GRANDMOTHER GUNS IN PORTLAND

A True Story About Grandmother Guns In Portland Oregon.

An elderly lady pulled her car into her NE Portland garage on a hot day.

I was there to pick up a museum donation, three quilts for the Oregon Historical Society.

Museums love fragile textiles, product packaging, anything you’d throw away a hundred years ago.

Quilts are special for the story they tell.

Even in the heat the lady wore a heavy wool jacket.

Odd, I thought. Such a heavy jacket on a hot day. Also unusual was the high speed automatic door on her garage, the bars over all her windows, and the chain link fence around her property.

Instead of walking out of the big door, the woman came out a fortified side door of the garage inside her yard.

The longer I looked, the sharper the image I saw. This was a compound in the city. But why?

The way she pulled into her garage, the high speed door opening and closing, spoke of practice.

Her side garage door, back door, and every window in view spoke of security, heavy duty security.

I waved when she pulled up, early for the appointment.

Once she cleared the side door in the garage I introduced myself.

“Hello, I’m from the museum. We have an appointment with your quilts?”

“Very good. I’m Mrs. Stone,” she said. “Please come in.”

She unlocked the fence gate, her security door, then her backdoor. All of the windows had metal rails, the sort of steel bars you might see in jail.

We sat in her small kitchen with cups of tea. It’s a good museum practice to take time with donors in case they think of something else to donate.

“I’d like to ask you about the quilts before you bring them out,” I said.

“You’re lucky I’ve still got them after my incident. I’ve had them for decades.”

“And the museum is fortunate you decided to donate them. What was your incident?” I asked.

Most of the time it’s a family member who wants the donation. That’s what happened when Mrs. McCall, former Oregon Governor Tom McCall’s wife, donated his hat and boots. Their son was sure he was supposed to have them.

“Did you notice my jacket on this hot day?” Mrs. Stone asked.

“I did. It’s very nice.”

“It’s something I have to wear all the time. I have four of them. One red, one black, one tan, and my favorite, a tweed,” she said.

Trail Blazer colors, I thought. Nice. She was thin and frail looking and probably chilled easily?

“I don’t wear them because I’m thin, old, and chill easily,” she said, “but that’s what everyone thinks, and that’s fine.”

“Well, that is a very nice jacket,” I said.

And it was. Had an English look to it. Easy to imagine her on a fox hunt.

“I need to wear a jacket because I need to carry this,” she said.

She’d moved her hand to her pocket. When she pulled it out, her small hand gripped a small pistol aimed my direction. Mrs. Stone casually waved it around.

“May I see it?” I asked.

She handed it across the table, barrel toward me.

“I was mugged in my garage last year. Maybe you read about it in the Oregonian. The man beat me up and dragged me into the house and robbed me. No one saw anything in the middle of the day. After he left I called the police.

“He wasn’t a very good robber. In a hurry. Didn’t ask me where anything was, just threw what he saw into a pillow case and ran out the back. I think he was more interested in punching me than robbing me.”

“That’s awful,” I said.

“He was never found. I’ve lived here fifty years, right here in this house. Everyone wanted me to move. They said the neighborhood has changed and not for the better. I told them I’d change, too.

“That’s when I put the bars on the windows and extra doors on my doors instead of screen doors. Then I bought a pistol and learned how to use it. I was a big hit at the pistol range. They all thought it was incredible someone as old as me wanted to learn how to shoot. Maybe you saw me on television? Grandma at the shooting range.”

Her gun hand needed work from the way she pointed the pistol my direction, but I didn’t say.

“It sounds awful.”

“It was dreadful and then some, but it’ll never happen again.”

She nodded at the gun on the table.

“Are you worried?”

“No one wanted me to stay here, or buy a gun, or let the news show me. But I figure that’s part of my defense. Whoever it was last year might see me and think twice about coming back,” she said.

“It looks like you’ve got things locked down. I’m impressed.”

“Thank you. But I’ve got a problem you might help with. I’m going away for a few weeks and need some advice. Follow me to my bedroom.”

She had a big bed and apparently slept on one side. On the unruffled side she pulled a pistol grip shotgun out from under the pillow. Remembering her gun hand with the pistol, I didn’t want this one aimed my direction.

“May I?” I reached out my hands and took the gun. “Nice.”

It was a Mossberg Street Sweeper.

“Yes, but I need to hide it when I’m gone and don’t have any idea where.”

I’d just seen the movie Someone To Watch Over Me where a bodyguard hid weapons around his client’s house. Maybe it was his house. One place was inside the fireplace on a shelf behind the mantle.

Her fireplace had the same set up.

“Let’s wrap it in a yard bag and stick in the fireplace,” I said.

“You’re so clever. There’s a couple more problems.”

She pulled out three more pistols from different drawers. I spent the next hour duct taping the weapons under chairs and couches.

“Where did you learn how to hide guns so well? Museum school?”

“Yes, ma’am.” I didn’t want to say a movie. “And I was in the Army. They have lots of guns.”

“These will stay until I come back.”

“You might want to draw a reminder map to remember where they are,” I said.

With the guns put away, we got down to the quilts. They were as beautiful as I’d hoped for.