By Mary Owen
A chance visit to Silver Falls State Park led to a lengthy love affair that motivated a California couple to move
to Oregon.
“Our daughter moved to Washington in 1990,” said Jim Thomas, who now volunteers with his wife, Janet, at the park they fell in love with. “Later that year, we drove our RV up to see her new digs. On the way, we stopped to visit an old friend in the Eugene area. He said, ‘Since you’re going north, you should stop at Silver Falls State Park.
“We had never heard of the park, but fell in love with it immediately,” Jim added. “We were a long way from retirement at that point, but we felt like we needed to consider this area seriously.”
The couple worked for a Los Angeles-area title insurance company, Jim as vice president and chief title officer, and Janet as supervisor of an internal support department. Seven years after their first visit to the park, they camped there for a week.
“We did a lot of hiking,” Thomas said. “At that time, we looked at Sublimity and liked what we saw.”
The two returned to Oregon in the fall of 2004 for a two-week vacation specifically to scout out communities, before finding a house in Sublimity that they loved.
“Surprising ourselves, among others, we bought the house and informed our company that we intended to retire at the end of the year,” Thomas said. “We moved in at the end of January of 2005, and have never been sorry. We love Sublimity, and could not possibly be in a better neighborhood.”
Next-door neighbor Earl McCollum, an Oregon native, shares lots of information about Oregon with the couple. McCollum started volunteering at Silver Falls State Park soon after they met, when the Friends of Silver Falls gift shop was located in a small space in the lodge.
“Janet and I started volunteering at the park for events – Historic Silver Falls Days, Mother’s Day, the Christmas Festival.”
In the summer of 2009, the store moved into the historic log cabin that was previously used for events and was renamed the South Falls Nature Store.
“In my opinion it’s the best gift shop in the Salem area,” Thomas said. “The log cabin is an historic building, completed by the CCC [Civilian Conservation Corps] in 1938, and it is perfect for us.”
At the time of the move, Lou Nelson, president of Friends of Silver Falls, asked Thomas if he would commit to volunteering at the store on Friday mornings.
“I took it on, and I have never regretted that decision,” Thomas said. “Working in the Nature Store is my first retail job, but it could not be a better place. Almost all of our customers are in a good frame of mind when they come in, which makes it a very pleasant retail job. Basically, the job consists of helping our visitors to have a wonderful experience in the park.”
In addition to ringing up and bagging items, store volunteers answer questions, provide trail maps and other informational handouts about the park, and “just visit” with people, Thomas said.
The couple also make items that are sold in the store. Thomas makes hiking sticks, birdhouses with Oregon license-plate roofs, and wooden refrigerator magnets. Janet makes wine cork Christmas ornaments, plaques and picture frames with sayings burned onto them, as well as children’s T-shirts with an image of South Falls.
“Our visitors come from all over the world, many of them for the first time, so it is always fun to gather their impressions of our state and our park,” Thomas said. “We have a large map in which visitors can insert a pin in their home area, plus a visitor’s log for their information and comments.”
Volunteers are always needed, and half-day sessions are 2.5 hours in the winter to four hours in the summer.
“New volunteers will be working with a seasoned volunteer until they feel comfortable on their own, and our administrator’s office is close by when she is not in the store,” said Thomas, who serves on the Friends board of directors. “A volunteer parking pass is provided for the days that you are working in the store.”
The mission of Friends of Silver Falls State Park is to support the educational and interpretive opportunities available to park visitors and to promote the preservation and protection of Silver Falls State Park. Silver Falls is the largest of Oregon’s state parks and had over 1.3 million visitors last year. Over 90 percent of the funds FOSF uses to support the park come from sales in the group’s Nature Store.
To volunteer, contact Elaine Haga, 503-873-8735 or [email protected].
