the fight.

Captain Breed wrote home to his mother, and she sent a sample to the Oregonian to be published. In it he describes a novel war machine, the tank, and the “grewsome” power of the weapon.

The younger man would never see combat, however. Though he had excelled in his aviation training, which was backed by two years in the Oregon Naval Militia, Sidney Etter was struck down by influenza shortly after arriving in Winchester, England. He died of the pneumonia at Easton Military Hospital in August of 1918 and was buried temporarily at Magdalen Hill Cemetery. In 1920 he, along with almost 500 of his compatriots, was exhumed and reburied at Arlington National Cemetery.

Temporary soldiers' graves at Magdalen Hill Cemetery in 1918. Sidney Etter's grave may be among these.

Now childless, James and Helen must have felt the house was too large for them. They remained, however, and continued to care for his mother for the next twenty-odd years. James was successful in the credit industry, developing a reputation for sense, morality and a creative flair. 

At credit association banquets he was frequently placed in charge of the entertainment and even filed copyrights for two plays, “Everycreditman” and “Friend Salesman,” comic allegories about the credit business. Helen played first violin in the Portland Amateur Orchestral Society and often provided music for James’ credit dinners. 

James played tennis and golf in Westmoreland and even participated in the inaugural tournament at the new Eastmoreland golf course. Olive was a frequent contributor of recipes to local publications.

In 1924 houses were built to either side of the Breeds as the neighborhood continued to fill in. An open area just to the south of the home (now Westmoreland Park) was flat and treeless and at the end of WWI had been used as an airfield – the Breed family must have frequently heard and seen planes coming low overhead as they swept in for landing. With construction of an alternative airport to the north of town, the field was used as a practice area for Eastmoreland’s golf course. In 1935 local citizens planned a park complete with tennis, lawn bowling and a casting pond which all still exist today.  

Bybee overpass looking toward Westmoreland, 1934

Construction of Westmoreland Park casting pond, 1939. Bybee overpass in the distance.

McLoughlin "superhighway" looking toward Milwaukie, 1937

Olive Breed in later life

Olive died in 1942 at the age of 89. In 1948 James passed away of heart disease, followed by Helen in 1953. Both the Breeds were cremated, and to my knowledge have no grave markers. The house passed into other hands, and if any later photographs of the family survive they are not available. The preceding, an impressive amount really, was drawn entirely from primary sources such as newspaper articles, census records, draft cards and grave stones.

-->

And so on the 100^th anniversary of the construction of this house, I’m thinking of the Breed family and grateful for their small presence in my life.