Multnomah County OR Archives Biographies.....Kern, Loyal E. 1862 - ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/or/orfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Ila Wakley iwakley@msn.com March 8, 2011, 6:31 pm Source: History of the Columbia River Valley From The Dalles to the Sea, Vol. III, Published 1928, Pages 751 - 752 Author: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company LOYAL E. KERN. The progress of a city is largely expressed in the terms of its commercial and industrial development, and in this connection mention should be made of Loyal E. Kern, who in 1923 established the business now conducted under the name of the Kern Clay Products Company of Portland. Moreover, his record proves the desirability of Portland as a place of residence because of the opportunity it accords its citizens for business expansion. Mr. Kern was born within the present city limits of Portland in 1862. His father, John W. Kern, arrived here in 1851, traveling across the country with a wagon train, the wagons being drawn by horses, although many at that time used oxen to make the long trip to the coast. He was a son of William and Mary Anne (Shull) Kern and was a lad of about fifteen years when the family arrived in Portland, where the grandfather soon built a small sawmill at a point known as Cedar Mill. He operated this for a time and then moved to Portland. He took up a donation land claim in the district that is west of what is now Eighty-second street and south of Powell Valley road, there remaining until about a year prior to his demise, when he went to live in the home of his son, John W. Kern, there passing away in 1895. John W. Kern experienced the conditions of pioneer life during the early years of his residence in Multnomah county. In 1861 he was married in Portland to Miss Sarah M. Kelly, a daughter of the Rev. Clinton and Moria (Crane) Kelly, the former a pioneer minister here. Soon after his marriage Mr. Kern engaged in the steamboat business, in towing and in the sale of wood. He furnished fuel for the old Oregon Steam Navigation Company and later he built the steamship U. S. Grant of the tugboat type, which, however, carried passengers and operated in opposition to the boats of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company between Portland and Astoria. When he severed his connection with navigation interests by selling his boats he turned his attention to farming, taking over the Clinton Kelly farm at the death of his father-in-law in 1875. He then concentrated his attention upon his agricultural pursuits until his own demise, which occurred in 1900, his widow surviving him until 1904. He was always intensely interested in politics, his attitude being that of an independent republican, but he never had desire for office, yet withheld his aid from no project that he deemed of vital worth and importance to the community. Loyal E. Kern, who was one of a family of eight children, pursued his education in the old No. 2 school of Portland, later the site of the Clinton Kelly school, which has now been torn down. Afterward he attended a business college and thus qualified for later activities. In 1883 he wedded Miss Helen M. Hawes, a native of Canada. They resided upon the family farmstead and Mr. Kern continued to operate the farm on shares for about seven years, remaining there until 1890, when he turned his attention to the brick manufacturing business, establishing a plant at East Thirty-seventh and Powell streets, where he engaged in making common brick, continuing the business at and near that location under his own name until 1923. In that year, associated with his son, Lowell E. Kern, with Russell Merrill, he organized the Kern ClaY Products Company, of which he became president, with his son as secretary and treasurer and Mr. Merrill as vice president and office manager. Mr. Merrill has since retired from the firm. They originally operated the Willamina brick yard at Willamina, Oregon, but at the end of a year abandoned manufacturing to give their attention to a general line of building material. They handle almost everything used in construction work, including lumber, hardware and paints, plaster, lime and cement, but largely specialize in brick, dealing in firebrick from St. Louis, Spokane and Troy, Idaho. They are also agents for the Willamina Clay Products Company and sell mostly in Portland, although their business reaches to some extent outside, especially in the sale of firebrick. Their patronage is now of such scope as to make their business a very lucrative one. Mr. and Mrs. Kern have become parents of six children: Ethel G., who is now Mrs. W. G. Hendricks, of Portland, and has three children — Kern, Helen and Harriet; Elizabeth, who is Mrs. T. Irving Potter, of Portland, and the mother of four children — Elizabeth, Dorothy, Thomas and Robert; Harriett, who is the widow of Dan P. Smythe, of Pendleton, Oregon; Mary K., the wife of Clarence M. Eubanks, of New York city; Ramona, who died at the age of eight years; and Lowell E., who married Jean Stevens, a native of Cove, Oregon. Mr. Kern has not only been interested in the welfare and happiness of his own family but has also looked out for the needs of others and is now president of the Waverly Baby Home, caring for between eighty and one hundred young children. His parents were the donors of the land on which the home now stands, having aided in organizing the home in 1888, while the gift of land was made in 1890. Mr. Kern belongs to the Auld Lang Syne society and to Multnomah Camp No. 77 of the Woodmen of the World. He is likewise identified with the Portland Chamber of Commerce and the firm of which he is the head has membership in the Builders Exchange and in the Building Material Dealers Credit Association. Mrs. Kern is a member of the Present Day Club and both hold membership in the Westminster Presbyterian church, Mr. Kern now serving on the official board. When all the outlying districts were consolidated with Portland, Mr. Kern was acting as school clerk of District No. 2 and he assisted in collecting funds for building the Clinton Kelly school. He has always been interested in education and in all those forces which make for material development, civic righteousness and moral progress in the community and is a worthy representative of one of the best known and most honored pioneer families of this district. 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