A no-longer- mystery photo from Willamette Heritage Center’s collections. (WHC X2021.006.0001)
On Friday, Salem Reporter ran a column asking for reader help identifying the people in the above photo from Willamette Heritage Center’s collections.
Readers were quick to respond, and Kylie Pine, WHC curator, has an update:
The Willamette Heritage Center and Salem Reporter received an overwhelming number of messages from readers for help in identifying this image. Thanks to the collective community memory, we’ve been able to identify everybody in the photograph.
To the far right is Frances “Frankie” Bell, and to the far left is Marian Milligan. The Elsinore’s current development director Sally Litchfield Puhek described Milligan as part of the original “Mothers of the Elsinore” group of women who helped save and restore the theater to its present glory.
The couple in the center have been identified as Janet and Gordon McGilchrist, both longtime Salem residents.
Janet, née Bower, (1921-2012) was born in Portland, but moved to Salem where she attended Salem High School and worked for a time for the Oregon Statesman newspaper. She married Gordon Henry McGilchrist, Jr. (1918-1993) in 1957. He operated McGilchrist and Son Paint store in Salem, started by his similarly named father, until his retirement in 1977.
Comparison to another published photograph in a newsletter of a local historical society shows the McGilchrists and Frankie Bell posing outside the Oregon State Capitol in the same clothing, suggests this photo under the Elsinore marquee may have been taken the same day in 1992.
The connection between the McGilchrists and the Elisnore is a little murkier. The published photograph accompanies a story about a donation the McGilchrists made to the State of a memento of the Old Capitol Building they had received from Gordon’s uncle “Jimmy” (probably James McGilchrist (1887-1962)), who according to the caption used to give tours of the Capitol.
Scottish-born James’ obituary titled “Death takes Capitol’s First Guide” helps confirm that, but doesn’t give any clues towards an Elsinore connection. The newsletter caption also mentions the McGilchrists were being interviewed about their history in Salem. We haven’t been able to find that interview in the museum’s collections, but it is possible, like many folks who grew up in Salem, that the Elsinore played a special part in the McGilchrists’ lives and may have just been a nice backdrop for the photo.
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