Jennifer Moody

Continuing here with interesting stories I’ve had, A-Z, in the 14 years I’ve been here. We’re on to “E” now. Go here for the A stories, here for B, here for C and here for D.

E is for Bruce Erbs, John Eggen and Easter egg hunts

–Bruce Erbs lived in a tent just outside the Linn County Jail for several months back in 2003 while society tried to figure out what to do with him.

Erbs, then 57, had been convicted in 1989 of first-degree arson for burning down St. Mary’s Catholic Church here in Albany. Before that, he served sentences for sex offense crimes in other counties. He was on medication for a form of schizophrenia.

In July, he was paroled, but with nowhere to go. No housing in town would accept him. Six counties rejected his case. The sheriff’s office decided to provide the tent for him in the hopes that his Social Security disability benefits would kick in after a few weeks, figuring more money would mean more options.

Weeks stretched into months. Erbs spent his nights in the tent and his days mostly hanging out at the homeless shelter or at the Salvation Army. In October, he came down with pneumonia and finally managed to secure a temporary room at a local motel. A friend offered him a place at his home in Jefferson, until the neighbors found out about it. Some 50 people attended a town hall meeting to demand he move on.

Last we wrote about Erbs, he had found a duplex. The guy in the other half had no objections to his living there. That was in January 2004. That’s where he falls off our radar.

I first interviewed him in September 2003, when he was still living in the tent. He acknowledged his past crimes; said he understood how people felt about him. But none of that took away his need for a place to go.

“If I’m a danger and a threat, what am I doing sitting here? What am I doing walking down the street? Why can’t I live amongst everybody? I’m amongst everybody anyway,” he told me. “And I’ve paid.”

That story isn’t in our online archives (we had trouble getting weekend stuff posted on a regular basis back then) but I’m trying to get it there. It’s worth reading. Not so much because I wrote it, but because it wrestles with a problem that has done nothing but get worse: Where does a criminal go who’s paid his dues? To answer “Not In My Backyard” simply isn’t good enough.

**UPDATE**: The story has now been posted and you can read it here.

– John Eggen’s case was different. He and his wife, Marjorie, had places to go. But Marjorie had memory issues and cognitive problems. The assisted living facility that had been their home didn’t have what she needed, and at 93, John couldn’t care for her by himself. But he had no need of a rehab facility’s special services and thus wasn’t eligible to move with her.

“I’d like to be with my wife,” he told me on that February day in 2006. “It’s hard being apart after 64 years.”

It was a beautiful love story. The two grew up on South Dakota homesteads nine miles apart and got married in 1941. They worked together, volunteered together, raised two children together.

She had no short-term memory, but knew her husband and never understood why every time he came to visit her, he had to leave. The care center said it was willing to house John Eggen, too, but there had to be an open room first.

Marjorie died Dec. 27, 2008. I think – I believe – John was able to move in with her before the end. I find no story recording that, but I believe – I hope – he did.

– I’ve covered multiple Easter egg hunts in my 14 years as a Democrat-Herald reporter. My favorite, however, was in 2002, the year wrote about Scio volunteers hardboiling and hand-dyeing close to 2,000 real eggs for their annual hunt.

I had a good time with that story, which you can read here. To this day, I marvel at the effort. Now, that’s getting into the holiday spirit.

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