Wahkiakum Eagle-May 1977 C. ARTHUR APPELO SPENT ACTIVE LIFE WORKING TO BETTER HIS COUNTRY By Julia Butler Hansen A few years ago, George Hartzog, then director of the National Park Service, and I walked through the huge, shabby, empty, echoing buildings of Ellis Island, where almost 16,000,000\immigrants entered the United States. Saturday, at the funeral of C. Arthur Appelo of Deep River, I thought of those rooms and of the people they had seen---people filled with dreams, hope, ambition. C. A., as he was affectionately known, was symbolic of them, of that wave of migrants who changed their fortunes and the face of America itself. C. A. was born in Sideby in Finnish Russia February 17, 1890. Alexander III was czar of all the Russias, Gorki, Tchaikovsky, Chekhov were alive. Restlessness, revolt and passionate desires for opportunity and freedom simmered even then under the surface of autocracy. These continued as C. A. spent his adolescence under the reign of Czar Nicholas II. In 1904 the disastrous Russian-Japanese war crystallized the need to move from the homeland. Where? There was village talk. Men told of a land far beyond the Baltic where there was not only freedom without Cossack troops, but wealth and opportunity to acquire that wealth. C. A. made up his mind. In 1906 at age 16, he left for the U. S. alone. It takes little imagination to see him stepping ashore in the new world. Intelligent, determined, hard-working, he found work and never stopped either working or listening for the next opportunity on his long road to security and fulfillment of his dream---which, simply put, was a better world in which to live, better not only for C. A. but for everyone. From a Colt firearms factory in Worcester, Mass. to a logger on the Oneida Indian Reservation in Wisconsin to the Pacific Northwest. C. A. began his trek that led him to Deep River in its heyday of logging. He worked for the Deep River Logging Co., until in 1915 there was an opening for postmaster there. With one day's training, he took the job and remained until at age 70 he retired---45 years of service, the longest in Wahkiakum County's postal record. He served under Presidents Taft, Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower. Theodore Roosevelt was president when he arrived in the U. S. and in addition to those of his federal service, he lived during the years of Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter---14 in all. Drafted into the army in 1917, C. A. served at Camp Cody in Deming, New Mexico. While there he married Agnes Paju, another Finnish immigrant to the Lower Columbia area. Agnes, wife and capable business partner, survives as do his two extremely successful sons, Carlton of Deep River and Burton of Seattle. There are five grandchildren; Theresa Bakken, Steven and Timothy Appelo, Connie Doan and Erik Appelo. C. A. was not precisely content to pass out mail in Deep River. He and Agnes became successful merchants in the community, Grays River and Naselle. He barbered and sold insurance. But more than any of these things, he sought progress for his community, county and state. Like all early residents of the lower river, he was troubled by the lack of transportation and communications. Unlike some who just growled, he proceded to do something about those problems. Boats were the only ingress and egress to Deep River. C.A. son, Carlton was born in a fishboat as the family crossed the Columbia to Astoria and a doctor. Travelers waited for tides, hopedfreshet-borne logs wouldn't cause undue delay. My own mother, in visiting lower-end of county schools, took a boat to Astoria, crossed the river again into Deep River, returned to Cathlamet the same way. In addition to no roads, there were no telephone lines. Citizens corrected this situation with the eventual creation of the Western Wahkiakum Telephone Company, with C. A. as a co-founder and first president in 1927. This year is its golden anniversary and Carlton Appelo is the company's general manager---and historian for the west end of Wahkiakum county. The road problem was not so easily solved, for it took the assistance of the state Representatives Meserve, Girard, Phil McDonnough all heard from C. A., busy with his lobbying efforts. He joined the Washington Good Roads Assoc. and continued actively until his death to work for a better Ocean Beach Highway. In his files I am sure there are copies of long letters written to everyone from presidents, governors and legislators on down. One, which Carlton showed me not long ago, is to the late Congressman Martin F. Smith. In my own files, now at the University of Washington, are more. Not only I may add, on roads but on every issue important to the people of this county---ports, schools, veterans' legislation, veterans' hospitalization, veterans' pensions---and on the subject of America's destination itself. C. A. was intensely loyal to his new nation. During WWII he was awarded the U. S. National Citation for his work in selling U. S. Savings Bonds. Franklin D. Roosevelt signed this treasured award. He was a charter member of the Barr-Johnson-Hill American Legion Post, a member of WWI Veterans. In 1963, he was one of a group of U. S. citizens chosen to make a people-to people government-sponsored tour to Europe, which included Russia, land of his birth. Changes C. A. saw and experienced during his 87 years must have gone through his mind many times, changes from stern wheelers to the space age, from a village ruled by Czar Nicholas to a pleasant and secure life as a leading citizen of his county, state and nation. However much he might have thought about the past, he continued to work for the future. He had friends many and some enemies---as does anyone who accomplishes anything, but C. A. 's life is the unforgettable story of a man who dreamed impossible dreams which became realities. It is one of the bright, strong threads in the American fabric of hope and fulfillment. Grays River Cemetery-Grays River, Wa. 17 Feb 1890-03 May 1977 (As transcribed by the Wahkiakum County Historical Society Museum)