History of Early Pioneer Families of Hood River, Oregon. Compiled by Mrs. D.M. Coon

DR. P.G. BARRET AND FAMILY                        D.M.C.                     1871

     Dr. Barrett, his wife and daughter came to Hood River when it was but little better than a wilderness. He secured land five miles southwest of the Coe farm and enclosed it with a rail fence. A substantial two story frame building was erected for the home and a large roomy barn for the stock.
     When the first school house was built in 1878 he was very active, and, as his holdings were the most valuable, he bore a larger portion of the expense incurred. Very naturally his name was given to the school, and it still remains a reminder of his good work.
     Mrs. Barrett's father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. Hodge, were visiting with them while the school house was being built, and Mr. Hodge, although upward of eighty years of age, made the desks for the school. Mrs. Hodge was a very lovable woman and did much to assist and encourage the pioneer women whose families were sorely handicapped by lack of opportunity.
     Dr. Barrett was an educated and skillful physician who always responded to calls for medical aid, yet his charges were only nominal. Mrs. Barrett was a woman of culture and refinement, a lover of nature and a botanical student. She would brave almost any hardship to find some new or rare plant. One plant found by her she was unable to find classified in the botanical books, so she sent it to Prof. Gray, author and botanist, of N.Y. He wrote her that it had never been classified and named it for her in his botanical work. When the author of "The Bridge of the Gods" needed a friend and helper he found one in Mrs. Barrett who with infinite pains assisted him in revising his work.
     Julia, their daughter, attended the Barrett School for a few terms, she showed considerable ability in elocutionary work, probably the result of early training from Mrs. C.L. Henderson. At the age of fourteen she went to Rochester N.Y., to attend school and afterwards to Wellesley College. Mr. and Mrs. Hodge returned to Hood River and made this their permanent home that they might cheer Mr. and Mrs. Barrett in their loneliness. The long years crept by and Julia came back to them, not the little girl that had left them, but an educated woman and a fine musician. The old friends remaining came to greet her, but Hood River did not seem the same to her and she soon accepted a position as music teacher in a college in a town in the Willamette Valley. An occasional visit home and then she came back to make preparations for her marriage to Mr. Howell.
     Soon after their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Howell located in Honduras where Julia contracted Honduras fever. She came back to Hood River and grew stronger for awhile, but was never well again. In October 1892 she passed away leaving twin sons to the care of her father and mother.
     Mr. Hodge died about the year 1890 and Mrs. Hodge in July 1898. Mr. and Mrs. Barrett with their grandsons continued to live at the farm. They had a fine herd of Jersey cows in which he found a great deal of satisfaction. While caring for his stock one morning, he dropped dead from heart failure.
     No one had ever thought of him as anything but a man in perfect health and his death came as a severe shock to the community that had so long depended on him in times of sickness.
     Mrs. Barrett with her grandsons went back to New York, where she died in 1924. Edward was married about a year ago to a lady in Massachusetts.

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