Archives West Finding Aid

The Lewis & Rachel Thayer Collection documents two generations of the Rowe/Crabb/Thayer family. The first part of the collection documents Minnie Rowe. Minnie was born in England in 1870 to Mary and Joseph Rowe, who moved to Nebraska in 1872 with Joseph’s two brothers and their families. She graduated from high school in 1886 and taught grade school, eventually becoming the assistant principal of a high school. In 1901 she married Charles Ellsworth Crabb. They lived in Missouri for two years, where they had two children, Rachel and Paul, the former who grew up to marry Lewis Thayer in 1928. Around 1905 moved to New Mexico, where their youngest daughter, Frances, was born. They lived in New Mexico for two or three years, and in Tuttle, Oklahoma for ten years, and in 1918 moved to Deer Lodge, Montana to live on the Willard-Crabb Farms, Co. ranch. In 1925, Charles and Minnie left Montana and moved to Los Gatos, California, where Minnie died in a car accident in 1940. Throughout her life, Minnie was an avid supporter of temperance, and an active member of the Women Christian’s Temperance Union. She wrote a series of children’s books, the Mrs. Gray Bunny books, which taught young children about the importance of good health and the dangers of alcohol. She also wrote a number of short stories, including a semiautobiographical series about Little Nebraska Annie, a girl living in Nebraska in the late 1800s, many poems, and a play. She kept a journal sporadically from the 1890s until 1918, and continued to write fiction and autobiographical stories until her death. In 1940, she was killed by a drunk driver. Her husband, Charles Crabb, continued to live in Los Gatos until he moved in with Frances in 1960, and died in 1965.

The second generation documented in the collection is Minnie's daughter Rachel and her husband Lewis A. Thayer. Rachel was born in Joplin, Missouri on August 15, 1902. She earned a BA at University of Montana and an MA from Stanford University. In 1929 she met and married Lewis A. Thayer at Stanford. Lewis was born on December 25, 1903 in Mercur, Utah. Lewis earned BA and MA degrees in science at Washington State University before enrolling at Stanford to study for a Ph.D. After their marriage, the Thayers lived in Monterey, California, Sacramento, California, and Shreveport, Louisiana, where Lewis worked at the Hopkins Marine Station, Sacramento State University, and Centenary College. In 1946, Lewis accepted a position teaching science at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. Rachel also found employment at Lewis & Clark as a librarian. Both worked at Lewis & Clark for over thirty years. The Thayers had for sons: David, Philip, Doug, and Steve. Lewis died in 1993, and Rachel died in 2000.