Jan. 13, 1917 – March 24, 2007
Albert Claude Wells, 90, a longtime resident of the Sweet Home area, died at Milwaukee Convalescent Home on March 24, 2007.
He was born Jan. 13, 1917 to Albert Clyde and Nora (Robertson) Wells, the sixth of eight children. His preschool years were spent on his father’s dairy farm six miles north of Eugene.
In the mid-1920s his family moved to a ranch in the Condon area where his father became a wheat farmer. The little country schoolhouse that he attended has been relocated to the Condon museum. During those years Mr. Wells struggled in school because of poor vision which later was corrected by glasses. His older sister, Irene Wells Krogh, was his schoolteacher for at least one year.
The Condon years were carefree years for Mr. Wells and he had many stories to tell of life on the wheat ranch riding Dixie, his horse. It was there that he learned how to farm. trap, hunt and kill rattlesnakes with a pocketful of rocks.
Five years later the family relocated to a ranch in the Wiley Creek area and later to a farm on the Sweet Home – Holley highway. After his school years Mr. Wells worked in the Civilian Conservation Corps for a short period of time. He worked on farms, sawmills and plywood mills.
On Sept 3, 1939 he married Agnes Crane at the Holley Christian Church. They had five children, one of which was stillborn and one, Nora Ellen, whose life was taken at six months of age in an auto accident in Holley.
In the early years of marriage he continued his millwork and he and his father also operated a strawberry farm. During that time he served on the Holley School Board.
Mr. Wells had a remarkable singing voice and sang live on the radio station several times. In 1949 he moved his family to Arlington, S.D., where he attended Dakota Bible College. Preaching ministries included Wessington, S.D., Brandon, Iowa, and several in Oregon, including Jefferson, Albany, and Falls City.
In 1957 he started the North Dallas Church of Christ. Late life ministries include Myrtle Creek, and working on the staff of a church pastored by his son, Myron, in Spokane, Wash.
In the 1980’s he retired and moved back to Sweet Home. His last years were spent in a convalescent home in Milwaukie.
He is survived by his three children, Judy Word of Portland, Myron Wells of Redmond, and Marlin Wells of Port Orchard, Wash.
Services were held at the Highway 20 Church of Christ on March 29, with interment at the Crawfordsville Cemetery.