At home with Tom Wooldridge

LA CENTER – La Center historian Tom Wooldridge’s home, which sits high above the La Center Bottoms Wildlife Refuge, is pretty much exactly what you’d expect from the board president of a local historical museum.

On the walls, photos of Wooldridge’s ancestors mingle with antique telephones, Amish-made pitchforks and dozens of wood carvings Wooldridge has been collecting for the past few years. In the living room, Wooldridge’s dog, Molly, camps out on a yellow velvet couch.

“Do you know what that is?” Wooldridge, 72, president of the La Center Historical Museum’s board of directors, asks his visitor, pointing to the couch. “That’s an old clawfoot bathtub!”

Surprises like this are sprinkled throughout the 1979 home where Wooldridge lives. In the living room and dining rooms, huge wagon-wheel lamps – built by Wooldridge – illuminate memorabilia like the old barbershop chair Wooldridge scored at an auction nearly 30 years ago and the antique photos of early Clark County pioneers John and Eliza Pollock.

Wooldridge has learned all about the Pollock’s history. Not surprising, considering that John Pollock lived, died and is still buried on the property where Wooldridge lives.

“I’ve always been a history buff,” Wooldridge says, nodding to the many photos of his ancestors’ homesteads he’s collected through the years. “I got it from my grandmother, Clara Wooldridge O’Keefe. I always loved hearing her stories.”

When Wooldridge moved to the acreage above the East Fork of the Lewis River in 1978, he knew the property had once belonged to John Pollock. He also knew that Pollock, who had been assigned by his cousin, President James Polk, in 1848, to be an Indian Agent in the Oregon Territory, was buried on the property.

“They didn’t have graveyards back then, so they buried people on their property,” Wooldridge explains. “Most of the graves have been lost, so we were lucky that this one was still here.”

Throughout the years, Wooldridge has helped restore Pollock’s gravesite, which sits in his front yard, near the property’s access road, aptly named Northwest Pollock Road. About five years ago, Wooldridge and Pollock’s great-granddaughter, Roberta Emerick, purchased and installed a tombstone for the La Center historical figure. Wooldridge placed a sign near his property and stuffed an information box with a short story of John Pollock’s life. Included in the history is the fact that Pollock, a member of the 14th Session Washington Territorial Legislature wrote the first school laws of the territory and died from pneumonia at the age of 44 inside his La Center home.

Visitors often drive up to the property to view Pollock’s gravesite, take an informational flier and gaze at the windmills and antique equipment that decorate the outside of Wooldridge’s home. On a lucky day, visitors might even get a glimpse of the property’s guard llama, named Barack O’llama, that protects Wooldridge’s herd of alpacas. Wooldridge says he donates the alpaca wool to local spinners and crafters. He also collects vases at various thrift shops, fills them with lovely dahlias – grown on the La Center property – and then gives the vases and flowers to friends, to help brighten their day.

The historian’s generous spirit even extends to people he’s never even met. Wooldridge has donated many of his antique finds and family heirlooms to the La Center Historical Museum, and took it upon himself to protect the gravesite of John Pollock, a man who died 75 years before Wooldridge was even born.

“I just felt like he deserved something more,” Wooldridge says of Pollock.

Today, the Pollock gravesite is on both the Clark County and Washington State registries of historic places and draws history buffs from far and wide.

“I love it when people drive up and take a look,” Wooldridge says. 

The La Center Historical Museum also has a dedicated John Pollock exhibit. The museum, 410 W. 5th St., La Center, is open from noon to 4 p.m. on the first and third Saturdays of the month.