Today The Little Bean and I went “overtown,” as Bevery Cleary describes crossing the Willamette River to enter the other side of Portland, on an errand to the airport. On the way we scouted several locations in northeast Portland where Beverly Cleary passed her childhood. She lived until she was five or so at the farmhouse pictured in my previous post; her paternal grandfather is the “John Marion Bunn” in the plaque on the wall of the house. Her family subsequently moved into town. During their sojourn in the first of two rented houses, little Beverly Bunn attended Fernwood Grammar School, now Fernwood Middle School.

This clearly used to be the front of the school, but judging by the lack of handles on the door surrounded by neat stonework, it’s no longer even an entrance.

The inscription over the non-entrance reads “Fernwood Grammar School.” Around the side, on a newer portion of the building where the main entrance now is, is a newer sign designating it Fernwood Middle School.

Pictures of Cleary’s high school and the home her parents bought when they sold the farm after the jump.
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Yamhill, Oregon, is a very little town an hour or so out of Portland and the first home of children’s author Beverly Cleary. I read and enjoyed a good many of her books when I was younger, and I’ve just finished both parts of Cleary’s memoirs. Today I thought I’d drive out into the valley, along the eastern edge of the Coast Range foothills, down to Yamhill to see if her childhood home is still standing. It is.

Front view of the house “with the green mansard roof,” no longer green.

While the house looks charming for its age, the view west to the Coast Range is obstructed by farm buildings set in a patch of mud, while the front yard is closely pressed to the east by other houses and some run-down cars and trucks. The home still appears to be attached to some acreage, as it was in Cleary’s day, judging by the open fields beyond the muddy farmyard. I was pleased to find it still there, a bright spot in the rainy Oregon fall/winter that I’m already tired of. Later in the week I’ll scout for a few other Cleary locations around town.