[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 1 (Tuesday, January 6, 2009)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E23]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      TRIBUTE TO TERRY TOEDTEMEIER

                                 ______
                                 

                             HON. DAVID WU

                               of oregon

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, January 6, 2009

  Mr. WU. Madam Speaker, I rise today to remember a man who dedicated 
his life to the art of photography and the history of Oregon, Terry 
Toedtemeier. We sadly lost Terry on December 10, 2008. Terry served as 
the curator of the Portland Art Museum's photography collection and was 
widely known as one of the Pacific Northwest's finest landscape 
photographers. Terry and a colleague had recently published a book, 
Wild Beauty: Photographs of the Columbia River Gorge, 1867-1957, and 
Terry had finished curating a show of the same name at the Portland Art 
Museum.
  Terry Toedtemeier was a passionate explorer of the Gorge and one of 
its greatest interpreters. He was a trained geologist, photographer, 
photo historian, curator, and educator, who realized this stretch of 
the Columbia River is one of the natural wonders of America. Terry 
studied geology at Oregon State University. He had a strong desire to 
understand the forces of the earth that created the world around us, 
and it was being outdoors and experiencing Oregon's geological features 
that inspired him. As a student, one day Terry spied through fog-
obscured sunlight a freshly plowed field and in the middle, growing 
serenely, a tree that he could only describe later as ``scrubby'' and 
``a wreck.'' Terry took a photo and when he printed the image he said 
that he understood ``this creative possibility with the camera.''
  A colleague of his noted that Terry had immersed himself in the 
photographic history of the Northwest over the course of his career. 
Terry's curated show at the Portland Art Museum, Wild Beauty, revealed 
his technical expertise in describing geologic and geographic changes, 
as well as a photographic history of the Gorge over 90 years, ending in 
1957 when the construction of The Dalles Dam submerged one of the last 
great Native American fishing grounds at Celilo Falls.
  From the images taken by Carleton Watkins in 1867 when Americans were 
first establishing industry in the West, to those by Al Monner as the 
federal government was constructing hydroelectric dams throughout the 
area, the Columbia River Gorge has served as a place of meditation, 
wonder, and discovery for artists. It has been Terry's astute effort 
that has brought these artists' visions together to teach us about the 
vastness, power, and beauty of the Columbia River Gorge.
  Madam Speaker, I commemorate the life of Terry Toedtemeier and share 
with you his commitment to the preservation of our knowledge and 
history in the Pacific Northwest and the Columbia River Gorge. I 
believe in his work reflects why we must act to protect and preserve 
the crown jewel of Oregon's natural heritage.