Princess Rosie Morgan, King Swede Lien, Queen Orva Gubser and Prince Bill Kotch will ride in the Dayton Harvest Festival parade Saturday. This is the first time a senior court has been chosen for the festival.
Marcus Larson
News-Register

DAYTON — Collectively, they’ve been part of the Dayton area for about 250 years — Orva Gubser since about 1932, Wayne “Swede” Lien on and off since the mid-1930s, Rosie Morgan for 65 years and Bill Kotch on a permanent basis since 1971.

They’ve raised kids and entertained grandkids here, and they still do. Helped with community events. Even started some, like the popular chicken barbecue Morgan organized. Made untold numbers of friends. Seen the community and its offspring grow up — Kotch, for instance, can tell stories about when now fire chief Brett Putman was just a high school boy banging on drums the band room.

They love Dayton, although they’re not entirely sure whether it’s because or despite the fact that everybody knows what everyone else is doing. Either way, their community pride makes the quartet of senior citizens the perfect choice for Dayton’s first-ever Harvest Festival Court.

Lien and Gubser were chosen king and queen of the festival, which will take place Saturday in and around Courthouse Square Park. Kotch and Morgan were voted prince and princess.

Each one was surprised and pleased to be elected by their friends and neighbors.

“I had no idea about the court until they told me I was queen,” Gubser said. “I really feel honored.”

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Gubser, the first of the court members to come to Dayton, grew up on a ranch in Wallowa County. She rode a horse three miles to school, and helped her dad with all the ranch chores at home.

She jokes that her future husband wanted her for her outdoor skills.” He had lots of corn to pick and haul and hay to pitch. I could do both,” she said.

She arrived in Dayton as a recent graduate of the Oregon Normal School, the teachers’ college now called Western Oregon University. Superintendent Gubser hired her to teach first at the Unionvale School, then at Dayton Grade School.

Before she had finished her 14 years with the district, she also had married the superintendent’s son, Ivan “Sy” Gubser.
“He had a mustache,” she recalled. “That did me in.”

They married in 1937, and she immediately became a second mother to her husband’s daughter, Joanne, who was almost 3. Then they had two more children, Merlyn “Lyn” and Bernice Ann, who just goes by Ann these days.

Orva also has a passel of grandchildren these days.

She said one the best things about living on her farm south of Dayton is the many friends she has in the area. She met many of them through her involvement with local schools.

She also has made many friends through her church, Dayton Christian. “I always tell newcomers if they want a good relationship with God and quick friendships, church is where to go,” she said.

“I thank God daily for my blessings: good friends, good schools, good churches and a beautiful, friendly place to call home,” she said.

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Lien, who is half Swedish and half Norwegian, was given his nickname by a neighbor when he was only 7. Eight decades later, it still sticks.

He grew up in Wisconsin. In 1935-36, while still in his mid-teens, he worked in the Civilian Conservation Corps.

“My two brothers came out here and said there was all kinds of work out West,” he said. So he came, making an 11-day trip in a 1929 Chrysler, the first model with hydraulic brakes. 

He and his brother found work at Alderman Farms. They made 25 cents an hour, working 10 hours a day, six days a week.
His brother served in the Navy during World War II.

Unable to meet health requirements, Lien worked in the Portland shipyards, building the ribs of liberty ships. He worked the night shift, making $1.73 per hour, well above daytime pay.

After the war, he and his brother went to Seattle, where he bought himself a power saw and a sharpener. He returned to Oregon to work in the woods, felling timber for the next 35 years.

“I always enjoyed cutting timber,” he said.

Eventually, after years of tromping through the woods with a chainsaw, Lien’s back gave out. He went to machinists’ school for retraining, but couldn’t find a job.

Finally, he found work at the steel mill in McMinnville, starting in the scrap yard and parlaying his welding experience into a millwright position.

Lien and his wife, Armenta, lived in town, then settled on a farm on Neck Road. They raised eight children in a big blended family.

Now he has a bunch of grandchildren, one of whom is expecting his new great-grandson.

He has a name picked out for the baby: Gunnar, a good Norwegian name. He plans to have it engraved on his standard present for offspring, a silver baby spoon.

Lien still lives on his Neck Road property. He thought of selling it a few years ago, but couldn’t swallow the idea of paying capital gains taxes.

“I’m a cheapskate and a tightwad,” he said proudly.

Morgan came to Dayton 65 years ago when she married Ernest Palmer Morgan, a descendent of founder Joel Palmer.
She threw herself into community activities. “Things I did for Dayton,” she said.

She and her daughter, Shiela Henry, put on the first chicken barbecue. Later, at the request of teenagers, she started an annual spaghetti feed at the high school. She helped with the all-sports banquet, too.

She also played a big role in Dayton’s centennial celebration back in 1980.

Since she had three children, naturally she was involved with lots of school activities. Now she has five grandsons and three great-grandchildren.

Morgan has worked for Alderbrook Gardens on Neck Road for 36 years. She’s a fixture there.

“Dayton wouldn’t be Dayton without Rosie,” observed Gubser, who always buys her sky-blue petunias from Morgan.

The longtime friends found out about their election to the Harvest Festival Court on Wednesday. Although they were surprised, it didn’t take them long to start picking out coordinating outfits for the coronation.

“They were just like schoolgirls,” said Beth Wytoski, the city council member who announced the members of the court.

Compared to other members of the court, Kotch is almost a newcomer — A Colorado native, he didn’t start visiting Dayton until the 1960s, when he and his wife would travel from California to see her brother. They bought property in Dayton in 1968 and built their permanent home in 1971.

But like the others on the court, he is well known and loved in the community.

“I see high school kids who now are grown up in the store, and they always are saying ‘Hi, Bill!’” he said.

Kotch became well-acquainted with many Dayton High School students during the many years he worked as the school’s maintenance man. He took the job when he and his wife, Pat, relocated to Dayton; he previously worked for the Arrowhead bottled water company in California.

He stayed at the high school until he retired, then came back many times as a substitute. Now his stepson, Ben Palmer, and grandson, Rick Palmer, work in maintenance for the school district. His great-grandson, Derrick, helps out in summer, too.
“Four generations in the same job with the school district,” he said with satisfaction.

It wasn’t just work that kept Kotch in Dayton, though. He likes the area. Besides, he said, “There’s great fishing up here. I love to fish.”

Starla Pointer, who is convinced everyone has an interesting story to tell, has been writing the weekly “Stopping By” column since 1996. She’s always looking for suggestions. Contact her at 503-883-6263 or spointer@newsregister.com.>/i>