She and her husband, William G. (Bill) Weston, owned the Canby Herald for
25 years from 1947 to 1972. While there, she wrote nearly all the "hard" news
and society news, as well as serving as bookkeeper and chief community relations person
for the business. After selling the paper and retiring a year and a half later, she
continued to assist with obituaries, special sections and occasional articles.
In later years, she was a charter member of the Canby Historical Society and prepared the
society's calendar each year through 2000. She also served for a number of years as
manager of the Canby Chamber of Commerce and as treasurer for the city of Canby.
Interested in all facets of her community, Mrs. Weston, along with the late Canby
Postmaster Hans Nieland, was instrumental in helping to devise the system for naming city
streets, such as using the names of trees for north-south streets and numbers for
east-west avenues.
She also helped organize fund-raising and served on the committee that worked for the
Canby Swim Center.
Supportive of the school system and its students during her years at the Canby Herald, the
Oregon State FFA awarded her a citation for her help with the organization's publicity.
In 1994, she and her husband were honored as part of the General Canby Day festivities and
led the annual parade as king and queen.
In 1997, she and her husband marked their 65th wedding anniversary with a reception at
Canby Adult Center. Several hundred friends and family members joined in the event.
Mrs. Weston has been a source of knowledge about the community and the individuals who
have lived in it for years. She helped countless people track their family roots through
the community and served as an always-available reference for questions about community
history.
Her journalism experience began at age 14 at the Oregon City Banner-Courier writing up the
births, deaths and weddings in the greater Oregon City community. Following high school,
she attended Oregon Normal School (now Western Oregon University). While there she was
editor of the student newspaper, The Lamron, and a student-teacher at Valsetz in the
Oregon Coast range.
After teaching grades one through eight in a one-room school along the South Umpqua River,
she returned to Oregon City in 1928 and served as society editor at the other newspaper in
town, the Oregon City Enterprise. While working there, she met a young Linotype operator
named Bill Weston. They were married March 5, 1932.
They settled in a home on the Willamette River in the Coalca-New Era area between Oregon
City and Canby. They lived there until World War II, when her husband was called into the
U.S. Army. They moved to northern California, where Myra found work as editor of the Daily
Pittsburg (Calif.)
Post-Dispatch. There she covered the most disastrous stateside event of the war: the Port
Chicago explosion of two ammunition ships.
The explosion resulted in more than 300 deaths - a story she covered exhaustively for her
readers, all of whom felt, saw and were directly affected by the event.
Mrs. Weston served as secretary to state Sen. Howard Belton through three legislative
sessions, including a term in which he was president of the Senate. Belton was a Canby
area farmer, and later served as state treasurer.
Myra is survived by her husband, Bill, as well as her sister, L. Annette Adcock, both of
Canby. She is also survived by her son, Dave, of Dallas, and his wife, Sherry; two
grandchildren, Cody and Shawna; and two great-grandchildren, Jacob and Gordon.
Memorial contributions may be made to the Canby Public Library or the Canby Historical
Society. More about Myra Weston to be published in the Saturday edition of the Canby
Herald. |
