Mr. Newton Philo NewburyOct. 14, 1907 - 1997 Every family and every community has a history to tell. For many of the smaller communities the history is not written down in a textbook that we can study, it is in the memories of the community elders. My Grandpa (Newton Philo Newbury) was one of those elders in the small community of Humptulips, Washington. Even though he spent much of his life in other communities throughout Western and Eastern Washington many of this family stayed in the Humptulips area for the majority of their lives. After helping complete the Grand Coulee dam he returned to the Humptulips area where he lived until his death in 1997.
Grandpa was, by his definition, "a jack of all trades and a master of none". In my opinion, however, he was a master of one thing: Story telling. From as early as I can remember I can hear Grandpa telling us stories about people, family and places. As a young child I heard these stories many times, but the way he told them really interested me. It was not until I was in my teens and beyond that I really started to make the connection between the stories I had been told as a kid to the area and our family. When I began to make the connections between the stories and the places we had visited as kids I began to understand the treasure my Grandpa had been sharing with my brothers and I.
My Grandpa would be glad to know that this book is not just being stored safely in some bookcase, but that people are actually learning about their past by reading it. My hope is that this book will help someone somewhere put together another piece to their own past like it did for me.
