Three buildings made up the city of Clarkston — then known as Jawbone Flat — when Mrs. Georgia Gordon first planted a tiny foot on its unpaved street.
The pioneer woman who came to the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley at the age of 3 is 90 today. She recalls crossing the Snake River by ferry in going to Asotin. Poplar trees lined both sides of Lewiston’s unpaved Main Street, she said, and of course all the sidewalks were wood.
She arrived with her family Mr. and Mrs. Clyde Martin, from Parker County, Texas, when she had been born Jan. 7, 1881. They lived at Walla Walla before moving to Lewiston and the vicinity.
Married to Clyde Gordon Sept. 27, 1900, she helped, her husband raise livestock on a ranch on Asotin Creek.
At one time, they had a band of more than 2,000 sheep, her son, Edmund, 1311 15th St., Clarkston, said.
“She’d cook for the large crew some 12 to 14 men — and often moved right along with them when they moved camp,” he said.
Upon retiring, they moved to Asotin in 1942. They celebrated their golden wedding in 1950 at the Bollinger Hotel at Lewiston, the setting for their original vows. Gordon died in 1962.
Mrs. Gordon, whose eyesight is failing, still enjoys listening to her radio and chatting with friends who drop by the house at 738 2nd St., Clarkston, where she lives quietly with Mrs. Maebelle Goettsch.
Her 90th birthday will be given formal recognition in an open house from 2-4 p.m. Sunday at the home of her son and family, Mr. and Mrs. Edmund Gordon, 1311 15th St. Hosts will be all of her sons and their families. She requests no gifts.
Five of her seven children are living. They are Mrs. Homer Silver, Goldendale, Wash.; Mrs. Lee Gentry, Cave Creek, Ariz.; Floyd and Clayton Gordon, Asotin, and Edmund Gordon, Clarkston. She has eight grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren.
A member of the Full Gospel Church at Asotin, she was past president of the Presbyterian Ladies Aid at Asotin for five years during the 1940s.
This story was published in the Jan. 7, 1971, edition of the Lewiston Tribune.
