In Yamhill County, many citizens know Herbert Hoover as the U.S. president who lived in Newberg during his coming-of-age years. That home he lived in — now a museum — stands as a testament to that chapter of Hoover’s life.
Outside of our county, Hoover is mostly known to Americans for his four-year term as president during the Great Depression. But in Europe, he is most remembered for something else.
Several streets, plazas and public squares in those countries bear the name of the American who saved the lives of millions of people during and after World War I.
When the Great War began in 1914, Hoover was a successful international mining engineer, consultant and businessman who happened to be living in London at the time. He was a 39-year-old millionaire with offices all over the world.
Knowing of Hoover’s strong organizational skills, the American Consul in London asked for his help in getting panicked Americans back to their homeland. Hoover and his wife, Lou, did help.
In fact, they were so successful that Hoover was asked by Europeans to assist with a much larger task: coordinating food relief for the country of Belgium who had just been invaded by Germany and had their food supply cut off due to a blockade.
By this time, Hoover was also being considered as a candidate for president of Stanford University. As an alumnus, this would provide him an opportunity to retire from his first career to sunny California with his wife and two sons and live a peaceful life among family and friends.
Hoover left that opportunity behind when he decided he needed to help and started the largest private food relief operation in history up to that point, called the Commission for Relief in Belgium.
He and his commission fed 9 million Belgian people for the duration of the war. For years after, the Belgians sent their flour sacks back to the U.S. with embroidered messages of gratitude to Hoover for feeding their families.
In 1918, President Wilson created the American Relief Administration, which would bring aid to post-war Europe and he put Hoover in charge. In 1919, Hoover went on a special trip to Poland after having sent aid for the children of that nation.
When he arrived, he was greeted by a parade of over 25,000 children who had walked to Warsaw — most of them barefoot — to thank their hero for his humanitarian aid.
Hoover was a life-long advocate for children. To understand why, one must learn about his own childhood. Both of his Quaker parents died by the time he was nine, leaving him and his two siblings as orphans.
And this is where our own Newberg makes an entrance into his life story. Hoover’s Quaker uncle and aunt offered to take the Iowa-born orphan into their Oregon home.
Uncle Minthorn was the first superintendent of Friends Pacific Academy, where Hoover could get a quality education which was a prized virtue in Quaker culture. That school was the predecessor to George Fox University.
His relief work didn’t end after WWI. In the 1920s, the “Master of Emergencies” led another campaign under the umbrella of the American Relief Administration, this time in Eastern Europe during a Russian famine, one of the worst in world history.
Hoover and his army of workers fed 10 million people there. Sept. 1 marks the start of Hunger Action Month. As you can see, it’s the perfect time to honor and remember this often-forgotten part of Hoover’s life. The orphan boy from Newberg became not only America’s president but also Europe’s “Great Humanitarian”.
Sheri King is a volunteer at the Yamhill Valley Heritage Center.
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