2025 Pioneer Queen Margaret Hansell
I have been able to trace my Oregon pioneer roots on my mother's side back to when my ancestors left three different European Countries to come to America. The three ancestral families came from Germany, France, and England, and they all came together in the Aurora/French Prairie area of the Willamette Valley.
My great great grandparents William and Elizabeth Whitney emigrated to America from England, first William in 1830 and two years later his wife Elizabeth joined him. They eventually settled in Indiana and became parents of 6 children. In early 1847, they joined General Joel Palmer's train of emigrants and came to Oregon on the Oregon Trail. Elizabeth was pregnant with my great grandmother Rehuemah, who was born one month after they arrived in Oregon on October 15, 1847. They settled in French Prairie, where he took out a homestead claim of 640 acres.
My French ancestor, Francis Feller, came to Oregon by ship from France, around the Horn in1857. He settled in the French Prairie area. He married the youngest Whitney daughter Rheuamah in 1865. One of their daughters, Arda, was my grandmother.
The final strand of Oregon Pioneers have their roots in Germany, and were part of the Aurora Colony.
My German Great Great Grandparents, Michael and Elizabeth Kraus were born in Germany, and settled in Alleghany County, PA, when they emigrated to America. They joined a German Religious Colony under the leadership of Dr. Willliam Keil. When the colony relocated to Bethel Missouri, they also moved with their five girls and two boys. One of the sons was George Kraus, who would become my great grandfather.
George was 22 when the colony moved again, this time to Aurora, Oregon in 1863. By this time, he was one of the Colony leaders, and was the bootmaker for the group.
In 1879 George married fellow colony member Elizabeth Giesy, and born to this union were five children including my grandfather Arthur in 1882.
All three strands come together in my grandparents, when Authur Kraus and Arda Feller were married in 1912. My mother Ruth Eversaul, who lived to be 98, was the third of their four children.
If you visit the historical Aurora Museum today you will see prominently displayed, including the Kraus House, a lot of my family's pioneer heritage. There is a Feller Road that has a sign off of I-5 named for my family. I am proud to be a 5th generation descendant of multiple Oregon pioneer families.
2025 Parade Grand Marshal Bill Hansell
I am the descendent of two families that came to Oregon on the Oregon Trail in 1852. Both the Stafford and Pell families settled in the Mohawk Valley near Springfield, Or. Albert Stafford and Rose Anne Pell both children of their respective families later married and moved to Umatilla County near Centerville. Albert was part of the committee that renamed Centerville to Athena, in 1889. One of their children Clara May Stafford married George Hansell on December 15, 1881, three years after George had arrived in Centerville. George came west with his family in 1876 via the train, and after three years in Benton County, Or., he took a boat up the Columbia River, disembarking at Umatilla Landing and walked in his cowboy boots to Centerville. He was the first Hansell to call the Athena/Weston area home. Five generations of Hansell Family are descendants of George and Clara May, and have or do call the Athena/Weston area home. Family members of five different generations have their final resting place in the Athena Cemetery.