EUGENE Carolyn Frances Micnhimer, 87, longtime resident of John Day, died on June 2 with her daughter and grandson by her side, from complications of Alzheimers.

Per her last request, her children will privately scatter her ashes in the same area as her husband, Dwights, a scenic spot overlooking Strawberry Mountain, that he called my old hunting grounds.

Mrs. Micnhimer was born April 24, 1926, in New York, to Rudolph and Irene Podest. She grew up in Brooklyn and Smallwood, New York.

During World War II, she worked in the Brooklyn Naval Shipyards, where she met her future husband, Dwight, who was serving in the Merchant Marines. They married in 1947, and in 1949, moved to John Day, where she lived until she moved to an Alzheimers care facility in the Willamette Valley.

She was deeply involved in the lives of her family and the Grant County community. She served as a Cub Scout den mother for all three of her sons, and a Girl Scout leader for her daughter. An avid gardener, she led the family in a self-sufficient lifestyle of growing and preserving fruits and vegetables and beautifying their two-acre ranch with flowers. A milk and beef cow, and chickens completed those efforts.

Her superior gardening skills consistently won blue ribbons at the Grant County Fair.

She was a longtime member of the First Baptist Church in John Day, where she taught Sunday School for many years. She loved people, and was friends with those of all ages and walks of life.

For 25 years, she was curator of the Kam Wah Chung Museum in John Day. During that time, she often went beyond the call of duty in organizing community events and in her ongoing research projects about the museum. Those culminated in a published book, Anecdotes & Antidotes: 25 years at Kam Wah Chung, which is available online.

Her dedication to Kam Wash Chung was recognized in 2004, when then Governor Ted Kulongoski presented her with the Governors Gold Award for her service.

Family and friends will always remember her loving ways and kind words. Grant County was a place that, for so long, she loved to call home.

Survivors include her four children, Dwight Russel of Prineville, Ronald of Bend, Roger of Oxford, Ohio, and Karen of Monroe; seven grandchildren; six great-grandchildren; sister, Marilyn Henderson of Minneapolis, Minn.; and half sister, Mabel Dowell, and half brother, William Podest, both of Las Cruces, N.M.

She was preceded in death by her husband, Dwight B., in 1993.

No public services are planned. Her oldest son, Russel, requests that people give flowers to someone they love, in memory of his mothers lifelong love of flowers.