Louella Louise Kindel Vandehey

I am writing this in honor of my mother. My mother was the youngest of 13 children, raised in Verboort, Oregon on a farm that my grandparents had in the early 1900s. She completed her schooling through high school in Verboort. When she finished, she moved to Portland, Oregon to take up nursing school. She was not able to finish due to family matters and became a nurse aide within her family. She worked at sibling homes in the area and took care of her parents in Verboort. Two of her sisters joined St. Mary of the Valley convent, and the other ten siblings started families throughout the Washington County area in Oregon.

My mother met my dad, David B. Vandehey, at St. Francis of Assisi church one Sunday morning. After a couple of years of dating, they got married on September 19, 1945. Mom and Dad rented a house from Grandpa and Grandma Vandehey near the Vandehey family farm. My dad was a dairy farmer and my mom was a housewife and a great mother. When our grandfather died Mom and Dad bought the farm and then built a new home in 1967. In 1984 the farm was sold to investors that made the 175 acres into a golf course named Quail Valley. Throughout this time Mom was a very active member of the St. Francis parish in Roy, Oregon.

She continued on in her modest, quaint home to maintain a beautiful garden of flowers and vegetables, while caring for her family. She raised three children: Claudia, Lydia and me, Chris (her favorite!) She took a lot of pride in the home she maintained, I remember she made a lot of our clothes and prepared lots of food for our cellar to keep for winter meals. Our house was always clean with great smells coming from the kitchen. She especially loved to bake!