Mother's Day - 2002

Rocke and I went over to The Dalles for Mother's Day and spent the weekend with my son, Michael and his wife, Sylvia. We always have a great time when we go to see them.

We took some time and toured the Maryhill Museum. The Museum's collections are housed in a castle-like chateau overlooking the Columbia River Gorge in 26 acres of park-like gardens on 6,000 acres of ranch land about 100 miles east of Portland, OR, on the Lewis and Clark Trail, Washington Scenic Route 14 in Washington.

In 1907, Sam Hill, a wealthy entrepreneur bought 6,000 acres of land overlooking the Columbia River with the intention of establishing a Quaker agricultural community. He chose the bluff which Maryhill Museum now occupies as the site for his own home, and in 1914, construction of his poured concrete mansion began. He named both his home and his land company Maryhill after his daughter, Mary.

Among Hill's many personal friends, three exceptional women played key roles in the next chapter of Maryhill's history. Loie Fuller, an acclaimed Folies Bergere pioneer of modern dance, conceived the bold idea of creating a museum of art out of Sam Hill's mansion. Through Loie's friendships within Parisian art circles, Hill was able to acquire an extensive collection of original Auguste Rodin sculptures.

In 1926, Hill invited Queen Marie of Romania to dedicate his still unfinished museum. Marie felt deep gratitude toward Hill, who had generously aided Romania after World War I. Thousands of people converged at Maryhill to witness the ceremony.

After Hill's death in 1931, a third friend, Alma Spreckels, assumed responsibility for overseeing the completion of the museum. Together with her husband, Adolph Spreckels (of the San Francisco sugar family), she had already established the Palace of the Legion of Honor. Alma Spreckels became Maryhill's principal benefactor and donated to the museum much of her own art collection. Under her guidance, the museum opened to the public on Sam Hill's birthday, May 13, 1940.

After visiting the museum, we drove over to Maryhill's Stonehenge. Built by Sam Hill as a tribute to the soldiers of Klickitat County who lost their lives, Maryhill's Stonehenge is the first monument in our nation to honor the dead of World War I. The structure is a full-scale replica of England's famous neolithic Stonehenge. A Quaker pacifist, Hill was mistakenly informed that the original Stonehenge had been used as a sacrificial site, and thus constructed the replica to remind us that ''humanity is still being sacrificed to the god of war.'' The location now also includes monuments to the soldiers of Klickitat County who died in World War II, Korea, and Viet Nam.

The monument lies at the original Maryhill townsite, four miles east of the museum, just off Washington Scenic Route 14. Hill's own crypt is a short walk southwest of Stonehenge on a bluff overlooking the Columbia River.

From there we went to Maryhill Winery. We enjoy having a glass of wine out on their deck overlooking the winery fields and the Columbia Gorge.