May 7, 2009

Hulse, Zurflueh honored as Pioneers of the Year

Pioneer Woman
of the Year
Roseanna Hulse

     The family of the Pioneer Woman of the Year settled in Sherman County during the 1890s.
     She was born in the town of Wasco, the 11th of 12 children. She went to school in Rufus and later to St. Mary’s Academy in The Dalles.
     Then she shifted to La Grande and Eastern Oregon College where she met her future husband. He was a foreigner from Bismark, North Dakota.
     That family moved to Burns, where they owned a lumber store. The next move was to Dufur where they also owned a lumber store.
     Her husband became the postmaster in Dufur and she worked at the U.S. National Bank, which had a branch in Dufur at the time. The job was probably relatively uneventful until July 13, 1977 when it the bank robbed. A man from Portland took $1,000. He was arrested a week later.
     The couple had four children, two boys and two girls.
     Her husband died in 1980. A few years later she remarried a man well known in Wasco County, who was also born in Sherman County.
     They have lived in Dufur for many years, but will be moving into The Dalles.

Pioneer Man
of the Year
Elmore Zurflueh

     It’s probably inevitable that a Pioneer of the Year would have been born in California. Man of the Year for 2009 was born in Red Bluff, California in 1916.
     His father died when he was 7 years old. His mother remarried two years later and they moved to The Dalles in 1925. Home was the Willowbrook Dairy on Fifteenmile Creek and his school was Petersburg.
     He learned to drive in the Hatfield and, when he was 10 years old, would drive the eight miles to town at 5 a.m. to deliver milk, with his stepfather asleep in the seat next to him. Later, the family bought the River View Dairy and sold milk, ice cream, butter, buttermilk and Bireley Orangeade.
     He loved machinery and spent his spare time at repair shops. He once rebuilt a Model T for which he had paid $7.
     He married a local girl in 1938 and they had two children, a girl and a boy.
     He worked at the family dairy and at the post office part-time. He went into the Army in 1943 and returned home in 1946. He worked at the U.S. post office in The Dalles for 40 years.
     In his spare time, he built his own home, helped build churches and parsonages and did some remodeling. He also sang in the men’s glee club and church choir.
     Today he is enjoying retirement tending his roses and grafted trees.