Obit of Lawrence Leroy Powell (p400) - Stephens County, Oklahoma

Submitted by Harold Grisso <hgrisso@hotmail.com          14 Aug 2002
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From the Medford (OR) Mail Tribune 4-5-2002 at www.mailtribune.com

Lawrence Leroy Powell

The memorial service for Lawrence Leroy Powell will be at 2 p.m. 
Thursday, April 11, at the First Methodist Church in Ashland.

Mr. Powell, 94, of Ashland, died Sunday (March 31, 2002) in Ashland.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Southern Oregon Historical 
Society, Attn.: Lawrence Powell Fund, 106 N. Central Ave., Medford, 
OR 97501.

He was born Jan. 31, 1908, in Marlow, Okla., to Benjamin and Julia 
Powell. In 1911, he traveled with his parents and four siblings by 
train to Lakeview from Oklahoma. In November 1912, they boarded a 
covered wagon and headed west for Ashland, which they reached after 
10 days of travel through the snow. He graduated from Ashland High 
School in 1928, and from Southern Oregon Normal School (now Southern 
Oregon University) in 1930. On Aug. 10, 1929, in Ashland, he married 
Altadena Spencer, who died in 1982. On Nov. 29, 1986, he married Ruth 
Zediker, who survives.

Mr. Powell taught history at the high school in Marshfield from 1931 
to 1932. He then worked for the U.S. Postal Service in Ashland for 35 
years, retiring in 1969. He also worked as a projectionist at local 
movie theaters from the 1940s to the 1960s.

Mr. Powell was a member of the Southern Oregon Historical Society and 
was considered Ashland's historian. He enjoyed his collection of old 
Rogue Valley photos, especially those of historical Ashland. He would 
often travel in his 1950 Willys Jeep into the Cascade and Siskiyou 
mountains to the areas depicted in the photos and postcards looking 
for archeological evidence of activity at those sites. He was able to 
pinpoint several places where Chinese railroad workers had camped. 

He was a member of the Stamp Club, the Postcard Club, the Ashland 
High School and SOU Alumni Associations, the Dead Post Offices Club 
(DPO) - which identified sites of original post offices in the Rogue 
Valley, and was president of the Epworth League. After the 1957 fire, 
he planted trees in the watershed, which kept Strawberry Lane from 
eroding. 

Mr. Powell had been a member of the First Methodist Church in Ashland 
since 1912, where he served as an organist in his youth, and was 
instrumental in the purchase of a new organ.

He enjoyed exploring in his 1950 Willys Jeep, hiking, photography, 
geology and playing the organ. 

Survivors, in addition to his wife, include two daughters, Carrol 
Harvey, Jerome, Idaho, and Julia Woosnom, Half Moon Bay, Calif.; two 
stepdaughters, Carol Zumwalt, Coarsegold, Calif., and Janet Vickers, 
Royal Oak, Mich.; seven grandchildren; 16 great-grandchildren; and 
one great-great-grandchild. He was preceded in death by a daughter, 
Constance Green; and a stepson, Richard Zediker.

Arrangements: Litwiller-Simonsen Funeral Home, Ashland.