Baker City, Oregon
Lawrence Martin Neault, 90, a lifetime Baker City resident, died Monday, June 21, 2004 at St. Elizabeth Health Services.
There will be a Funeral Mass at 10 a.m. Thursday at St. Francis de Sales Cathedral, 2235 First St. Vault interment will be at Mount Hope Cemetery. The Rev. Robert C. Irwin will officiate.
Friends are invited to join the family for a reception at the St. Francis Parish Hall after the graveside service.
Lawrence was born on Sept. 20, 1913, at Baker City to Henry Peter and Anna Catherine Hermsen Neault. He attended St. Francis Academy and Oregon State University at Corvallis.
During the Depression, Lawrence worked at Unity for Joe Thompson, breaking horses. He later worked at the First National Bank working his way up to vice president.
In 1950, he opened Baker County Finance Co. He was on the National Consumer Finance Board and served as president of the Oregon Financial Services Association. In these capacities, he traveled throughout the United States, but he always preferred Baker County.
He married Anna Doris Colton on Dec. 4, 1937. Lawrence and Anna had two children, Rory A. Neault and Sally A. Neault.
He was an avid hunter and fisherman. He hunted in Oregon, Idaho and Canada, obtaining his share of deer, elk, antelope and moose. Lawrence loved the forests and outdoor activities.
He had a cabin at Auburn for a time. Later, he owned and operated a ranch at Halfway, where he managed a million board feet of timber. At the time of his death, he owned a small spot at Sumpter as his “get-away.”
Among other pursuits in his earlier years were writing the sports for the local newspapers, The Oregonian and the Baker Democrat-Herald; panning for gold; witty sayings; and horses.
Lawrence was a lifetime member of the Baker Elks Lodge No 338. He headed the committee that built the current Elks building.
Lawrence was active politically for many years in Baker County and at the state level. He was an officer in the Oregon Young Republicans, serving with two or three future governors and U.S. senators and representatives. In later years, he fund-raised and headed political committees for other Eastern Oregon political candidates. Among those he supported were Mark Hatfield, Sam Coon, Robert Packwood, Sig Unander, and Tom McCall.
He was a member of the St. Francis de Sales Cathedral Parish.
He was the family historian and expert on French ancestry, since his family is French. The Neaults were among the first 2,000 families to depart France and settle in “New France,” Quebec, Canada. On Lawrence’s first trip to Quebec, he went to the phone book to look up a family member’s number, and found pages of Neaults or Naults or Nau’s listed.
His grandfather and grandmother came by wagon train from Quebec, along with other French Canadians just after the Civil War, and settled in Baker County, in an area called Sutton Creek.
Survivors include his wife, Anna; son, Rory A. Neault, and his wife, Marsha, of Pendleton; daughter, Sally A. Todd,and her husband, Don, of Fairfax Station, Va.; five grandchildren, Victor Lawrence, Heather Ann, Wayne Michael, Jennifer Jean and Stephanie Nichole Todd; six great-grandchildren, Donovan, Scottie, Sebastian, Logan, Dalia and Regan; and three stepgrandchildren, Joshua, Kristoffer and Michelle.
Used with permission from: Baker City Herald, Baker City, Oregon, June 25, 2004
Transcribed by: Belva Ticknor
