After eight decades, Coulter family still close – and competitive

Sarah Brown

Donna Shortreed pulls out a spiral-bound cookbook from her kitchen.

“Would you like to see what we looked like when Mama and Pop were alive?” she asks.

On the cover is a black and white photo of her parents and siblings, and its pages are filled with recipes from the family, a gift by Shortreed’s niece.

“There’s Frank Coulter, Hilda, and then Mina, Norma, Wanda, Jack, Dot, Donna, Molly, Bonnie, and Eula, Larry, Marian and Gayle,” she says, pointing out each one.

Shortreed, 92, returns to the table with her sisters Gayle Barnes, 81, and Molly Mosby, 90, and sister-in-law Wilma Coulter, and the four proceed to silently munch on an array of snacks. A short time later, they begin to update each other on family member ailments and other chit chat, and then prepare to play cards.

The descendants of Frank and Hilda Coulter are numerous. The couple raised two boys and 10 girls, and today would have 56 grandchildren, and exponentially greater numbers of great-grandchildren, great-great grandchildren and great-great-great grandchildren.

Nine of the 12 Coulter kids are still alive, and five continue to live in Sweet Home. The sisters meet twice a week to play cards together.

Shortreed hosts pinochle at her house on Wednesdays, and Wanda Miner, 97, hosts on Sunday.

The biweekly get-togethers started about 40 years ago, when the sisters would walk together, Barnes explained at a recent family reunion at Sunnyside Park.

“We’d meet at Donna’s house and go walk around the airport, and then we’d go back to Donna’s and have coffee,” she said.

Walking eventually became more difficult, so the aging ladies turned their attention to pinochle and food.

“We never outgrew eating,” joked Bonnie Wittwer, 88.

All but one of the Coulter siblings were born at home, Wittwer said. Marian Stone, now 83, was born at Langmack Hospital, but their mother didn’t care for the experience.

“Mama said, after she had Marian at the hospital, she always told us never again would she go to the hospital to have a baby,” Wittwer said. “It was much easier at home.”

“I never knew that,” responded Miner, the oldest surviving sibling.

“The doctor always came to the house,” Barnes said. “He’d come over across the river to our home and deliver the babies.”

In fact, Dr. Langmack had purchased property from their father, Frank Coulter, as a private landing field for his plane. This would be the same property the sisters walked 40 years after they were born.

Coulter was born in Kansas in 1888 and moved to Sweet Home with his family when he was 11.

His wife, Hilda Geil, was born in Virginia in 1897 and moved to Sweet Home with her family when she was 10. With the exception of a few years in Portland and Albany, the couple raised their family in Sweet Home together.

Wittwer recalled her childhood summers fondly.

“In the summer, we all moved our beds out along the yard and we slept out under the stars. If it started raining, we all had to jump out of our bed, pick up our mattress and run to the porch,” she said. “It was just so much fun. We’d lay out there and say tongue twisters.”

And look at shooting stars, Shortreed added.

“I remember waking up and the dew would be on your pillow, and you didn’t dare move your head or you’d be in the dew,” added Eula McAfee, 87.

They also recalled swimming in the Santiam River and diving off the high rocks. The Coulter kids have gathered almost a century of favorite memories together in Sweet Home, too many to recollect.

“I have lots of them, but I can’t remember any of them,” Miner said.

Larry Coulter, 84, said Sweet Home has been like a big family to him. He owned several businesses in town, including Snappy Service and The Busy Bee. He married sister Barnes’ best friend, Wilma Plunkett, when he was 19 and she was 15.

“I’m sure everyone in town doubted it would last,” Wilma said. “And 65 years later, we’re still together.”

Barnes also married young, at age 16.

While Coulter might be described as the businessman of the family, he described his sisters as happy girls, though “Eula is meaner than heck,” he joked.

“Marian reminds me of our aunt, Nelly, a little free-spirited,” he said of one of his youngest siblings.

And Mosby could be described as “perfection.”

“She always looked like she just stepped out of a bandwagon,” Wittwer explained.

In addition to pinochle, Mosby and McAfee have been known to play a fierce game of bridge against sisters Miner and Dottie Damkowitch, 94.

“All through the years, once a year, we play bridge,” McAfee said. “Molly and I won every year except one.”

McAfee served in the Air Force for six years before starting a family. Her brother, Jack Coulter, now deceased, was also in the Air Force. Norma Christensen, deceased, Mina Hirschi, deceased, Damkowitch, Mosby and Barnes were housewives.

Miner worked in a restaurant before raising her family, and Stone worked various jobs in restaurants and hotels, and delivered fish. Shortreed also worked in several restaurants, including The Tick Tock in Sweet Home. Wittwer worked in nursing for almost 50 years.

The Coulter kids keep a sharp mind and active life, and they don’t look nearly their age. They say any bickerings between them are quickly mended, and laughter is one of the most common sounds heard across a game of cards.

There are probably a thousand stories to be shared by the Coulter family, but this snapshot will have to suffice.

“I can think of hundreds of things to tell, but right now I can’t think of any,” Miner said. “We’ve had a wonderful life, all of us.”

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