Doris Palmer Payne

It is interesting how she became interested in the subject of the Modoc Indians. It was because of an accident. As she explains, "My husband and I left our home in Oakland in the summer of 1932 and headed north on a camping trip. While we were in the vicinity, my husband Frank Payne [#83] suffered a broken vertebre in a bad fall, necessitating his hospitalization in Klamath Falls, OR for over two months."

Since she had little money and was confined in a strange town, she frequented the city library inbetween visits to the hospital. It was there that she got her first introduction to Captain Jack.

They decided to make Klamath Falls their home and she was determined to find out more about Captain Jack and the Modoc indian war. She, Frank and their two children, Ward and Coral did much exploration at the actual sites.

In March of 1944 she enlisted in the Womens Army Corp. She was commisioned as a second lieutenant in November 1945 and served most of her time at Fort Mason in San Francisco.

After leaving military service, she became a pastoral assistant and later a Bible instructor for the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Sonora, Calif., and Canyonville, Ore.

Her husband, Frank Payne put together a collection of arrow heads that was considered one of the finest privately owned ones in the country.

In 1992 at age 85, she compleated a book about the good and bad times of arrow head hunting.

She died Friday, June 6, 1997 being survived by her granddaughter and grandson-in-law, Leah and Marvin Stump, Klamath Falls; her great-grandchildren and a great-grandson-in-law, Kenn and Melissa Stump, Corvallis, Kean Stump, Corvallis, and Kimberly Stump, Corvallis; her great-granddaughter, Makayla Stump, Corvallis; and by her nephews, Warren Palmer, North Hollywood, Calif., Clark Shaver, Pacific Terrace, Calif., and Orval Hammermeister, Mississippi.

Sources: Various articles in the Harold and News , Klamath Falls, OR (Obit., 06/09/97)