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| John Hall PHOTO BY NEIL HEILPERN |
By Neil Heilpern
For The Mid-County MEMO
John Hall is an octogenarian whose hands have crafted stainless steel for giant ships and whose heart has crafted sensitive poetry to reflect his life.
When he isn’t busy reading books from the residence library at the Oregon Baptist Retirement Home in the Gateway District, or heading out with his neighbors for a senior citizen field trip, Hall likes to reminisce about family and church.
Hall moved into the home shortly after his wife of 63 years, Ellen, died three years ago. He recalled his father building a house on 10 acres along the Tualatin River, being introduced to Ellen and immediately realizing “That’s the girl I want to marry.” They raised two daughters and a son, Linda, Janet and Jim.
At age five the family moved from his native Napavine, Washington (near Chehalis) to Portland in 1921. He looked up to his older brother Archie and was susceptible to gentle teasing, including being told that a hole the brother dug to bury a tin can went “clear to China.”
Hall made frequent teenager trips to the Riverside Golf Course, seeking lost golf balls to trade in for an old wood shafted golf club. He caddied 18 holes for 50 cents and earned free Monday morning use of the course. Fixing old golf clubs and selling them brought pin money.
Hall graduated from Benson High School in 1934, during the depression when no jobs were available, so he returned for more classes in metal shop and welding. His blacksmith instructor’s friendship with the owner of American Sheet Metal landed the teen an apprenticeship that developed into a full-time job for 13 years.
During World War II, he measured numerous U.S. Navy ships on the Willamette River for the sheet metal work in galleys where future fighting sailors would get their meals. After the war he and a partner opened a metal fabricating shop on Swan Island, later moving to a site on Columbia Blvd. They did stainless steel work for Emanuel Hospital, Continental Can Company and other light industrial places.
Hall’s brush with fame in 1978 involved helping catch a bank robber. As a customer inside a downtown branch of Lincoln Savings & Loan he saw when the thief “drew out pistol, went behind the counter and told everyone to be quiet and not move while he scooped up a bunch of bills and stuffed them in his pockets and under his arm.”
Two other men from the bank followed as he chased the robber, who “made a big blunder” when he put his arm out to push the revolving door at a nearby Meyer and Frank store. “All the bills under his arm fell onto the floor and we all piled on him” until police arrived and recognized the thief from another bank robbery.
Hall promptly donated his $500 reward to his church, the Holladay Park Church of God, at 21st and Tillamook.
He joined the chuch in 1943, admiring “basic Christian” values of salvation and forgiveness of sin taught there. “We liked the services, the singing and the friends,” he said. He dove in as a volunteer, using his metalworking skills to build an eight foot tall stainless steel cross for the wall near the sanctuary entrance and a smaller one that sits on the altar.
The church’s kitchen still has the stainless steel sinks, counters, stove hood and pass through window which he built. The church marquee outside is also a product of his metalworking talents.
Some friends once saw a walk-in freezer Hall was building for Western Dairy and commissioned him to build another one to be shipped to Kenya for use by missionaries. “I thought by the time they paid the freight, they could buy something like it over there. But, they wanted the one I was building. Ten years later, the Kenya minister visited our church and said it was still going strong.”
Several artistic creations adorn the homes of his children, including a miniature version of a gate inspired by a photograph his blacksmith teacher showed him.
A love of “antiques and other bargains,” drew him to garage sales where he would pick up “enough antiques to start my own store on Northeast 17th Avenue and Sandy”. He enjoyed tinkering and fixing up the acquisitions, but realized standing on his feet all day long wasn’t for him. An auction house sold the rest.
He recalled daughter Jan as a Rose Festival princess from Madison High School. “She might have been queen but for the unfortunate event of the sound system dying just as her turn to speak occurred,” he said. “I don’t remember what she spoke about.”
Over the years Hall penned poetic thoughts. He talks about letting his “fancy roam on magic carpet, far from home, to gather thoughts and pictures fair” in the poem “It’s Not Easy.” He produced numerous stanzas to thank hospital personnel when nine-month-old Grandson David needed their care. “And doctors hold their consultations, while loved ones wait at prayer stations.” In “Heirlooms,” he wonders, “What shall we leave our children, Lord? A chest of treasure, safely stored in attic dim?”
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