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Local history buffs may already know the name of my great-grandfather Rudyard Millar II. He was a business magnate and organizer of the Portland Dandelion Festival, an early alternative to the garish Portland Rose Festival that hijacks our city annually. I try to keep any personal stories out of the newspaper, but it's not always possible, and I'm afraid this week's column is one such occasion.
Rudyard Millar II built the Millar Reflexology Corporation, a small empire of foot-massage parlors scattered throughout the Pacific Northwest in the 20th century.
The company was my family's great pride until it became our disgrace in the 1980s, when an investigative probe found that the massage oils applied by our foot masseurs and masseuses were laced with an exotic cocaine tincture, which caused patients to enjoy their rubs more than they otherwise might have.
Stock in our publicly traded company plummeted after this bombshell was revealed—as did my father, Ace Millar, from a window in his office on the 30th floor of the U.S. Bancorp Tower where Portland City Grill is now located.
Because of the deep-seated grief stemming from this tragic association, I have never been able to bring myself to eat at Portland City Grill. That all changed, however, when someone offered me a Groupon to the restaurant good for $50 worth of food and drink if I spent just $25.
I enjoyed the meal, and mentioned to my waiter that the space had once been my father's office, and that the hostess station now sits where his secretary's desk had been. I have vivid memories of sitting on a chair in his reception area, silently, for hours, as a young child.
After my meal, the executive chef invited me to take a tour of the kitchen. I remarked on the many pots and pans, and then we went back to his office to chat about the history of the building. Before I left, I stood up to examine his shelf full of books about recipes and various cooking techniques.
It was fascinating to learn what a professional chef kept on his shelf, but there was one tome in particular to which I was drawn. It appeared to be much older than the rest, and it was the only one that did not have a title on the spine. Thinking perhaps I had chanced upon some record of ancient Portland's culinary landscape, I opened it.
But it did not have anything to do with food. It was something that was, to me, far more thrilling: some sort of journal outlining the day-to-day activities of a young man living in Portland in the early 20th century. I asked the chef where he had acquired this volume, and he answered that it had been there when they moved in, and he never had actually perused it.
It soon became apparent to me who the author of this journal was. It was none other than my great-great-grandfather, Rudyard Millar. The journal might have been shelved in obscurity in my father's office, and then left behind when the next tenants took over. I have since spent countless hours poring over its contents, about which I will elaborate soon…
Dr. Mitchell Millar is president of the Olde Portland Preservation Society, and traces his Oregon lineage to Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth's expedition. His ancestors have been enduring an invasion of transplants since 1834.
Willamette Week