JOE H. SHELLEY
The picture accompanying this article shows young Joe Shelley at age seven, sharing a front seat with pioneer John Revenue, age 71, at the second annual Pioneer Picnic in Jonsrud Park in July of 1927. John, who is credited with starting the Sandy Pioneer Association (now the Sandy Historical Society) in 1926, was to be the featured speaker that day and was waiting for the program to begin.
It is interesting that Joe, 84 years later, was the one person most responsible for the vision of the Sandy Historical Society’s new Historical Museum and its funding to completion.
Joe, the son of Percy and Blanche Wilson Shelley, spent his early years in Sandy and Marmot. Joe was active at Sandy High School, playing clarinet in the band and was a member of the Sandy High boxing team. After graduating from Sandy High in 1939, he enlisted for six years in the U.S. Navy, where he served throughout World War II.
Joe first served on a ship in the North Atlantic, then in 1941 was transferred to the U.S. carrier Wasp in the south Pacific. In September of 1942 during the Battle of Guadalcanal, while covering the landing of Marines, the Wasp was sunk by the enemy. Joe was in the water for about two hours before being discovered and rescued. He was then given a short leave in the U.S. where he married Alice Mitunwiecz in Portland. In mid-2011 they had been married 69 years.
In November of 1941 he transferred to the Naval Air Wing. Having enlisted as an Apprentice Seaman, he worked his way up and at the completion of his six years was discharged as Aviation Chief Radio Technician. In the latter part of his service, Joe received a commendation from the Commanding Officer of Fleet Air Wing 8 for “his efficient and skillful performance of duty” as a member of the crew of the rescue patrol plane which searched for and found the crew of a PBM aircraft downed at sea. This action resulted in the rescue of sixteen officers and men and is in keeping with the highest traditions of the Naval Service.
After the war in 1947, Joe and Alice were in Corvallis where he enrolled at Oregon State University and received a degree in Electrical Engineering. He worked for Reynolds Metals for a time, then had a long career at the Electrical Contractor's Bid Depository.
Joe, Alice and Joe’s sister Audrey Shelley Morris, gave the Sandy Historical Society a substantial gift in the early 1990s which allowed the Society to make detailed plans for the historical museum. It took a long time, but with about 25 dedicated volunteers and major gifts from the Shelleys and a few other large donors and hundreds of smaller contributors, the Museum was completed without debt or mortgages!
I was at that same picnic with Joe in 1927. While he was absorbing all that history, I was probably goofing around with some of my friends and not very interested in the old pioneers in their covered wagons. To me, then, history meant the Revolutionary War and the Battle of Bunker Hill (“don’t shoot until you see the whites of their eyes!”). I didn’t get involved in local history until Sandy’s Centennial in 1973. At age 93, I continue to be amazed at the terrible hardships of the pioneers with their nearly 2,000-mile journey west and how so many had to negotiate that terrible “Laurel Hill” on the Barlow Road that was actually more of a rough path than a road!
When the Barlow party staggered into Oregon City in December of 1845, Sam Barlow was given a deed for the “Barlow Road.” Though it was slow in being improved, many successfully traveled it so that this majority of Americans caused the border between the U.S. and Canada to be north of Seattle rather than the Columbia River.
Content and photo sourced from “Hometown Sandy" by Phil Jonsrud and used courtesy of and copyrighted to the Sandy Historical Society.
