New Memorial At Astoria Honors Those Lost At Sea

ASTORIA, Ore. - A grieving mother knows her missing son went down with his boat in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles away. But a new memorial along the Columbia River has given her a place to focus her grief.

On Nov. 22, 1991, the crabber Harvey G went down off the coast of Alaska. John Morgan and three others went down with it.

The body of the 28-year-old Morgan was never recovered from his Bering Sea grave, and his family has been denied the traditional signs of a death in the family.

They had no body to bury, no grave to mourn over, no spot where his name was carved in stone.

On Thursday, his mother, Kathy Morgan, of nearby Rose Valley met with other family members at the new Maritime Memorial beneath the Astoria-Megler Bridge, just off Bay Street in Astoria.

Mrs. Morgan's hand reached out and traced the words engraved on the memorial - John H. Morgan, 1963-1991.

"I know he's not here," she said, weeping. But she finally has someplace to go to seek solace and shed her tears, she said.

The first time she and her husband, John B. Morgan, visited the memorial, it helped them both face their son's death and put him to rest.

"It was just overwhelming to us," Morgan said. "You actually saw the name on something and you knew. It was putting the end on it in a way."

The monument culminates six years' work by Astoria-area residents to memorialize those lost at sea or who made their living in maritime occupations. It was paid for by a $30,000 Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development grant and matching local funding and private donations.

So far, the first of three sections of the monument is faced with granite, and about 60 names are carved into it. The entire memorial forms a half-circle facing the Columbia River.

Families and area officials will hold a public ceremony today to consecrate the memorial.

When work began this year, people from all over the country contacted Astoria's Community Development Department, wanting their loved ones' names included on the memorial.

And, said Rosemary Johnson, the office's spokeswoman, others are paying their $200 fee now to ensure their spot on the wall.

Along with deaths as recent at Morgan's, the wall commemorates people who died long ago but whose lives helped build Astoria and open the Columbia River.

Although their grief has long been put to rest, the family of Vern Bjornstrom finds the same peace at the wall that Kathy Morgan does.

Bjornstrom disappeared Jan. 3, 1958, just off the Long Beach Peninsula, when he fell overboard from the crabber Gloria S.

Until now, said his son, Richard Bjornstrom of Kelso, the family has paid tribute by tossing flowers into a river or the Pacific Ocean.

"He wanted to be buried at sea," Bjornstrom said of his father. "He got his wish, I guess. But now we have some place to go and remember him."