Profile: Warren Daugherty (Legacy Series)

Legacy Lions: Remembered by Family

Perhaps an undervalued legacy in this era is having family tell your story over 100 years later—with great affection, powered by technology and the reach of the internet.

Warren Daugherty. My great-grandfather left behind a memoir he typed himself. It begins in 1913 as he’s building the first iteration of his Oregon lumber company—in the time of wagons and telegrams. He handles every piece of wood and knows every detail of his business, eventually using this as an advantage to profitably re-plane wood scraps that other yards are discarding. He works the docks until his fingers are bloody. His business partner gets the mumps.

Of 1917, my great-grandfather writes: "It meant keeping long hours but we soon built up a county-wide trade that was returning a profit of over $1000 per month in the winter." Then he's drafted into the First World War. His parents handle the lumber yard while, but the dock is demolished in a big storm. Following his discharge from the military, the story picks up again in May 1920 when he purchases another sawmill, but the yard burns in June 1922 and he has very little insurance. While trying to sell the lumber he salvaged from the fire, he takes orders for larger amounts and buys the balance from other mills—it was the origin of starting his wholesale lumber office that thrived between 1923-1929.

Laid up in the hospital with a broken arm in January 1930, my great-grandfather notes: "Had time to think and realized that we were skating on thin ice. We were loaning money to the mills, and if the hard times that started in the East in October 1928 should spread, we might not have enough lumber business to keep the mills going." With tremendous foresight, he stops making new loans and starts collecting everything outstanding. He kept his doors open during The Great Depression because he had very little overhead expense. Notably, he was in a good position when business finally began to improve—and 80 per cent of the other wholesalers had closed their doors.

The Legacy, Remembered. My great-grandfather made my great-grandmother an equal partner in his business. They gave charitably—often anonymously—in their community. Landmarks were posthumously named in their honour. I have pictures of him holding me as a baby, and he died just months later.

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