Aug. 13, 1912 — April 5, 2007
Robert H. "Bob" Mealey, 94, forester, conservation advocate, land steward and longtime resident of Sweet and Albany, passed away Thursday of age-related causes, leaving behind a legacy of well-managed forests and conservation innovations.
Son of timber and mill owner, William and wife Fannie (Hamilton) Mealey, Bob was born in the family home near Foster. He was foremost an outdoorsman, who at age 85, fly fished for silver salmon in Alaska, and at age 87, took his last elk on a Wyoming hunt. At age 91, he was still piling slash with a JD 550 tractor on his tree farm.
Bob graduated from Sweet Home High School in 1932. At his father's urging, he originally pursued a degree in law, but soon found his passion to be forests. He graduated from the School of Forestry at Oregon State College in Corvallis in 1936, the same year of his marriage to Anna McLaughlin. His remarkable life in forestry spanned nearly 50 years, and it included running a logging and sawmill company, setting up the Linn County Small Woodlands Association and completing a full career with the U.S. Forest Service. He began his Forest Service work supervising Tillamook Burn CCC reforestation crews in the Oregon Coast Range. Later in the 1930s, he completed the original fire mapping of the Olympic National Forest in western Washington. Much of the mapping was done from the vantage point of tall trees and mountain tops instead of today's satellites. Bob served as district ranger on both the Rigdon and Blue River Ranger districts in the Willamette National Forest, as well as timber staff director for the Siuslaw National Forest in Corvallis.
After retiring from the forest service in 1973, Bob became a statewide leader in family forest management and molded his Mountain View Tree Farm located on 580 acres near Sweet
Home into a nationally recognized example of good stewardship. Under Bob's leadership from 1981 to 1985, the membership of the Linn County and Oregon Small Woodland associations doubled. During the same period of his leadership, the Northwest Woodland Council was formed. For all his efforts, Bob was named the 1989 Oregon and Western United States Regional Outstanding Tree Farmer.
During the 1980s and 1990s, Bob lead the effort to restore the native, but much neglected, Willamette Valley race of Ponderosa pine. At the time, he did this with his own money and personally distributed more than 300,000 pine seedlings out of his garage in Albany to pine enthusiasts. Today more than one million valley race Ponderosas are planted each year in the Willamette Valley.
In 2000, The Robert H. Mealey Willamette Valley Ponderosa Pine Native Gene Conservancy Orchard was dedicated at the Oregon Department of Forestry's Schroeder Seed Orchard near St. Paul to recognize Bob's work. He also provided funding to establish a scholarship fund for Linn County youth to attend Oregon Statue University and study forestry or natural resources. In 2005, Bob completed a major financial gift to the Oregon State University School of Forestry to establish the Robert and Anna K. Mealey Program in Forest Ecosystem Health, which advances the interests of healthy forests in Oregon and the Northwest through research, teaching and public outreach. The Society of American Foresters has recognized him as a fellow for his lifetime of contributions to the forestry profession. Bob once estimated that he personally planted nearly 90,000 conifer seedlings on his tree farm since his 70th birthday in 1982. In his spare time, Bob wrote poetry and spun many yarns about his forestry adventures.
Bob was preceded in death by his wife, Anna, in 1982, and youngest daughter Connie in 2002.
He is survived by children William of Portland, Mary McKenney of Wichita, Kan., and Stephen of Leaburg; 12 grandchildren; 19 great-grandchildren; sister Rachel Vogel of Foster; and many nieces and nephews, who will miss him greatly.
A funeral Mass will be Thursday at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Albany, followed by burial at Gilliland Cemetery in Sweet Home.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations in his name be made to the Willamette Valley Ponderosa Pine Conservation Association, OSU Extension Service, 1849 N.W. Ninth St., Corvallis, OR 97330-3144.
AAsum-Dufour Funeral Home is handling arrangements (www.aasum-dufour.com).
Albany Democrat Herald April 9, 2007
Robert H. "Bob" Mealey, 94, forester, conservation advocate, land steward and longtime resident of Sweet and Albany, passed away Thursday of age-related causes, leaving behind a legacy of well-managed forests and conservation innovations.
Son of timber and mill owner, William and wife Fannie (Hamilton) Mealey, Bob was born in the family home near Foster. He was foremost an outdoorsman, who at age 85, fly fished for silver salmon in Alaska, and at age 87, took his last elk on a Wyoming hunt. At age 91, he was still piling slash with a JD 550 tractor on his tree farm.
Bob graduated from Sweet Home High School in 1932. At his father's urging, he originally pursued a degree in law, but soon found his passion to be forests. He graduated from the School of Forestry at Oregon State College in Corvallis in 1936, the same year of his marriage to Anna McLaughlin. His remarkable life in forestry spanned nearly 50 years, and it included running a logging and sawmill company, setting up the Linn County Small Woodlands Association and completing a full career with the U.S. Forest Service. He began his Forest Service work supervising Tillamook Burn CCC reforestation crews in the Oregon Coast Range. Later in the 1930s, he completed the original fire mapping of the Olympic National Forest in western Washington. Much of the mapping was done from the vantage point of tall trees and mountain tops instead of today's satellites. Bob served as district ranger on both the Rigdon and Blue River Ranger districts in the Willamette National Forest, as well as timber staff director for the Siuslaw National Forest in Corvallis.
After retiring from the forest service in 1973, Bob became a statewide leader in family forest management and molded his Mountain View Tree Farm located on 580 acres near Sweet
Home into a nationally recognized example of good stewardship. Under Bob's leadership from 1981 to 1985, the membership of the Linn County and Oregon Small Woodland associations doubled. During the same period of his leadership, the Northwest Woodland Council was formed. For all his efforts, Bob was named the 1989 Oregon and Western United States Regional Outstanding Tree Farmer.
During the 1980s and 1990s, Bob lead the effort to restore the native, but much neglected, Willamette Valley race of Ponderosa pine. At the time, he did this with his own money and personally distributed more than 300,000 pine seedlings out of his garage in Albany to pine enthusiasts. Today more than one million valley race Ponderosas are planted each year in the Willamette Valley.
In 2000, The Robert H. Mealey Willamette Valley Ponderosa Pine Native Gene Conservancy Orchard was dedicated at the Oregon Department of Forestry's Schroeder Seed Orchard near St. Paul to recognize Bob's work. He also provided funding to establish a scholarship fund for Linn County youth to attend Oregon Statue University and study forestry or natural resources. In 2005, Bob completed a major financial gift to the Oregon State University School of Forestry to establish the Robert and Anna K. Mealey Program in Forest Ecosystem Health, which advances the interests of healthy forests in Oregon and the Northwest through research, teaching and public outreach. The Society of American Foresters has recognized him as a fellow for his lifetime of contributions to the forestry profession. Bob once estimated that he personally planted nearly 90,000 conifer seedlings on his tree farm since his 70th birthday in 1982. In his spare time, Bob wrote poetry and spun many yarns about his forestry adventures.
Bob was preceded in death by his wife, Anna, in 1982, and youngest daughter Connie in 2002.
He is survived by children William of Portland, Mary McKenney of Wichita, Kan., and Stephen of Leaburg; 12 grandchildren; 19 great-grandchildren; sister Rachel Vogel of Foster; and many nieces and nephews, who will miss him greatly.
A funeral Mass will be Thursday at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Albany, followed by burial at Gilliland Cemetery in Sweet Home.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations in his name be made to the Willamette Valley Ponderosa Pine Conservation Association, OSU Extension Service, 1849 N.W. Ninth St., Corvallis, OR 97330-3144.
AAsum-Dufour Funeral Home is handling arrangements (www.aasum-dufour.com).
Albany Democrat Herald April 9, 2007
Aug. 13, 1912 — April 5, 2007
Robert H. "Bob" Mealey, 94, forester, conservation advocate, land steward and longtime resident of Sweet and Albany, passed away Thursday of age-related causes, leaving behind a legacy of well-managed forests and conservation innovations.
Son of timber and mill owner, William and wife Fannie (Hamilton) Mealey, Bob was born in the family home near Foster. He was foremost an outdoorsman, who at age 85, fly fished for silver salmon in Alaska, and at age 87, took his last elk on a Wyoming hunt. At age 91, he was still piling slash with a JD 550 tractor on his tree farm.
Bob graduated from Sweet Home High School in 1932. At his father's urging, he originally pursued a degree in law, but soon found his passion to be forests. He graduated from the School of Forestry at Oregon State College in Corvallis in 1936, the same year of his marriage to Anna McLaughlin. His remarkable life in forestry spanned nearly 50 years, and it included running a logging and sawmill company, setting up the Linn County Small Woodlands Association and completing a full career with the U.S. Forest Service. He began his Forest Service work supervising Tillamook Burn CCC reforestation crews in the Oregon Coast Range. Later in the 1930s, he completed the original fire mapping of the Olympic National Forest in western Washington. Much of the mapping was done from the vantage point of tall trees and mountain tops instead of today's satellites. Bob served as district ranger on both the Rigdon and Blue River Ranger districts in the Willamette National Forest, as well as timber staff director for the Siuslaw National Forest in Corvallis.
After retiring from the forest service in 1973, Bob became a statewide leader in family forest management and molded his Mountain View Tree Farm located on 580 acres near Sweet
Home into a nationally recognized example of good stewardship. Under Bob's leadership from 1981 to 1985, the membership of the Linn County and Oregon Small Woodland associations doubled. During the same period of his leadership, the Northwest Woodland Council was formed. For all his efforts, Bob was named the 1989 Oregon and Western United States Regional Outstanding Tree Farmer.
During the 1980s and 1990s, Bob lead the effort to restore the native, but much neglected, Willamette Valley race of Ponderosa pine. At the time, he did this with his own money and personally distributed more than 300,000 pine seedlings out of his garage in Albany to pine enthusiasts. Today more than one million valley race Ponderosas are planted each year in the Willamette Valley.
In 2000, The Robert H. Mealey Willamette Valley Ponderosa Pine Native Gene Conservancy Orchard was dedicated at the Oregon Department of Forestry's Schroeder Seed Orchard near St. Paul to recognize Bob's work. He also provided funding to establish a scholarship fund for Linn County youth to attend Oregon Statue University and study forestry or natural resources. In 2005, Bob completed a major financial gift to the Oregon State University School of Forestry to establish the Robert and Anna K. Mealey Program in Forest Ecosystem Health, which advances the interests of healthy forests in Oregon and the Northwest through research, teaching and public outreach. The Society of American Foresters has recognized him as a fellow for his lifetime of contributions to the forestry profession. Bob once estimated that he personally planted nearly 90,000 conifer seedlings on his tree farm since his 70th birthday in 1982. In his spare time, Bob wrote poetry and spun many yarns about his forestry adventures.
Bob was preceded in death by his wife, Anna, in 1982, and youngest daughter Connie in 2002.
He is survived by children William of Portland, Mary McKenney of Wichita, Kan., and Stephen of Leaburg; 12 grandchildren; 19 great-grandchildren; sister Rachel Vogel of Foster; and many nieces and nephews, who will miss him greatly.
A funeral Mass will be Thursday at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Albany, followed by burial at Gilliland Cemetery in Sweet Home.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations in his name be made to the Willamette Valley Ponderosa Pine Conservation Association, OSU Extension Service, 1849 N.W. Ninth St., Corvallis, OR 97330-3144.
AAsum-Dufour Funeral Home is handling arrangements (www.aasum-dufour.com).
Albany Democrat Herald April 9, 2007
Robert H. "Bob" Mealey, 94, forester, conservation advocate, land steward and longtime resident of Sweet and Albany, passed away Thursday of age-related causes, leaving behind a legacy of well-managed forests and conservation innovations.
Son of timber and mill owner, William and wife Fannie (Hamilton) Mealey, Bob was born in the family home near Foster. He was foremost an outdoorsman, who at age 85, fly fished for silver salmon in Alaska, and at age 87, took his last elk on a Wyoming hunt. At age 91, he was still piling slash with a JD 550 tractor on his tree farm.
Bob graduated from Sweet Home High School in 1932. At his father's urging, he originally pursued a degree in law, but soon found his passion to be forests. He graduated from the School of Forestry at Oregon State College in Corvallis in 1936, the same year of his marriage to Anna McLaughlin. His remarkable life in forestry spanned nearly 50 years, and it included running a logging and sawmill company, setting up the Linn County Small Woodlands Association and completing a full career with the U.S. Forest Service. He began his Forest Service work supervising Tillamook Burn CCC reforestation crews in the Oregon Coast Range. Later in the 1930s, he completed the original fire mapping of the Olympic National Forest in western Washington. Much of the mapping was done from the vantage point of tall trees and mountain tops instead of today's satellites. Bob served as district ranger on both the Rigdon and Blue River Ranger districts in the Willamette National Forest, as well as timber staff director for the Siuslaw National Forest in Corvallis.
After retiring from the forest service in 1973, Bob became a statewide leader in family forest management and molded his Mountain View Tree Farm located on 580 acres near Sweet
Home into a nationally recognized example of good stewardship. Under Bob's leadership from 1981 to 1985, the membership of the Linn County and Oregon Small Woodland associations doubled. During the same period of his leadership, the Northwest Woodland Council was formed. For all his efforts, Bob was named the 1989 Oregon and Western United States Regional Outstanding Tree Farmer.
During the 1980s and 1990s, Bob lead the effort to restore the native, but much neglected, Willamette Valley race of Ponderosa pine. At the time, he did this with his own money and personally distributed more than 300,000 pine seedlings out of his garage in Albany to pine enthusiasts. Today more than one million valley race Ponderosas are planted each year in the Willamette Valley.
In 2000, The Robert H. Mealey Willamette Valley Ponderosa Pine Native Gene Conservancy Orchard was dedicated at the Oregon Department of Forestry's Schroeder Seed Orchard near St. Paul to recognize Bob's work. He also provided funding to establish a scholarship fund for Linn County youth to attend Oregon Statue University and study forestry or natural resources. In 2005, Bob completed a major financial gift to the Oregon State University School of Forestry to establish the Robert and Anna K. Mealey Program in Forest Ecosystem Health, which advances the interests of healthy forests in Oregon and the Northwest through research, teaching and public outreach. The Society of American Foresters has recognized him as a fellow for his lifetime of contributions to the forestry profession. Bob once estimated that he personally planted nearly 90,000 conifer seedlings on his tree farm since his 70th birthday in 1982. In his spare time, Bob wrote poetry and spun many yarns about his forestry adventures.
Bob was preceded in death by his wife, Anna, in 1982, and youngest daughter Connie in 2002.
He is survived by children William of Portland, Mary McKenney of Wichita, Kan., and Stephen of Leaburg; 12 grandchildren; 19 great-grandchildren; sister Rachel Vogel of Foster; and many nieces and nephews, who will miss him greatly.
A funeral Mass will be Thursday at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Albany, followed by burial at Gilliland Cemetery in Sweet Home.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations in his name be made to the Willamette Valley Ponderosa Pine Conservation Association, OSU Extension Service, 1849 N.W. Ninth St., Corvallis, OR 97330-3144.
AAsum-Dufour Funeral Home is handling arrangements (www.aasum-dufour.com).
Albany Democrat Herald April 9, 2007
Family Members
Sponsored by Ancestry
Advertisement
Explore more
Sponsored by Ancestry
Advertisement
