Arthur Langley is retiring as the Editor of the Heritage Newsletter and LGS wants to express its appreciation for all the outstanding contributions Art has made to the Society. Though Art is retiring from editing the newsletter, he plans on continuing his LGS membership and supporting LGS in a less active roll.

Besides his contributions to LGS, Art can be described as someone who contributed to his county, his community and his family. In the first part of the article find out about what an extraordinary person Art is. The second part is an interview with Art where members can learn about the significant role he has played in LGS affairs.

Part One: About Art

Art was born and raised in Toronto, Canada. In case you were wondering, Art is descended from the English Langley’s not the French Langley’s.  At the age of 16, Art immigrated with his family to Santa Monica/Culver City area of California and he graduated with the 1^st graduation class at Culver City High School in 1953. During high school Art was a member of Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) club and helped out in the student FBLA store. As a junior and senior in high school he participated in the 4-4 plan.  That is, his time was divided between work and school, 4 hours of school and 4 hours of work each school day.

In July 1953 Art enlisted in the United States Marine Corps and was with the 1^st Marine Air Wing. He served in Korea 1954-55 and mustered out as a Sargent in June 1956. He did his Rest and Relaxation (R&R) three times in Kyoto, Japan and once in Hong Kong. 1956 was an eventful year for Art as besides mustering out and coming home, he became a citizen of the United States.

While working at Eastman Central D Art met Carol and in 1960 they and have been together for the last 52 years! Art and Carol had two natural children and adopted their first two great-grandchildren in 2007. They have five living grandchildren and two who are at home with the Lord. In all Art and Carol have four great-grandchildren.

Art has had an interesting career working for Douglas Aircraft at the Santa Monica branch as a lathe operator in the Experimental Department, and at Eastman Central D as a Forman. Central D manufactured aluminum, copper rigid and corrugated gas line connectors. They also manufactured corrugated water connectors for the hot water heaters and an Air Gap for the discharge water from the Dish Washer.

Art with his family moved to Salem, Oregon in 1966. In Oregon he worked for Oregon State Penitentiary (OSP) from 1966 until his retirement as a Sargent in 1990. Having the aspiration to serve OSP the best he could, Art attended college to take courses pertaining to his work at OSP.  He was the Assistant Director for the Oregon Good Sam Club 1992-2000 for Linn and Benton Counties and was a member of the Willamette Sams Chapter here in Albany. Art joined the Linn Genealogical Society (LGS) in 1998. Since then he has made major contributions to the Society.

Travel is Art’s middle name! He and his family have done a considerable amount of traveling in a variety of different ways: by car, back packing, tenting, trailering, flying and cruising. In addition to Korea, Japan and Hong Kong, Art has been to all but one of the American states (Delaware), six Canadian Providences, the Yukon, Northwest Territories, five Europen countries, Mexico, Venezuela, and several Caribbean islands! Art and Carol especially like taking cruises with their children.

Part Two: An Interview with Art about his Contributions to LGS

 Please tell me Art how did you become the editor of the LGS newsletter?

Shortly after Carol and I joined LGS I started working with the newsletter. I initially volunteered to assist the Heritage Newsletter Editor Doris Bash as needed. When Doris retired from publishing the newsletter, LGS President Pam Knofler asked me to take over as editor/publisher. This seemed like a good fit for me because I was already assisting with the newsletter and was I was publishing THE TAILPIPE for the Willamette Sams, a Good Sam chapter here in Albany, so I had experience in organizing, editing, and publishing newsletters. Since then I have been publishing the Heritage Newsletter for 14 years.

Art can you please tell the members about the newsletter?

The newsletter is to inform the members of upcoming events and present articles of genealogical and historical interest. Linn Genealogical Society members send me articles and I also peruse articles of genealogical and historical content on and offline that I think the members would be interested in and what would benefit them as family historians.

What personal qualities do you need to be a successful newsletter editor as you have been?

You must enjoy writing and insuring that the members are kept up to date with the Society’s activities. You have to have the skills to identify both on and offline sources of information. You would need to understand current trends in the genealogy community so that the newsletter provides members with information they will find useful. You must enjoy frustration, or at least able to put up with it. You have to be willing to put in anywhere between to 8-10 hours of work to get each edition of the newsletter organized and published. The amount of time depends on if you have articles to put into the newsletter on hand or of you have to search and solicit for articles.

Art, you have created an impressive obituary collection, tell us about this special holding of the LGS library

My collection started 1998. I started it by cutting out the obituaries from the Albany Democrat Herald on a daily basis. I would use OCR software to convert newspaper obituaries into a word processing program, such as Microsoft Word and print them out into a book. Now I cut and paste from the Internet daily into Word then print it out in book form. The LGS prints the volumes out yearly. I have completed approximately 28 volumes of obituaries to date.

What motivated you to start this collection?

I was motivated because society members where randomly cutting obituaries out of the newspaper, gluing them to an 8-1/2 x 11 sheet of paper then copying and putting it in book form. I took it upon myself to do this electronically and this gave a finished product to the society. This format is a more efficient way to produce the volumes’ and better preserves the obituaries for the long term since there are both electronics copies stored on a CD disk as well as the printed volumes.

I know the members would like to know your role on the LSG Board of Directors, can you tell us about your activities on the Board.

I became a member of the Board when Byron Bray was elected President of LGS. In this role I have helped to shape the Society’s policies and Seminars.

What other activities have you been involved in with LGS?

I have been involved in numerous activities with LGS. A few highlights are that I indexed LGS publications, such as the Linn Co. Land Claim publication by LGS Member Richard Milligan. I assisted President Byron Bray with his LBCC computer Genealogy classes. I have helped to organize the Society’s Seminars and I taught a class at a LGS Seminar. I Have volunteered at the LGS Library and I helped out at some of the societies garage sales.

Thank you Art!

On behalf of the President, the Board of Directors, and all member of LGS we would like to express our deep appreciation and warmest thanks to Art for all of his outstanding contributions to the Linn Genealogical Society.