Caryl Mary Leehmann Coppin was born to Walter and Edith Leemann in the family home in Lakeview, the oldest of three children.

She graduated from Lakeview High School in 1936 and went on to graduate from Oregon State University in 1940 from the school of Home Economics. In the 1970s Caryl continued her education with University of Oregon, Eastern Oregon, and Portland State to complete her studies for Library Science.

She worked from 1941 to 1947 for the Farm Security Administration War Foods Department as a home economist setting up nursery schools and food service for the migrants and farm workers in Oregon and Washington. This is where she met her husband, Cleve Coppin.

The couple married June 20, 1942 in Vancouver, Wash. They moved around with their work, living in Dayton, and Yakima and Walla Walla, Wash.

In 1948 the couple moved to Wallowa County and bought a farm on Upper Prairie Creek.

Caryl was an active rancher’s wife until September of 1966 when she went to work for the Enterprise School District as the high school librarian, where she worked for 10 years.

Caryl was active in many aspects of the community. She volunteered and served as a 4-H leader for over 15 years, and after her children were grown she served on the fair board for several years.

She was a member of the United Methodist Church, where she taught Sunday school for 15 years.

She volunteered with the Joseph City Library and Wallowa County Library and was instrumental in developing the Wallowa County Library. She was a member of the Eastern Star and served on the Board for Rainbow Girls. She also volunteered on the board for Community Connections. She was a member of the Retired Teachers organization.

Caryl was a member of Soroptimist and volunteered at the Thrift Shop for many years, and was an active PEO member until her death.

She was passionate about the development and operations of the Wallowa County Museum and contributed many hours to this organization. She was chairman of the museum board for many years, only recently retiring from the board at the age of 90.

She was preceded in death by her parents and her husband Cleve.

She is survived by her two brothers, Walter Leehmann and wife Jean and Mearle Leehmann all of Lakeview; her children, Don Coppin and wife Carolyn of Elgin; Mike Coppin and wife Karen of Joseph and daughter Susan Coppin of Joseph; five grandchildren, one step grandchild, three great-grandchildren and two step great-grandchildren.

Services were held at the Joseph Methodist Church, Feb. 20, 2010, with a private burial at Joseph Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Friends of the Wallowa County Museum, PO Box 430, Joseph, Oregon 97846.

It’s nearly March and the first buttercups speckle the canyon slopes. Like shiny gold buttons on tiny stems, they tremble in the stiff breeze, resolutely facing south as if determined to absorb every possible ray of sun.

I lean over in the saddle and marvel at how many cups of gold there are today, when just yesterday I counted only seven. We are riding after cattle and I’m glad. There are few jobs better than the ones that find us horseback in the canyon on the cusp of green-up, on a blue-sky day.

But a part of me wishes I were out in town, at the old stone church where I know people will be gathered. I could tell this story, of the buttercups, of alders trailing their ruddy catkins and wild geese returned to nest in the tall grass. I could tell about the fisherman I didn’t see, who swathed in waders lost his footing and stumbled like a drunk across the cobble, how he set my horse leaping sideways up the bank and me flopping in the saddle with half a brain saying–what the heck, while the other half reminded me to reach down and grab a rein.

And there was more. The gather and turn of the cattle with shouts of “come by” and “away to me”, the dogs circling and holding the herd. The splash across the river, our horses’ legs inside the ripple, the deeply colored stones awash below. The nod of horns and the climb of haunches trailing upslope to benches spread in winter bunchgrass, golden with a hint of green. The long trot toward home and afterward the oily glow of kerosene at the dinner table and the home-cooked meal, last year’s beef, some cellared spuds and squash.

Of all the people who would have told me to stay away, there’s only one I listened to today. I can hear her as plain as I can see her, the nod of silver hair as she waves her hand between us. Go on, I hear her saying. You’ve got work to do. And your husband, why I’m sure he’s waiting.

And it’s this love of living, in every chore and season, in labor and invention, in showing and learning how, in celebration and in passing, that keeps me here, among the cattle.

Yes, I could be in town. But here, she’s riding with me, perched behind the cantle with her slender arms around my waist, her story in my ear about how it used to be, and still is.

Submitted by

Sara Miller

Joseph