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Category: April 2005

When there was a need, there was Emery
Wednesday, April 20, 2005

We lost more than we could easily measure the other day, when Emery Aden passed away at 86.

Of course, we lost a fixture at the Clackamas County Regional Visitor Information Center. That's where Emery -- he'd want me to call him Emery -- cheerfully guided visitors to the Korean War Memorial and helped them find "points of interest."

And, yes, we lost a regular at the city's Community Center, where he regaled all with stories while steadily lobbying the city to install a bench with a Willamette River view.

But we lost much, much more. We lost a man whose life was a bridge to another era, when Wilsonville was a little farm town that grew up around a ferry crossing. This was long before freeways straddled the landscape, before the city was incorporated, before anyone dreamed Wilsonville would be a distribution center, back before "high tech" even entered our vocabularies.

"Emery was a resource to Wilsonville," says Mayor Charlotte Lehan. "He knew all the history, and he was always passionate about sharing that heritage and history. Besides that, he was a classy individual."

For those who never had the pleasure, Emery was born in 1919, the son of Henry Aden, who earlier had established Wilsonville's first general store in the area we now call Old Town, on the west side of Interstate 5. After serving in World War II, Emery returned to Wilsonville and got back into retailing and sales. Emery sold Oldsmobiles for a while, then ran a Dairy Queen in Lake Oswego.

In the late 50s, he joined his brother in running the Aden & Josi men's clothing stores that opened in Oregon City, then expanded to Lloyd Center, Eastport Plaza and Washington Square.

But when Emery retired in 1981, he began his other career. He became active in the Wilsonville-Boones Ferry Historical Society and threw himself into a long list of community-service projects.

"You might call him Mr. Wilsonville," says the Rev. Linda Mines Elliott, the pastor of Frog Pond United Church of Christ who officiated at Emery's funeral on Monday. "If there was a community endeavor or a community need, there was Emery."

He was a dedicated volunteer firefighter. And after retirement, he tutored grade-school students in reading.

Worried that modern life offered too many uncertain temptations, Emery made sure that when he built a new garage, he included a grease pit and never put a lock on the door. This way, he was assured that the neighborhood kids would be able to work on their cars any time, day or night. He figured it was better to have the kids at his place, making a little happy noise, than running around with ne'er-do-wells.

And when he noticed that the price of produce was soaring, he and his family dug a sprawling garden that overflowed with fruit and vegetables -- always enough so that friends and neighbors shared in the bounty. Naturally, it was dubbed the "Garden of Aden."

Fortunately for us, Emery collected items of interest that someday will anchor a museum. He amassed a fantastic cache of photos that show everything from the miraculous to the mundane, revealing the high points and the every-day texture of Wilsonville life over the decades. Many of his photos have rotated through exhibits at the Wilsonville Public Library.

He also collected memorabilia, such as an old ladder used in his father's store; a 1914-vintage catcher's mask with a heavy metal faceguard; and the old chalkboard railroad schedule listing north- and southbound trains.

Naturally, he set aside a few bricks from Wilsonville's once-thriving brickyard. And he carefully preserved a stone mortar and pestle that probably belonged to the native Calapooias.

Friends said it took a lot out of Emery when Alice, his wife of 58 years, died in January. But luckily for a whole community, Emery was a man with a lot to give.

From OregonLive.com. « hide My Uncle Emery extras

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