Earlier generations sustained themselves through 2 world wars
Our grandparents, John and Amanda Skooglund, emigrated from Sweden and met in Youngstown, Ohio. John worked as a carpenter for a contractor also from Sweden, who built good, quality homes in Youngstown and surrounding areas. They were known as honest and trustworthy Swedish immigrants and their houses were in great demand. John eventually went into business for himself.
John and Amanda were married June 3, 1905, and became United States citizens. They had three children while in Youngstown. The first was a daughter who died at 9 months from cholera. Their second child was our father, Carl Richard Skooglund, and then a daughter, Catherine.
Eight years after their marriage, John moved his family to Portland. A friend had come to Portland ahead of them and encouraged John to move because of his building skills. They found a home in Portland to live in while John built a new home in the Laurelhurst Park area. When it was finished, the family moved in expecting to stay there. John was intending to continue building and selling houses.
Fate had another plan. Those pending clouds of World War I burst, changing a lot of things. Home building, for one, came to a grinding halt. Since carpentry work was scarce, John decided to trade the lovely family home for a farm in Brush Prairie.
Amanda was against this idea from the start. She was not enchanted with what she had seen of farm life and she liked cities much better. Nevertheless, John relentlessly pursued his dream and found what he deemed would one day become the answer to his problems. What Amanda saw was the ugly, unkempt and cheaply thrown-together old house she would have to live in.
There was a change to the whole world once the war was over. It was an extremely depressed period. Soldiers were coming home and needed employment. The dreaded flu epidemic that was sweeping Europe was being brought back to America by the greatly diminished troops.
When the (pre-Kaiser, World War I era) Standifer Shipyards came to Vancouver, John and Amanda rented a home in Vancouver temporarily so that he could find employment at the shipyards.
Eventually, they returned to the farm. John decided to go into the business of raising milk cows, and set to work building up a herd. The whole family worked on the farm and John also did carpentry. He found the time to gradually improve their house and turn it into a very attractive country home, which is still standing.
We enjoyed hearing the following story our grandma shared about our dad, Carl. One day, Amanda and Carl happened to be looking out the window and saw a car pull up and stop in front of their home. Immediately, they recognized a family, with several children, starting to climb out to come and pay a visit. Carl remembered that these same children had been very rough on his toys. They were notably noisy and destructive. Amanda suggested that she and Carl gather up those toys of his that were visible at the time and hide them out of sight. They did this a quickly as possible.
The doorbell rang and Amanda hastened to answer the bell but Carl reached the door first and flung it open. He stood staunchly and announced in a loud voice, “You can come in now, we’ve got everything hid!”
Our father graduated from Battle Ground High School and gave the valedictory address for his class of 1926. He attended Reed College on a scholarship for one year. He then worked his way through the University of Washington and graduated with a degree in civil engineering. He and our mother, June McMahon, were married in November 1933. They had three children, Richard, Karen and Marilyn.
Our parents faced the Great Depression and World War II, and then June was struck with polio after the birth of her last child. Our parents were able to overcome these events and their children grew up not realizing how difficult a time we’d faced.
Our grandfather continued building homes throughout Vancouver. He built our family home when we moved from Portland to the Minnehaha area. Our father became Vancouver’s city engineer. He passed away from a sudden heart attack Dec. 21, 1954, at the young age of 46.
We are thankful for the examples of faith, good work ethic and family values they gave us.
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