Heppner gazette. [volume] (Heppner, Morrow County, Or.) 1892-1912, 1911-05-25

!
A illness which threatened tC
prove fatal that he was able
to return with his wife and daughter
10 his home on the heights overlook
ing Oakland and San Francisco bay
yet his friends entertain little hope
hat he will ever be fully restored to
health He is now in his SEVENTEEN
year. Previous to his last illness he
had been separated from his wife for
thirty years, but the danger of his
death happily reunited them, and now
the aged poet is spending the re-
mainder of his days amid his well be-
owed hills, on the spot where he has
created a characteristic home, called
The Heights. His massive frame has
weakened, his once keen eyes are
lin, his flowing hair and beard are
white, and the physicians who have
climbed the wooded hills to minister
% him declare there is little If any
lope-that it is merely a matter of
few weeks when Joaquin Miller will
lave been gathered to his fathers.
His ashes, according to his wish, will
De scattered to the winds from the
1yre in the hills back of The Heights,
which marks the last resting place of
lis daughter, Maud, who died several
years ago. The reunion with his wife
nay prolong his days, and the care
hat his other daughter, Juanita, be-
,tows upon him may build up his with
cred strength a little, but there is
hardly more than shell for them to
Nurse.
Perhaps no more picturesque figure
S extant in the literary history of
California and the west than Joaquin
Miller He is a distinct type, seem
ngly inseparable from the environ
nent in which he has lived these
.wenty years or more He has gath
cred inspiration from the rolling
green hills, from the ruddy sunsets,
rom the blue Pacific waters, from the
log banks that roll in with the night
all, from the vista of land and sea as
seen from his eyrie on The Heights,
rom the Golden Gate and the shadowy
Ihips that sail through it into the rim
If the horizon and are lost in the
Tapor's pail.
He has been, perhaps, too familiar
o the residents of Oakland and
leighboring suburbs to create the in
crest that he would if he should sud
lenly appear in some eastern city
;lad in his high top boots, buckskin
clothing and wide brimmed sombrero,
With his curly hair flowing from be-
ieath its brim.
Even to this day, or perhaps It
should be said up to the time of his
Illness, Joaquin Miller retained his
grace and commanding aspect He
has lived much out of doors and has
oeen Drowned by suns. With his own
lands he has planted the hundreds of
rees that surround the little colec-
lion of houses, the chapel and the
funeral pyre, which constitute The
Heights.
A few years ago the poets mother
lied at the age of ninety. There was
4 strikingly beautiful attachment be-
ween the two, and since her death |
the decline has set in which is the |
basis of his present illness.
More than twenty years ago." Mil
ler wrote In an article published some |
lime ago, Il sat down here on noun
ain side with mother and began to |
plant trees. Men and women came to |
work and to rest with US, men and |
women from colleges and universi- |
les No one was asked to come-no |
one was ever asked to go.
More than twenty years ago, while |
feeling my way along here and try
.ng to use what little common sense |
then had, / wrote a small book, The
Building of the City Beautiful
You want to see San Francisco? |
Well you must come to Oakland; and 1
10 you want to see Oakland and San
Francisco and the bay of all bays on
The globe, and the Golden Gate, at a
glance and all together? Then you
must go two miles to the northeast
and then half a mile perpendicular
IN short, you must come to The
to the camp where Fremont
tented half a century ago, and to the
spot from which he viewed and named
he now famous Golden Gate, long be-
lore gold was found"
The real name Of the poet is Gin
,innatus Heine Miller. The pseudonym
Joaquin" was derived from his de-
'ense Of the Mexican bandit, Joaquin
MUrietta, many years ago.
Miller was born In the Wabash dis
.rict of Indiana on November 10, 1s41.
md in 1854 was taken to Oregon by