The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

WAITSBURG - Bernard Howard Donnelly was born July 29, 1926, in Newell South Dakota to Richard Henry Donnelly and Lucy Brott. In 1937, due to the dry and dusty weather conditions of the time, the family left their farm in South Dakota. They packed their own eleven children, a cousin, and all of their belongings into a 1926 Chev and headed west. A young cousin had preceded the family and found work in Dayton, Washington, so the family settled there.

Bernard attended Pine Grove School, where he acquired his love of poetry, under the tutelage of Juanita Harting. Throughout his life he recited t...