Wilbur Brewer Thayer

Wilbur Brewer Thayer was born in Hingham, Massachusetts, on January 18, 1924, the son of Wilbur Fenno Thayer, Jr., and Augusta Caroline Brewer Thayer. He served his country, which he loved and was very proud of, in the U.S. Navy, as a signalman and loading five inch shells, aboard the destroyer USS Arnold J. Isbell, in the Pacific theater, from November 1, 1943 through the Second World War. He received an honorable discharge May 1, 1946, with his rank Quartermaster, Third Class. He met and fell in love with Sally Nottingham in 1947, and made her Sally Thayer, in 1948. They began having children, and between 1949 and 1959, Sally and Wilbur had six children, Steve, Midge, John, Carol, Billy and Danny. Early on, Wilbur worked as a mason's hod carrier, then as a concrete contractor and at some other odd jobs, before completing his higher education at University of Southern California, where he obtained his undergraduate and law degrees, graduating from law school in 1952. He worked for fourteen years or so as a deputy attorney general for the State of California, doing administrative hearings and trial work. Wilbur wanted to get his children out of the city and into the country life. He and Sally had accumulated properties and ultimately traded into the Deer Creek Ranch in Southern Oregon. He quit his job and career as an attorney and moved his family to the ranch in 1968. The family worked at a haying and beef cattle operation for the next ten years, and learned a lot about hard work and real life. After the Deer Creek Ranch was sold, he and Sally moved to Klamath Falls, Oregon, and Wilbur became a real estate broker and sold cattle ranches. Wilbur suffered injury to his spinal cord in his mid-forties and ended up bedridden and nearly quadriplegic the last decade of his life or so. He had an amazingly positive outlook on his situation, and appreciated his devoted wife Sally, and daughter Midge's, wonderful personal care, over the last years of his life. He continued to stay mentally active and remained an effective businessman and investor to the end. He is survived by his loving wife Sally, and his six children, Steven Thayer, Midge Yeager, John Thayer, Carol Thayer, Bill Thayer, and Dan Thayer, and by seventeen grandchildren. A private service was held in celebration of Wilbur's life. He was buried at Evergreen Memorial Gardens in Vancouver, Washington.

Wilbur Brewer Thayer

January 18, 1924 - October 7, 2009