Wahkiakum Co. Eagle-October 1951 WEST, May B. Many friends of May Watkins West were shocked to hear that she passed away Friday evening in a Longview hospital where she had undergone a major surgical operation earlier in the week. She was one of the best known women in this county, where she had been identified with schools and in official capacities since 1913 when she came here as a young bride. She taught her first term of school at Altoona in 1907 after which she returned to Whatcom county where she continued teaching and was employed in the Bellingham schools at the time of her marriage. For several years she taught in the Cathlamet schools and several of our local people were her pupils. She also served as county superintendent of schools. She had made her home in Cathlamet except for a few years when she and] her husband operated a dairy farm on Puget Island which they bought at the close of WWI. For some time she was associated with her brother-in-law, the late George F. Hanigan, in the Wahkiakum County Abstract Co. She was also county clerk and auditor, a position which she held until January of this year when she decided to retire from public life to the home she and her husband had purchased on Puget Island. Mrs. May Strand West was born in Bellingham, Wash., and grew up and was educated in the public schools there. She graduated from Western Washington College of Education--then Bellingham Normal--in 1906. In 1950 she married John G. West of a well known pioneer family. She was for many years a member of the Business and Professional Women and their president in 1934-35. She was also a member of Rebekah lodge. She is survived by her husband and five sisters; Ruth Hanigan of Cathlamet, Dorothea Vinson of Puget Island, Mrs. Herman Erp of Astoria, Mrs. Clarence Winter of Skamokawa and Mrs. Jesse Brown of San Francisco. Funeral services were held Tuesday at the Congregational church with Rev. Kenneth Cooper and Rev. W. W. Head officiating. Pallbearers were Herbert Faubion, Sr, Mitchell Doumit, Paul Lechner, Stanley Tholo, Frank Brooks and Robert Irving, the five latter county officials with whom she had been associated. Steele Funeral Home in Longview was in charge. May B. Strand Watkins West Greenwood Cemetery-Cathlamet, Wa. 25 Apr 1886-19 Oct 1951 (As transcribed by the Wahkiakum County Historical Society 2005 from original newspaper collection.)