Mary Sawyer Wilson and Howard Jay Graham

HOWARD JAY GRAHAM was born August 16, 1905 in Dows, Iowa, and died March 10, 1986 in St. Mary Medical Center, Walla Walla, Walla Walla, Washington.⁷⁰⁷²

He married MARY SAWYER WILSON on December 21, 1929 in San Francisco, San Francisco, California,⁹⁰⁸⁵ daughter of LUCY ELLA SAWYER and THOMAS WILSON. She was born April 8, 1902 in Georgia,²⁵⁰ and died June 9, 1992 in Los Angeles County, California.²⁵⁰

• Descendant Reports
  • Samuel Stanley Descendant Report (Ancestor of Mary S. Wilson)
  • Joseph Baker Descendant Report (Ancestor of Mary S. Wilson)
  • William Sutherland Descendant Report (Ancestor of Mary S. Wilson)

Children of MARY SAWYER WILSON and HOWARD JAY GRAHAM:

1. Son
2. Daughter

Spokesman-Review, May 13, 1969⁸³³⁷

Gov. Evans Will Address College Rite

WALLA WALLA — Gov. Daniel J. Evans will give the main address at Whitman College's 1969 Commencement Sunday, May 25. The graduation exercises will be at 3 p.m., in the college amphitheater.

Howard Jay Graham, 1927 Whitman graduate and author of the book, "Everyman's Constitution," will receive an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws.

Graham's book contains historical essays on the 14th Amendment, the "conspiracy theory," and American constitutionalism. He also prepared an historical memorandum on anti-slavery backgrounds of the 14th Amendment for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Graham, of Los Angeles, has been order librarian, bibliographer and cataloguer for the Los Angeles County Law Library.

Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, November 29, 1976⁷⁰⁷¹

She wants park left alone

That's the beginning of a poem Mary Graham likes about parks.

Mrs. Graham, 630 Pearson St., is leading the current move to keep the proposed new senior citizens center out of Wildwood Park.

Move is perhaps an overstatement for the one-woman campaign the 74-year-old retired elementary schoolteacher is waging.

But by the end of last week she had gathered 31 more signatures for her petition against placing the center in Wildwood.

They will be added to the 129 signatures she presented at the Nov. 10 meeting of the Walla Walla City Council.

"I have very good reception," Mrs. Graham says.

"One man said, 'Well, who is back of you on all this?' Back of me? There's no 'back of me'."

She doesn't argue with the few person she has encountered who favor the park location. Others have told her they want to think first about signing.

Mrs. Graham is emphatic that she is not against the center itself — just the Wildwood Park location.

"It is meaningful to me — I pass by it all the time," she says of Wildwood.

"As far as running around on the swings and so forth, no. It's a nice experience to pass by and see open spaces."

It is difficult to think of the small, polite woman setting decorously in the chair of the older home as the same one tenaciously canvassing for signatures.

Mrs. Graham granted a press interview only as a way to explain her purpose. Personal information is reluctantly given.

This is not her first park campaign. She was active in the series of skirmishes against outside uses of Elysian Park in Los Angeles, where she lived for many years.

"You can't ever stop, you see," she says.

"One loss and you're gone. The developers can lose over and over. Us savers can only lose once. Once the concrete is poured, that's it."

Mrs. Graham is concerned that Walla Walla may take the progress-over-parks route.

"People say Walla Walla is ahead on parks — that's fine, that's a plus, we don't want to be reduced to what other people have," she says.

"They always make for parks because they say they're free. And of course, everybody's business is nobody's business."

Mrs. Graham, mother of two and a grandmother, is a dues-paying member of the Walla Walla Senior Citizens Center herself.

Her husband, Howard J. Graham, a retired law librarian, attends the blood-pressure checks the center provides.

"He is for it (her campaign), but his interests are different," Mrs. Graham says.

She hopes a number of persons will attend Wednesday's city council meeting, which will include a hearing about the center's location. The meeting is at 7 p.m. at city hall.

"I was told by one person there was very little chance the new center would be funded," Mrs. Graham says.

"But that's not good enough for me. I have to do what I can do."

"A place for adventure and growing," the poem says.

"A place for discovering ..."

"A place for dreaming ..."

"A place to love,

To protect

And preserve."

Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, March 24, 1986⁷⁰⁷²

Howard Graham

Howard J. Graham, 80, 630 Pearson St. died Friday at St. Mary Medical Center.

He is survived by his wife, Mary, at the home.

Funeral arrangements are pending at the Herring Funeral Home.