HALSEY — Well into his 90s, Irish Bend Loop farmer George VanLeeuwen had a handshake like a steel vise and a smile that melted hearts.
VanLeeuwen, who went by Geo. and was a trusted godfather of mid-valley farmers for the last 70 years, died Oct. 21 at the Mennonite Village Rehabilitation Center in Albany. He was 95.
VanLeeuwen was born to be a farmer. His mother was pregnant with him when she and her husband emigrated from Holland to Jamestown, North Dakota, in 1920. Dutch was the child’s first language, and in his family biography, he recalled being the focus of prejudice at the community's country schoolhouse because of his speech.
“I have learned that it is good to receive a little prejudice,” he noted. “It provides a challenge to overcome, the opportunity to consider motivation of the prejudiced, and helps a person to stand up for his own values.”
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He said that by growing up on an isolated farm, “We were taught by example the value of self control, respect for other people, hard work, frugality, money management and education.”
But in 1936, the Dust Bowl sent 16-year-old George, along with his parents, five brothers and sister, in search of a new life in Oregon.
Former State Rep. Liz VanLeeuwen, George’s wife of 69 years, said her husband’s family rented a farm near Albany for a short time before purchasing a foreclosed 232-acre farm in the Irish Bend Loop area west of Halsey.
Although he started high school in North Dakota — where he roomed and boarded with “widow ladies” — VanLeeuwen attended Albany Union High for a few months then completed high school in Halsey.
In January 1940, VanLeeuwen — who considered himself “an extremely shy but determined general ag freshman” — headed to nearby Oregon State College (now Oregon State University), where he studied crop science and ag education.
The need to support the war effort during World War II brought him back to the farm, where he helped the family raise flax that would be used to make parachute cords.
It was during this time that George met Liz Nelson, an Oregon State coed who had grown up on a farm near Lakeview, so she knew how to work in the fields.
“The coeds would come out to area farms to help pull weeds since most of the women were working at the shipyards in Portland or Seattle,” she recalled.
George was intrigued by the fact that Liz could keep up with him at work and the two were married in 1947, a week after her graduation. She taught school at Monroe until her husband completed his degree in 1948.
George taught ag education at Banks Union High School for half a school year before the family moved to Redmond, where he worked for three years as a farm program administrator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The family returned to the mid-valley in 1951, where George was a loan officer with Production Credit Association in Salem. The young couple also rented a small farm and worked at night by lantern light.
In 1956, they moved home and rented the family farm, which they later purchased and have expanded many times over the years.
Always an inventor, George created a berry-picking machine that allowed workers to lie down, pick the berries and place them on a conveyor belt as it moved across a field.
“My dad was always experimenting,” James VanLeeuwen said.
Liz Van Leeuwen said that her husband “was a man of infinite patience. He didn’t get mad at people, but he could surely get mad at machinery.”
She added that his pet peeve was “anything that was poorly engineered.”
In addition to his widow, Liz, VanLeeuwen leaves a daughter, Mary LeQuieu of Rio Rancho, New Mexico; sons Charles VanLeeuwen of Mountainair, New Mexico, and James and Tim VanLeeuwen of Halsey; their spouses; five grandchildren; four great-grandchildren and a brother, Eugene VanLeeuwen of Scio.
Viewing will be from 4 to 6 p.m. Friday at Fisher Funeral Home, Albany.
A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday at the First Baptist Church, 27910 Seven Mile Lane, Brownsville.
Memorial contributions in lieu of flowers may be made to the Adult and Teen Challenge of Shedd (www.teenchallengepnw.com/wvmc), Box 108 Shedd, OR 97377 or Ag in the Classroom (www.oregonaitc.org), 200 Strand Hall, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331.