This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/nZB.2ACE/284.1 Message Board Post: The Hood River Glacier, Hood River, OR., October 15, 1925, page 8 FUNERAL FOR MRS. BILLINGS SATURDAY Mrs. Mary Billings, one of Oregon’s early pioneers, passed away on Thursday evening at her home on Fair street in The Dalles. Mrs. Billings, the daughter of Walter and Catherine Fish, was born on the Abaqua river in Marion county, September 26, 1847, a few days after her parents arrived from the long trip across the plains. Her parents later moved to what was known as the Huckleberry woods, east of Canby, then later to Big Eddy at the bend of the Willamette between Oregon City and Canby. At that time the land which they chose to make their future home was in the dense forest, with their nearest neighbors four or five miles away. Wild animals were very plentiful around there then. Mrs. Billings often remarked that her cradle song was the howl of the big timber wolves. Her parents entertained many of the pioneers passing through the county looking for land, and she often recalled interesting incidents of that time. After marrying Joseph Gribble in 1861, she went with him to what is known as Gribble’s Prairie. They made their home on a part of the Gribble donation land claim, given to them by his father. Of this union were born 11 children, five of whom, William S. and Raymond N. Gribble, of The Dalles, Walter L., of Inglewood, tin J., of Portland, survive. Mr. Gribble passed away in 1885 and during the next three years she and her boys took care of the farm. In 1888 she married A.B. Billings, by which union two children were born, the son, Bruce Billings, living at Dee. Both feeling the spirit of pioneering and having heard of the Hood River country, they moved to the Upper Valley, on a homestead one mile and a half south of Dee in October , ___ line of text unreadable __ office in the Upper Valley at that time, with mail service once a week. There they developed one of the first commercial apple orchards in the Upper Hood River valley. Mr. and Mrs. Billings moved to The Dalles in the spring of 1924, where Mrs. Billings passed away last Thursday. She was buried in the G.A.R. section of the Odd Fellows cemetery at The Dalles.