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By KIRBY NEUMANN-REA
News editor
Among Terry Toedtemeier’s last words were, “This is the best
reception I’ve ever had.”
Toedtemeier, photographer, curator and Gorge aficionado, died Dec.
11 of an apparent heart attack in the lobby of the
Columbia
Center
for the Arts in
Hood
River.
He was 63.
Toedtemeier and co-author John Laursen had just spoken to a
standing-room-only crowd of 175 people about their 2008 book,
“Wild Beauty: Photographs of the Columbia River Gorge 1867-1957.”
Moments after the talk, Toedtemeier sat down in the lobby and
collapsed.
Hood
River
paramedics who happened to be blocks away, en route from a drill,
were on the scene within one minute, and doctors and others in the
audience helped in the resuscitation efforts, but Toedtemeier died
almost immediately, according to Joanie Thomson, executive
director of the arts center.
Toedtemeier, who had missed other recent book signings due to
illness, had insisted on making the
Hood
River
event, according to Thomson, who was present.
“He told us, ‘This is who I wrote the book for,’” she said.
He was rewarded with a warm reception, with plenty of questions
and comments from a highly appreciative audience, and one of the
largest groups to gather at the center, Thomson said.
Jack Mills, center patron and 20-year friend of Toedtemeier, was
also present. They served together on Gorge Trust, which strives
to assist organizations within urban growth boundaries.
“He was in every way interested in the Gorge,” Mills said.
“This is a loss. He was always ready to offer his expertise and
anything he could do to help,” Mills said.
Thomson said Toedtemeier was both a photography teacher and
practitioner, and was always willing to share what he knew to
advance others in photography and historical preservation.
Wild Beauty, the first volume in the Northwest Photography Series,
is published by the Northwest Photography Archive in collaboration
with Oregon State University Press.
Toedtemeier is a native Portlander who traces his ancestry back to
the pioneer migration along the
Oregon Trail
in the 1850s. In 1975 he was a co-founder of
Portland’s
Blue Sky photography gallery; a decade later he became the first
curator of photography at the
Portland
Art Museum.
Toedtemeier has assembled a collection of more than 5,000 works
for the museum and mounted a wide variety of exhibitions.
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