Since I told the story of the Breed family of 6435 SE 22nd Ave in Portland, more sources have come to light and a few mysteries answered. An update is in order.
On March 30, 1915 James and Helen’s only child, 7 year-old Helen Stanton Breed, died at their home in northeast Portland. Her death certificate reveals the cause of death: diphtheria. “I saw child 3 hours after death,” the coroner wrote. “Cervical and submaxillary glands enlarged. Unable to examine throat on account of rigidity of jaw. Without doubt diphtheria.”
At the time there was no vaccine for diphtheria, though one would be developed within the next ten years and is now a standard childhood vaccination. The little girl was cremated at Finley & Son mortuary in Portland.
On April 30, 1915, the Breeds’ family friend Emmett Smith, with whom teenage Sidney hitchhiked from Portland to Los Angeles, died there a year later. His cause of death was revealed to be pulmonary tuberculosis. Anti-tubercular antibiotics were not available until streptomycin was found to be effective in 1945. Emmett’s body was transported to Portland, where he was buried at River View Cemetery.
As we know, Sidney died of influenza at age 24 in an army training camp in England before he could see combat.
On March 24, 1942, James’ mother Olive Frances Breed died at 814 SE Sellwood Blvd, a stately home in the Sellwood-Moreland neighborhood, possibly the home of a friend. Her cause of death was chronic myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart.
It’s unclear when 6435 SE 22nd was divided formally into a duplex, but it was likely just after Olive’s death.
In 1944 the smaller apartment was occupied by 67 year-old widow Agnes Randle and her married daughter, whose husband was engaged in war work in Honolulu at the time. A school teacher with a master’s degree from University of Oregon, Agnes had been in distress about her ill health for some time. On July 24, 1944, Agnes’ daughter left for a visit to Seattle. Mrs. Randle, wearing a blue dress and carrying a black leather purse containing 55 cents and two streetcar tokens, left a note on a table in the apartment reading, “Where I am going you can’t find me.” She then left the house and made her way to the Sellwood bridge, where she placed her false teeth in her handbag and leaped.
The following day her body was found a half mile downstream on the west side of the Willamette by passerby John Gaenz, who called the sheriff, and shortly thereafter Agnes’ handbag was found 300 feet upstream. James and Helen Breed went together to the coroner’s office to identify her.
On April 29, 1948, the Oregon Daily Journal ran an editorial called “Scared Into Health,” denouncing advertising and informational campaigns designed to frighten people into taking care of themselves.
James Breed put pen to paper that day to agree with the sentiment, writing: “This careless agitation about any disease has no good purpose. It is plainly thoughtless and selfish, and unless intelligent people join in stopping it, there will be no end to the fright and misery it will cause. My wife joins me in indorsing [sic] your timely editorial on the subject.”
The editorial would prove timely, in fact, when James Breed died of the heart attack the following day. Four days later his letter was published, its irony unknown to the newspaper editor who selected it.
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