California Department of Parks and Recreation release: 

California State Parks, in cooperation with CAL FIRE, are planning to begin a series of prescribed burns in Prairie Creek and Humboldt Redwoods State Parks starting as early as mid-September and possibly through November. Smoke and flames may be visible from the Newton B. Drury Parkway in Prairie Creek State Park and Mattole Road at Humboldt Redwoods State Park.

Forest management and prescribed burns are designed to reduce the encroachment of conifer trees and shrubs into prairies, as well as reduce fuel loads in the forests to lessen the likelihood of catastrophic wildfire. These proactive measures not only protect park infrastructure but also significantly reduce the chance of a catastrophic wildfire, potentially saving hundreds of thousands of dollars while ensuring a safer environment for both the park and neighboring communities.

For thousands of years prior to European settlement and colonization, local Native American tribes regularly used fire to manage the various landscapes of our parks, shaping the ecosystems we see today. These traditional practices continue to play a vital role in sustaining the natural systems and biodiversity of the area. Returning fire helps to maintain these natural systems that can be threatened by a lack of fire and continue an ongoing resource management program designed to maintain prairie grasslands, enhance forage for wildlife, control exotic plant species, and maintain our old-growth forests for generations to come.

Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:

Jean Etherton | HCSO

The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office needs the public’s help to locate missing person Jean Marie Etherton, age 63, of Eureka.

Etherton was reported missing by her family on Sunday, Sept. 8 at about 7 a.m. Etherton was believed to have walked away from her residence, located in the 6000 block of Walnut Dr., Cutten, in the early morning hours of Sept. 8. Etherton’s family advised law enforcement that she may have been having a mental health crisis, and they suspect that the wooded area near their home may likely be her location. Her family also reported that Etherton had walked away from her home one other time last week and was located in the McKay Tract. Etherton was last seen wearing leopard print leggings, pastel pink and purple slippers, and possibly a pastel tie-dyed hoodie.

We are asking our community to please be on the lookout for Etherton in the Cutten and Elk River areas as well as the McKay Tract Community Forest. We are also urging the public to please refrain from the wooded area north of Ridgewood Dr. and south of Lundbar Hills due to the ongoing Search and Rescue (SAR) K-9s tracking in that area.
The Sheriff’s Office is actively coordinating the SAR operation.

Sheriff’s deputies are searching the trails on ATV, on foot and utilizing thermal drones. Deputies are also searching the public roadways. The Sheriff’s Office has called in the use of the U.S. Coast Guard to search from the air. HCSO has also called in the California Rescue Dog Association (CARDA) volunteers; the Humboldt County Sheriff SAR volunteers are also assisting with the coordinated search.

Anyone with information for the Sheriff’s Office regarding Jean Etherton’s possible whereabouts should call the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office at (707) 445-7251.

Cal Poly Humboldt release: 

Nearly 100 years after the Humboldt County logging community of Falk became a ghost town, the National Park Service announced its addition to the National Register of Historic Places this year.

The designation is thanks to decades of excavation and research from faculty, staff, and students at Cal Poly Humboldt’s Cultural Resources Facility (CRF) and Anthropology department, and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

The 19th-century town, now an archaeological district, is in the Headwaters Forest Reserve.

Above: Falk in its heyday | Photos: BLM; Below: Falk location in the Headwaters Forest Reserve.

The recognition officially acknowledges the town’s local, state, and national significance, and is part of a nationwide effort to identify and protect America’s historic and archeological resources, according to the National Parks Service, which oversees the register.

It joins nearly 60 other sites in the county—including Hotel Arcata, Fernbridge, and parts of old town Eureka—on the register.

Like many communities along the North Coast, the town started as a lumber camp. In 1884, entrepreneur Noah Falk established the company town by building a mill and an entire community to support it, according to the Humboldt County Visitors Bureau. With a population of 400, Falk had its own post office, cookhouse, school, general store, dance hall, and a railroad. Called the Bucksport and Elk River Railroad, it connected Falk to the town of Bucksport, now the site of the Bayshore Mall. The mill shut its doors and the once thriving community was abandoned as a result of the Great Depression. Much of the town’s structures were later demolished.

As the forest reclaims the town, only the ruins of Falk remain. Interpretive signs mark some of its remnants on the Elk River Trail. One restored building, a locomotive barn, stands as the BLM’s education center.

The former town is now an archaeological district that has offered opportunities to learn about extractive industries and the history of life on the North Coast.

Between the late 1990s and 2012, Cal Poly Humboldt faculty and student interns and volunteers with the CRF conducted research at the site, according to Mark Castro (‘10, Anthropology), Cal Poly Humboldt Anthropology instructor and co-director of the CRF.

The facility specializes in historic preservation, and offers services such as: archaeological surveying, GIS, remote sensing, site mapping, excavations, construction monitoring, historical research, heritage interpretation, and ethnographic consulting, according to the CRF.
As an undergrad, Castro participated in the excavation of the town’s engine house and a bachelor’s cabin, and conducted research on the pianos found in Falk.

Undergraduates earned much needed archaeology practical skills by participating in excavations; working with different agencies including the BLM; taking museum-quality photos; developing site sketches, aerial maps and timelines; and collecting, identifying and cataloging artifacts. The process has yielded hundreds of historic artifacts, now used for learning purposes.

For example, students learn how to date sites throughout Falk with artifacts like round or square nails and glass bottles found during excavations, Castro explains. By examining the items, they learned about residents’ lifestyles—what they ate, what medicines were available to them, and more.

Other items found on site include medicine bottles, kitchenware, logging tools and equipment, and instruments.

While there are not currently any active projects at Falk, the BLM artifacts continue to provide valuable learning opportunities for Cal Poly Humboldt students.

In addition to hands-on experience, the research was also integral to the establishment of the site as a historic place. The recognition, says Castro, helps preserve and protect Falk for current and future generations.

“We can bring the story of Falk together,” Castro says.

PREVIOUSLY:

• (VIDEO) HUMBOLDT OUTDOORS: A Look at the Historic Ghost Town of Falk

On a morning just days before the New Year, Kiran Thakkar received a worrying phone call. A friend had found anti-India graffiti overnight on the Newark Hindu temple he co-founded. Someone sprayed phrases disparaging India’s prime minister and hailing a secessionist movement for the country’s Sikh minority.

Support rushed in from Indian American community leaders and politicians. But Thakkar and the rest of the quaint suburban temple’s board had little disagreement about how to move forward. They didn’t want to make a fuss. They painted over the vandalism within the day.

“We didn’t want to politicize,” said Thakkar, who’s called the Bay Area home for more than a decade. “So we were clear from day one that, yes, it was a hate crime or fringe incident, and let’s just move on from there.”

The Newark Shri Swaminarayan Temple was one of three California Hindu houses of worship desecrated in 2023, when a record eight anti-Hindu hate crimes were reported in California, according to data released by the Department of Justice in June.

Kiran Thakkar, a volunteer at SMVS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir Hindu Temple, at the Newark temple on July 31, 2024. Photo by Florence Middleton, CalMatters

Separately, California is collecting more anecdotal reports of hate incidents through a new civil rights hotline that’s intended to connect people with resources that could help them. A disproportionate number of incidents involving Hindus were reported in its first year, according to state data.

But Hindus aren’t the only ones in California’s Indian community who are seeing a rise in hate crimes and bias against them. Sikhs, members of the ethno religious minority whose separatist slogans appeared on the Newark temple, reported six hate crimes against them — the highest number since the state justice department began displaying that data in 2014.

Many Sikhs are on edge because of several recent high-profile attacks across the nation. The slaying of Canadian Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in June 2023, a subsequent foiled plot in New York, and an August shooting outside Sacramento have revived fears among Sikh activists that they’re being targeted by India for their advocacy in North America.

The potential for escalation has left Thakkar, a key figure in the local Hindu community who moved from India to the Bay Area in 2012, feeling a responsibility to avoid stoking tensions. While there were a few devotees who expressed fear after the attack, by and large, he said, his temple members were ready to move on.

“I have not personally experienced anything,” he says when asked if he’s ever faced discrimination in California.

Other Hindus are not willing to forget the temple vandalism. Instead, they’ve petitioned the Legislature to recognize that Hindu Californians are the subject of “pro-Khalistan extremism.” That’s a reference to the name of an independent state that some Sikhs want to carve out of India.

They also opposed two bills in the California Legislature over the past year that they believed would have discriminated against them. One would have explicitly prohibited caste discrimination in California, and the other would have named India as a sponsor of international political repression. Neither proposal became law.

First: A crowd celebrates after SB 403 passes at the Assembly Judiciary Hearing at the state Capitol in Sacramento on July 5, 2023. Last: Proponents and opponents of SB 403 battle for a spot to get their voices heard outside the state Capitol in Sacramento before the Assembly Judiciary Hearing on July 5, 2023. Photos by Semantha Norris, CalMatters

“Nearly all documented anti-Hindu hate in California comes from pro-Khalistan activists who employ violence and harassment to advocate for an independent theocracy in India,” wrote the Hindu American Foundation in a letter opposing the political repression bill, citing the temple vandalizations as an example of such harassment.

National and local groups for Sikhs supported both measures and have roundly disputed that characterization of the modern separatist movement. They had hoped the Legislature would stand with them, given Sikhs’ over-a-century long presence in California, and some felt the hand of India’s government in the opposition.

“They’re using these broad terms, like Hindu Americans, to justify killing a bill against transnational repression,” said Karam Singh, advocacy director for the California Sikh Youth Alliance, which supported both bills. “I think most Americans of all stripes would be clearly in favor of having protections for Californians to not be intimidated, harassed and targeted by a foreign government.”

Is anti-Hindu animus on the rise in California?

California is especially equipped to track incidents of hate and bias because of the hotline that Gov. Gavin Newsom launched in 2023. The so-called “CA vs. Hate” hotline reported receiving over 2,000 calls in its first year, according to a May 2024 report from the California Department of Civil Rights.

During that period, hotline researchers said they documented 24 acts of verified anti-Hindu bias, around 23% of all acts of religious hate that investigators verified. Nearly 37% were anti-Jewish and 15% were anti-Muslim. No anti-Sikh figures were listed.

The numbers jolted California Hindus across the political spectrum. Extremist and hate-motivated acts are not new for Sikh and Muslim Americans, who have endured decades of hate crimes in the United States since 9/11. There have been isolated cases, but Hindu Americans have largely not been disproportionate targets of such crimes.

Pushpita Prasad, a spokeswoman for the Coalition of Hindus of North America, is no fan of the state’s civil rights department. The department holds anti-hate partnerships with major Sikh, Jewish and Muslim organizations, but no Hindu groups. Her organization opposed last year’s caste bill.

But she called the hotline data “one more validation” of the “experience of Hinduphobia.” Her group encouraged Hindus to use the hotline during debates over the caste discrimination bill, she said. They also told people to use it after temple vandalizations in Newark and Hayward.

“Anti-India issues are constantly conflated with Hinduism,” she told CalMatters. More non-Hindus are becoming aware of caste and Indian politics, and “there’s a double standard in play that we all subscribe to, and some of us push back but most of us don’t.”

Learn more about legislators mentioned in this story.

Analysts with the state offered few details on the anti-Hindu incidents. They are not necessarily criminal acts; some of the incidents could allege workplace discrimination or other kids of bias.

“I’m not sure there is too much more I can add on the specific questions regarding anti-Hindu acts,” Arvind Krishnamurthy, a postdoctoral scholar at UC Berkeley, wrote in an email. “Any data on reports to CA vs Hate should not be used to make generalizations about the extent of any particular kind of hate across California.”

Five Indian American lawmakers, meanwhile, have cautiously attempted to address the fears of both communities. None are Sikh.

In March, they requested a briefing from the federal justice department concerning attacks on Hindu temples and anti-Hindu hate. They also in December called federal prosecutors’ allegations of the foiled plot against a Sikh activist in New York “deeply concerning” and welcomed an India-led investigation into the matter.

That was slammed as “insufficient to ensure accountability” by a major Sikh civil rights group, which wants an independent review.

“There needs to be other actors,” said Sangay Mishra, an associate professor of political science at Drew University who studies South Asian Americans. “Not necessarily government agencies, but other kinds of nonprofit or civil rights groups who are willing to invest in this and make sense of what’s happening so that it doesn’t become such a deeply partisan, polarizing issue.”

A spokesperson for Rep. Ro Khanna, who signed onto both letters and represents Newark in Congress, declined an interview request and did not respond to written questions. He condemned the vandalism at the time on social media.

Anti-Hindu incidents are ‘taken very seriously,’ authorities say

Thakkar said elected officials did everything right at the Newark temple. He never had to call a hotline from the state to get help from the local community.

The State Department’s Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs and three California state lawmakers denounced the incident. Local authorities said they moved swiftly to provide the house of worship with the resources necessary.

“The temple vandalisms were taken very seriously,” wrote Newark Police Capt. Jolice Macias, in a statement. A similar vandalism took place at a Hindu temple in Hayward a few weeks later, and investigators combed through security footage from nearby businesses for leads. Officials from the FBI and Department of Justice were in attendance. “Every possible investigative lead was followed up on.”

First: A Ring camera outside one of the SMVS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir Hindu Temple doors in Newark on July, 31, 2024. After a vandalism incident in 2023, the temple community installed additional cameras around the property. Last: Inside the SMVS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir Hindu Temple in Newark on July 31, 2024. Photos by Florence Middleton, CalMatters

One of the bills that some Hindu groups opposed would have given law enforcement agencies more training on how to combat and respond to incidents of foreign governments harassing American citizens, a trend that is known as transnational repression. Some Hindu leaders opposed it because it listed India alongside Russia, Iran and China as states of particular concern for law enforcement. It died in the Senate Appropriations Committee in August amid the opposition and a price tag of over $600,000.

In opposition letters to Assembly Bill 3027, the transnational repression bill, the Hindu American Foundation and Coalition of Hindus of North America argued that the legislation would usurp federal law and give police officers further leeway to ignore acts of violence from the separatist movement.

The bill’s author, Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains, a Democrat from Bakersfield, is the Legislature’s only Sikh. She has said that California is a safe haven for immigrants that should take more steps to make good on that promise. She has also reported threats and intimidation at her office, similar to Sen. Aisha Wahab, the Democrat from Hayward who sponsored the caste discrimination bill last year.

Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains, a Delano Democrat, on the Assembly Floor during session at the state Capitol in Sacramento on July 13, 2023. Photo by Rahul Lal for CalMatters

But it hasn’t always been clear from where the threats and violence are coming. In fact, the graffiti on the Newark temple misspelled the name of an infamous Sikh leader from India.

One Sikh media group suggested in October that a man who stormed a Fremont gurdwara and tore down a poster devoted to Nijjar was an “Indian nationalist extremist” and Hindu. In fact, his family told the house of worship he was experiencing mental health issues. And in June, federal authorities charged a Hindu man from Dallas for sending threats to a Sikh nonprofit group about separatist activism while often using anti-Muslim language.

“The citizens themselves are in some sense all victims of this phenomenon, whether Sikh, Muslim or Hindu or any other religious tradition,” said Nirvikar Singh, co-author of “The Other One Percent: Indians in America,” and a professor of economics at UC Santa Cruz. “Democracy allows us to work through differences in nonviolent and equalizing ways, but we’re seeing a lot of disruption.”

Tensions in politics or online, though, are far less palpable on the ground in California. The Bay Area defacings did not spark direct or immediate protest. Rallies led by Sikh separatists in California have by and large avoided counter protests and violent clashes. That’s a contrast from demonstrations over the war in Gaza after Oct. 7, which saw a subsequent spike in Islamophobic and antisemitic hate crimes.

Thakkar, nowadays, is less concerned with the temple vandalism, and can often be seen preparing the temple for dozens of attendees to come pray and eat on weekends. Just a quick drive away from Newark, local Sikh leaders came from a Fremont house of worship and helped paint over the graffiti, he said.

This year, he’s planning on applying for the state’s next round of security funding for vulnerable houses of worship. The only other remnants of the attack are the new security cameras all around the perimeter, and splotches of off-white paint covering the front sign.

“We informed the regular devotees that we have taken some measures. We are careful,” he recalls. “We are working with the police department to get immediate attention if anything were to happen again. So we are safe, secure, and you shouldn’t be worried.”

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CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.

It’s easy to spiral when thinking about all that dooms our planet: forever chemicals, climate change, species extinction and so on. Feeling overwhelmed by overwhelmed by eco-distress is normal. And there are ways to lessen that anxiety. Eco-chaplain Hanna Nielsen joins the show to discuss how to become a more resilient (and more impactful) person.

Hanna, together with the Good Grief Network, is also hosting a 10-week program this fall on building community and personal resilience. Sessions run weekly, each Sunday starting September 15, from 2-4pm. And thanks to our friends at Queer Humboldt, the series is free! Space is limited. If you are interested, please email hannanielsen@goodgriefnetwork.org.

OTHER LISTENING:

• THE ECONEWS REPORT: An Existential Toolkit for the Climate Generation
• THE ECONEWS REPORT: Coping with Climate Anxiety

When Ellen Sarlund gave up her first school to become Ellen Groves, the trustees of Mitchell School, just across Mad River from Blue Lake, began to look for a teacher to take her place. This was 1930 with the Depression not yet six months old. I had been applying for schools but had not thought about this isolated one. When the summer bridge to Blue Lake went out in the fall the only access to the school at West End was the gravelly road from Warren Creek.

Just prior to graduation from Humboldt State, I was informed that two school trustees were waiting to take me to the area to apply for the school at a meeting to be held that night. I was promptly excused from my afternoon practice teaching class.

The trustee who met me at the college door advised, “Don’t apply any lipstick or the trustee in the car will not vote for you. He believes schoolmarms should not be painted.”

The car was an old Model T Ford from the early 20s and the trustee in the car was a portly, aged Irishman. After leaving the Arcata area we chugged through the redwoods and along the pasture fences until we came to the home of the school clerk where I made formal application. The first trustee’s wife invited me to dinner and entertained me during the evening. I was duly accepted as teacher of the eight-grade school and then taken to my home in Samoa.

During the summer I checked out supplies in the school building and learned that I could expect students to be in grades ones, two and three, and six, seven and eight. There were adequate supplies but this school was without water and there was no means of lighting the classroom. In Samoa we burned our electric lights 24 hours a day and we had never seen a water shortage.

I soon learned that water was carried to school every day in a pail. The boys had this job and carried wood from the woodshed to the woodbox every day. We had a big dipper in the water bucket and each child brought a jelly glass to school from which to drink. A community basin served for washing hands.

Radios had been on the market for about four years, but no one in this area had one because there were no power lines. At night there was nothing to do but correct papers. All the families were in bed by 8 p.m. because they had to be up early to milk the cows before the creamery truck came. Dairying was the sole occupation. All the children knew how to milk cows.

I had never seen such a variety of spiders as the book closet contained. The building itself had three very narrow windows on each side of the classroom. All were covered with screens one-eighth inch thick to prevent breakage when the students were playing ball games.

School opened the first week of August with all 22 students appearing quite early to get a glimpse of the new teacher before school started. Five were first graders who seemed frightened. Their parents had informed them what could happen to them if they misbehaved. Later in the day, the older boys found a spider outdoors and placed it on my desk. I abhorred the creatures but in as calm a voice as I could muster suggested, “He doesn’t like it in here. He would rather stay outside.” Much disappointed at my reaction, they dutifully removed the creature to the outdoors.

The school district was a melting pot of European nationalities. Most of the parents had been born in Norway, Finland, Ireland, Italy and Portugal. The foreigners followed old country traditions for the most part. At school the children got along together very well unless for some reason the parents intervened.

Hearing a knock on the school door one day, I opened it to find one of the fathers. He offered me a horsewhip to use on his children. I refused it and told him I would never use a whip to punish children.

About the second week of school, children sitting along the west wall were scratching because of poison oak. Cracks in the wall permitted the vines to crawl along and unfold their beautiful leaves inside the building. I felt there was only one thing to do and that was to snip the stems and clear the wall which I did in short order. My skin was apparently immune to the oils.

A pot-bellied stove in the middle of the schoolroom burned cheerfully on cold days. In late afternoon on cloudy days, when the sun went down behind the hill, we could not see to read but I dared not close school until 4 p.m. On those days we had spelling bees or played games.

Being more than 12 miles from a barbershop during the winter was a hardship for these people. One mother sent her clippers to school telling her children they should have me cut their hair. I had done this for my family at home so I tackled the job and no one objected to the soup bowl look. Once in a while an adult came to the ranch where I lived with the trustee’s family asking me to cut hair. One of these adults was “Tiny” Abbott, who had been well-known in boxing circles. He received a terrible looking haircut but he did not complain. He was just glad to get rid of his long locks.

About once a year a so-called big goat from one of the ranches ambled down the road to the school. It was a male South American llama that had been brought into the country before the 1932 llama law was passed. In looking for a non-existent mate it smelled out his owners who were attending school. They were Tony and Mary Vierra, first and second graders. Everyone stayed inside until these tots could push the animal outside the gate and get it headed for home. Llamas are noted for their meanness at times and for their habit of spitting at their enemies.

Following my first year of school, I splurged and purchased a two-year-old Model A Ford which I used to commute to school.

At the end of this year I found real trouble. It was late April 1932. I arrived at school to find only a heap of ashes and a few rows of cement blocks. Undoubtedly an earthquake sometime before had cracked the chimney. Bystanders the night before reported the ceiling had fallen in and with no water on the premises they had no choice but to watch it burn. Nothing was saved.

With four weeks more of school before summer vacation the trustees hurriedly rented the only vacant farmhouse in the area. It had previously belonged to Milton (Tiny) Abbott and his wife, Ernestine, who had been involved in dairying for a time.

School supplies were hard to get this time of year but we managed. The Blue Lake School offered their double desks which had been used before and after the turn of the century. They had been stored in the basement. Two bedrooms became classrooms — one for the upper grades the other for the lower grades.

The county library had loaned nearly all their school books out but had a room of books from the late 1800s which they gladly shipped to us. With double desks and ancient books we had stepped back into history. Our improvised school, too, was without water and electricity. Added to this was no stove, thus no heat and only one outhouse which we shared. Nothing was important enough to interrupt school in those days. In making the transition, we missed only one school day.

We had all been looking forward to graduation day when we would have a picnic and graduation ceremonies on the river bar with all the families pre sent. Graduates this year, 1932, were Mary DeMello Brazil (now of Fortuna) and the late Walter Gray. That morning the Humboldt skies opened up for a last spring deluge.

With no let up by 11 a.m. the entire community moved into the adjoining cowbarn for games, lunch and graduation ceremonies. It was a day to remember.

Three girls had graduated the year before. All three now reside in Southern Humboldt. After 54 years, the three girls and I met as a group for the first time since 1931. They are Virginia Mell Costa of Loleta, Alva Townsend Hawkins of Ferndale, and Evelyn Kane Ingham of Pepperwood.

Following the burning of the school, Frank Kelly, county surveyor, drew plans for a new school. He had been a former resident of the area and owned a dairy ranch which he leased. With his help and adequate insurance, the new school was ready for occupancy by the last day of July. The building still stands as a private residence.

I taught two years in the old school and two years in the new school. While there I was married and the children put on a grand charivari beating their big pans and kettles with their large spoons. The older children had no trouble in transposing Miss Jones to Mrs. McCormick but the smaller children found this quite a mouthful with the result that I became Miss Cormick.

As was usual in those days, a husband’s duty was to support his wife. Unmarried young women had to fend for themselves, so after a couple of years of married life I was told that my place was at home, as I was keeping a single girl out of a job. During the Depression there were many teachers for every teaching job.

My replacement was Ruth Carroll, who later taught at Arcata High. This was her first school. Other teachers who had Mitchell as their first school were Leslie Stromberg and Ellen Groves.

During the war there was a teacher shortage and I went back into the profession in the Rolph School at Fairhaven, between the ocean and the bay on the North Peninsula, where I had a handful of students in the first six grades.

Connie Merise Pires (Voreis) was born March 31, 1955 to Irene and Billy G. Voreis at Balboa Naval Hospital in San Diego. Her father was in the Navy and was at sea when she was born. When she was three years old, she moved to Hawaii with her family. She spent four years in Hawaii and then moved to Empire, Oregon near Coos Bay. She was there for 3 1/2 years then moved back to Hawaii and back into the same home on the base she had been in before. She attended Barber Point Elementary School at Barber Point Naval Station. Her teachers always said she was a very helpful student.

When her father retired from the Navy, they moved to Fortuna, and that is where she met the love of her life, Robert Pires, at Fortuna High School. On July 7, 1974 she and Robert got married. They went on to have two beautiful children, Michael and Trisha Pires, and stayed married until September 23, 2017, when Robert lost his short fight with cancer.

Many people knew Connie from the many years she spent working at Ross Dress For Less, and before that at Joann Fabrics. Connie was a seamstress and could do anything from replacing a zipper to making a beautiful wedding dress. She would proudly tell you about the time she made Garth Brooks a country-western shirt, and went to his concert to deliver it.

Connie was such a loving mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and friend. She enjoyed bowling with her husband in their younger years along with her son Michael. She loved cooking with her daughter and granddaughters, and would often say how we needed to try her new recipe. Connie could often be found on the sidelines at the football field, in the bleachers on the basketball court, or right behind the lanes of the bowling alley. She was such a proud grandmother and was always her grandchildren’s and children’s biggest supporter.

On June 6, 2024 Connie lost her seven-month battle with leukemia and went on to spend her next life with the love of her life.

Connie is survived by her mother, Irene Voreis; son, Michael Pires (Elena); her daughter, Trisha Pires; her grandchildren Michael Pires, Mikaylah Bengtson, Prince Latimer and Kharma Latimer; her sisters, Debra Voreis, Donna Voreis and Teresa Voreis; her brother Loren Voreis; and many other nieces, nephews, family members and bonus children she acquired over the years.

We will be having a family reunion style celebration of life at Rohnerville Park in Fortuna on October 6, 2024 at 12 p.m.

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