Farmer’s wish for donated land coming to fruition

“We’re always very appreciative, especially when they’re of high value like this,” Clark County Parks Manager Bill Bjerke said. “It’s got a lot of neat natural features that I think will draw people in.”

The property is near the intersection of Northeast 72nd Avenue and 79th Street.

There were a few stipulations left to the county, Bjerke said. County staff must go out to the property within a month to knock out the noxious weeds and invasive species. Low-impact trails are to be installed, but not heavy-use playground equipment. The county must install a salt-lick for deer. All animals are permitted on the property, except coyotes and raccoons, which evidentially once attacked Elizabeth Swanson’s dogs.

That last requirement, Bjerke said, won’t exactly be easy to enforce.

Elizabeth Swanson met Orin Swanson’s father, Julian Swanson, when they both worked at the Bonneville Power Administration in the 1940s. Julian Swanson, who died in 1987, was a chief power dispatcher, and Elizabeth Swanson was a secretary in a neighboring office.

“She was pretty sharp, intelligent,” Orin Swanson said. “She was very independent also.”

The couple wed in 1943, and together, they purchased the farm, where they raised pure-bred Hereford cattle and baled hay.

John Nord, who managed Elizabeth Swanson’s trust, said she and her husband “scrimped and they saved” to buy the property.

“It truly is a wonderful gift to the community,” Nord said.

Elizabeth Swanson was a member of the Barberton Grange, and both she and her husband were board members for the Clark County Fair.

“They both were very community minded,” Orin Swanson said.

Orin Swanson doesn’t know much else about his stepmother — “she didn’t always share her feelings with us,” he noted — but according to an obituary in The Columbian, she was born in Chattanooga, Tenn., and lived in Oklahoma, Idaho, Nevada and California before settling down with her husband.

“Elizabeth loved the openness and gentle rolling terrain of her nearly 34 acres of land in northeast Vancouver with open views to Mt. Hood and Curtin Creek,” reads the obituary.

“Her love of animals will become a living legacy as she has chosen to have their farm property become a permanent, public open space and refuge for the wildlife that brought Elizabeth so much joy throughout her many years on Curtin Creek,” it continued.

An online guestbook for Elizabeth Swanson is available at Columbian.com/obits.