Letters to the Editor Pete Sawin 1938 - 2018


 passed away in July.


Born in Vermont, Pete’s


family moved to Oregon after World War Two. He started a career with the US Forest Service in 1957. Drafted in 1961, Pete served two years in the army 


Returning to Oregon, Pete’s sister introduced him to her roommate, Kay Grotzke. He and Kay were married four months later. Their marriage continued until his passing this summer.


 Blue River District of the Willamette National Forest and then with the Wallowa National Forest in Joseph, Oregon. He retired in 1988, and then worked another  and thinning trees.


Kay says that during Pete’s early Forest Service years, he often worked on the agency’s phone lines, even though he was uncomfortable with heights and climbing spurs. She noted that upon “seeing an insulator at a yard sale in 2004 brought back those days. The ice was broken and a passion born. He enjoyed talking to other collectors and meeting them at shows.” (The photo of Pete was taken at the 2017 Lostine, Oregon swap meet.)


Glenn Hamilton 1931 - 2018


Crown Jewels subscriber Glenn Hamilton of Belle Plaine, Kansas passed away in May. He grew up there, and joined the army at the outbreak of the Korean War. His obituary states, “Glenn was a lifelong farmer, raising wheat, soybeans and livestock. He also worked on the assembly lines at the Beech and Boeing aircraft companies in Wichita, and was a rural letter carrier for the US Postal Service. After  collector of glass and porcelain insulators, decorative and rare bricks, antiques and other odds and ends. He traveled far and wide across North America in pursuit of his hobbies. Glenn and his wife, Joyce, had been married nearly 64 years when she passed away in 2015.


4 Crown Jewels


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