I was born on a cold Fall day of October 16, 1961 in Springfield, Lane Co. Oregon at the Willamette Mackenzie Hospital to George Robert Keller and Kathryn Karen Wessner. There is a story that goes along with my birth which is a result of two match making grandmothers. George and Kathryn had separated after the birth of their first child Robin Denise Keller. After a period of time both mothers (Harriet Faye Riggins and Vest Velma Wessner) talked this young couple into reconciling, but this only lasted a short time, but long enough for Kathy to conceive Todd. Well, for many years Todd became the favorite grandchild of these Grandmothers knowing they had a key role in his birth. The name I was given, Todd has a story with it too. For 4 generations of Kellers, the name of the first born son was either William or George (William Henry Keller, George Edward Keller, William Ivan Keller, George Robert Keller), until me. The reason I was named Todd was that my parents were separated and my mother named me what she wanted without any input from her husband who was away.I started my young life in the home of my grandparents Howard Clinton Wessner and Vesta Velma Humphreys. My mom lived with her parents to help her out while she looked for work. My grandfather, Howard, was the head millwright at the mill in Wesfir, Oregon. He lived across the street from the mill in mill owned housing. They said that grandfather could tell if anything was wrong with the mill just by the sounds that crept across the street to his house. My grandparent’s house resided next to the west fork of the Willamette River.
My grandfather was of Pennsylvania Dutch stock. He was born in Reading, Berks Co. PA in 1895 and moved to Oregon as a young man to start a new life. His early German ancestors came to Pennsylvania in the mid 1700’s. Grandpa could speak German, especially when he was upset. He had a gift of a green thumb. His garden was well known throughout the community. His grandchildren loved to sneak into grandpa’s garden and steal a ripe strawberry or other fresh vegetable. If grandfather caught you in his garden he would yell and take his folding wooden measuring tape out and swat you on your bottom so we were very careful about when we went into the garden to get a bite to eat. In my grandfathers later years he liked to watch the old black and white TV. One time while watching TV, I started to comb his hair. He quickly fell asleep and then I added a pair of scissors to my combing and cut his hair while he was a sleep. When he woke up, he had barely any hair left. I was about three years old when this event happened.
When I was about 3 or 4 we moved to Springfield, Lane Co. Oregon to what we affectionately called the “Green Apartments” We lived next to door to my aunt Louise and her family. We were poor, but had lots of love. My Aunt Louise’s son, Matthew James Rasmussen, and I grew up like brothers. We were 6 months apart, I being the oldest cousin. We would always say I was BIG 5 and he was little 5, or I was big 6 and he was little 6. They even said we shared the same crib while we all lived at my grandparent’s house.
We had many adventures together while growing up. One time we found a hornet’s nest in the ground. It was across the street from the Green Apartments. Matt and I came up with a plan to get these mean hornets out of the ground. We snuck over to where the nest was in the hole and we shoved a big stick into the hole. We then planned to hide behind the building which was next to the hole. Well as soon as we stuck the stick in the hole, the hornets raced out and started stinging us. Instead of running behind the building we ran across the street to our house screaming all the way. When we reached our home we were in sad shape. Our moms quickly covered us with a mixture of baking soda and some other home remedies that were applied to our stings. Matt and I laid in our beds miserable as could be.
When I was 5 we moved to Tacoma Washington and stayed for a short time with my Aunt Barbara and her family. She had two twin sons (Pat and Mike) that were a year older than me. We played together all the time with my sister Robin. We would play games like Red light Green light, Red Rover Red Rover, TV Tag, Wrestling, and any other games we could think of to play outside. We shortly moved a block down the road on Yakima Ave. We lived on 49th and Yakima and they lived at 5010 So. Yakima. Aunt Barbara’s and Aunt Nita’s families came up to Washington seeking jobs, which Uncle Johnny, Aunt Nita, Cousin Terry, Aunt Louise, and my Mother all worked at Boeing Airplane Company. We had many family get togethers at Point Defiance Park, especially for Fourth of July Picknics which we played all day and had lots of food to eat. That was always a tradition of the family is to have more food than anyone could ever eat.
About a year later or so Kathy met Gary Leroy DeLappe and they married. Gary was a four generation truck driver (his dad drove truck and his grandfathers drove horse and wagons). Gary was born in Seattle where the DeLappes were early pioneers and even have a “DeLappe “ Street named after them in Seattle.
It was difficult growing up with a step father. I was always my Mom’s little man and felt she was all mine. This was a really adjustment to have a Father in my life. We moved several times growing up between Washington and Oregon. We moved to Oregon and lived in Eugene Oregon on Taft St., I was in 2nd grade. During this time, my Mom gave birth to a son named Gary Leroy DeLappe Jr. He lived 3 months and died of crib death. My sister Robin found him in the crib in the morning and he had passed away during the night. This was very hard on our family. We had lived a couple of blocks from my Grandma Harriet and Aunt Joyce Pearce. The family quickly rallied behind our family to help us through this tragic event.
During the years we lived in Oregon, My Grandma Harriet Anderson (Riggins/Keller/Johnson) owned a ford station wagon. The cool thing about this station wagon was that it had a seat that faced backward in the back of the car. We all fought to see who could ride in the seat. Grandma would take us “up the river” this was the Mackenzie River to visit our Keller Cousins. These were my Uncle Dan Keller’s family. He had five children (Danny Bill, Susan, Glenna, Sandie, Dennis). We spent many weekends and summer days swimming at Blue River and Cougar Reservoirs. Swinging from ropes and dropping into the glacier cold water. The Keller family lived like hill people, they had animals running in and out of their house. I can remember them cutting chicken heads off and the chickens would run around the barn yard squirting blood. They had the most beautiful peacocks.
Grandma would also take us out to their float house. This was located on the Oregon Coast by Florence on a lake. Both her and my Uncle Jack and Joyce Pearce owned these float houses. We would ride in the boats and go fishing every day, would catch trout, blue gill, perch, and croppy. We had great times and many memories.
I grew up attending the RLDS church. I was baptized when I was 8 years old by Jim Freeman, My uncle Wayne Hammer was the pastor at the branch in North Bend, Oregon. He introduced the church to my grandma Wessner and her family of daughters. Which she had 5 (Aunt Nita, Aunt Barbara, Aunt Pat, My Mom, Aunt Louise).
We moved back to Tacoma Washington where another son was born to my mom, his name was Gregory Gary DeLappe.
We then moved back to Springfield, Oregon and lived on Centennial Street (two houses) and then moved to I Street. I was in 6th grade and went to Springfield Jr High my 7th and 8th grade years. In 7th grade I went out for Football and basketball. In 8th grade I played football, but switched to wrestling. My Aunt Louise’s family lived by us again and Matt and I had a chance to go to school together. We even wrestled on the same team. He wrestled at 115 and I wrestled 121 weight class. Matt and I used to have a ton of fun wrestling each other, I was always a little better than Matt and took advantage of him by torturing him in practice. An elbow in the back or an extra flip on the wrestling mat. At times we would turn out all the lights in our small wrestling room and grab the mats and play smash. Everyone would run into each other and knock each other down. Our coach was Mr. Varner.
The summer of my 6th grade year, I stayed with my Uncle Leroy and Aunt Louise’s family gold panning on Coyote creek and Wolf creek. We stayed in tents and ate scrambled egg sandwiches and chili. During this time Matt and I had some great experience. One day we decided we were going dam up the creek to build a swimming hole. As we started building our dam we grab a fresh water eel. This scared us to death, we ran quickly as we could out of the water. These eels had the most ferocious looking teeth. Another adventure is we found this old barn. In this old barn we found some old newspapers from the early 1920’s and other treasures. Also lurking in the barn was a large number of bats. Matt had a wrist rocket that we could shoot rocks at the bats that hung on the rafters of this old barn. We would shoot the bats and run, they would fly out of the barn. One day, we were walking down the creek where there were several people using dredging machines and other slew boxes to find gold, I spotted in this slew box a Big nugget of gold. There was no one around so I took it and we both ran all the way back to our camp. We showed this to my aunt and uncle who quickly took the gold and placed it in a secure location.
During my Junior high school years I attended the RLDS church camp during the summer in Remote, Oregon. This was a weeklong camp that we did crafts, campfires, testimony meetings, games, swimming in the river and creek, and other fun activities. I attended this camp with my cousins (Pat & Mike Collins, Sue Hammer, Matt Rasmussen) and sister Robin. Also at camp was our beloved Grandma Vesta Wessner, who was one of the camp cooks. We would sneak out at night to raid the camp kitchen and grandma would always have a few goodies waiting for us in the kitchen. On Friday night before we left camp we would all go to the top of the hill where there was a huge cross to have our testimony meeting. This was always a very spiritual event. We would lay on the grass and watch shooting stars and listen to the testimonies of the other campers. At campfire my sister robin would participate in many skits and songs throughout the week. Robin was always the out going cousin of all of our family.
After my 8th grade year we moved to Puyallup Washington on 9 St. N.W. Right next to our LDS Neighbors – Gene and Lynn Anderson. I attended Aylen Jr. High my 9th grade year. I had a paper route and mowed lawns. My Aunt Louse moved into with us for a short period of time. Again Matt and I were at it again, Matt would help me deliver my paper in the early mornings before school.
During the summer of my 8th grade year I met a long time friend, Steve Pierce. Steve was LDS and a friend of my neighbor Kent Anderson. One Saturday Steve came over to visit and show me his new shirt his sister bought him. We soon ended up in the garage and while we were there I wanted to show him my cousin’s (George Roberts) 22 gun he had left in the loft for storage. We had an old ladder that we used to access the loft. As I was carrying the gun down the ladder and slipped and the gun went off and shot Steve with 22 bird shot that covered his chest and arms. He was bleeding all over. The first thing out of this mouth was that his new shirt was ruined. We ran into my house and my mom called the ambulance and shortly afterwards the police came. I was scared to death. The police told me I had to ride with them to the police station. I made my Mom go with me in the police car. To this day, Steve goes deer hunting with me. Ok, he is not too smart. (lol)
I spent the summer of my 8th grade year working picking strawberries, well at least a short period of time. Steve Pierce, Kent Anderson, Pat & Mike Collins, my sister Robin and I picked, ate and threw strawberries. Our time was short as we threw more strawberries than we picked and was asked to leave.
The summer of my 9th grade year I spent with my Uncle Leroy and Aunt Louise at their house n Salem Oregon on Liberty Street. I worked for Uncle Leroy roofing cedar shake roofs. Matt was working at the bus barn for the school. I met Matthew’s friends Dan Reddick and Brad Baron. We spent the summer goofing off.
Also, this summer I attended a RLDS youth retreat at Samish Island (church property). There was a bunch of boys showing off to the girls. We started to slide down a slide standing up while it was raining. When my turn came up, I was up and surfing down the slide at full speed, when I hit the bottom, I flipped upside down and landed on my back on my arm which broke my arm. This was the first bone broken in my body.
My softmore year of high school, I started out at Puyallup High and then moved to Federal Way High School. I was not getting along with my step father and decided to move in with a family friend, Fred Williams who was the park ranger at Steel Lake park. I shared a room with his son Jeff. I wrestled for Federal Way High and made two key friends, Gary and Dave Winship. During this time I spent a lot of time over at the Winship home where I became very close to their family. I learned to play foosball and have my eyes evaluated by his dad who was an Irierogiest(?).
I worked the summer of my softmore year of high school for Kundson’s Bulb farm. I would spend long days behind a digger machine that would harvest Daffodil and Tulip bulbs out of the ground. I would walk behind the digger and pick up the bulbs on the ground that the digger missed. This was very dusty and dirty job and I would go home and take hour long showers to get all the dirt off of me.
I then moved down to Junction City Oregon to stay with my Father Georg Robert Keller and his wife Margret. They lived on River Road. I started my Junior year at Junction City High School. A cheer leader, Mary Auer, lived next door which I road to school in her VW bug. I played football and wrestling and lettered in both sports. I went to district in wrestling and we went to the state playoffs in Football. This was the best year ever I had at school. Very popular and had lots of friends. One of my early memories of Junction City High was walking down the hall and seeing a girl chewing tobacco. I knew I was no longer in the city, but the country. Future Farmer of America (FFA) was a major factor in this community. Junction City was a small agricultural town where they grew mint, hay, and other produce. They hold the Scandinavian Festival each August.
The summer of my Junior year I got a job at the Nottingham Inn Restaurant. I started out as a dishwasher and then quickly advanced to a prep-cook, to night cook.