Cleavenger clan remembers tragedy on Columbia River (with video)

They’re river people.

They fish on the Columbia. They camp on its shores.

When the weather turns hot and the hydroplanes descend, they’re in the thick of it.

“We love the river. It’s given us a lot,” said Michael Cleavenger, 64, part of the sprawling Cleavenger clan.

But it’s taken a lot from them too.

Sixty years ago this week, Michael’s grandparents — Frank and Alta Cleavenger — died when the car they riding in was swept into the river at Columbia Park.

Alta never made it out of the 1952 Studebaker. Frank escaped but drowned before reaching the river bank.

Only the Studebaker’s driver, Lee H. Staker, survived.

The wreck shocked the community, with front page stories in the Tri-City Herald and the now-defunct Columbia Basin News.

And it cast a long shadow over the Cleavenger family.

Michael’s father, Bud — one of Frank and Alta’s six children — took it hard.

“It was very difficult (for him) to lose both his parents,” Michael said. “He was very depressed over the loss.”

On May 26, the anniversary of the accident, several of Bud’s children and other Cleavenger relatives will gather at the spot where the Studebaker plunged into the swollen river all those years ago.

They’ll place flowers in the water. They’ll remember. They’ll pray — for Frank and Alta, for Staker, who served jail time for his part in the wreck.

Perhaps they’ll find some closure.

And this too:

“Forgiveness,” said Michael, who’s organizing the ceremony. “That’s what I’m hoping comes out of the whole thing.”

May 26, 1956

The Cleavengers moved west from Nebraska in the 1940s, drawn by work at the Hanford project.

Bud Cleavenger was a heavy equipment operator and foreman, and he was involved in the site’s construction.

He and his wife, Margaret, lived with their kids — they had 13 altogether, some born before and some after his parents’ deaths — in Island View, in what’s now Richland.

Alta was a good cook, said grandson Will Cleavenger, 69, one of Michael’s brothers.

“She made good home-cooked meals,” he said. “Really good pies, cobbler, fried chicken.”

And Frank? Michael remembers him as a giant of a man.

“I think of him as being 6-foot-5, although I’m not sure how tall he actually was,” the grandson said.

The wreck happened the morning of May 26, a Saturday.

Staker had bought the Studebaker and wanted to show it off to the Cleavengers, according to a Herald story at the time.

The trio took off from Island View and headed through the park toward Kennewick. The river was swift and flood-high, and the road was covered with water and blocked off.

Staker apparently thought he could make it through.

“State Patrolman John Colwill estimated that Staker plowed through a quarter-mile of water before his car tilted sideways, then started rolling down the embankment. A swift current swept it into the river,” the Herald’s front-page story said.

Witnesses tried to help. Ed Weber and his son Curt “saw the car start through the water. Then, Weber reported, ‘the back end started to float out toward the river,’ ” the Columbia Basin News said.

Staker made it to the pavement and started back to help Frank Cleavenger, but Ed Weber stopped him, the newspaper reported.

“There wasn’t much anyone could do from the shore,” Weber told the paper.

“The three watched Cleavenger’s hand ‘just going out of sight.’ Then, Cleavenger disappeared,” the newspaper reported.

Alta’s body was pulled from the river that afternoon. Frank’s was recovered about 1 1/2 weeks later at McNary Dam.

Tests showed Staker had been drinking at the time of the wreck, although he wasn’t drunk, the Herald reported at the time.

The 64-year-old Island View watchmaker pleaded guilty to negligent homicide and was sentenced to 10 months in jail.

Aftermath

The wreck was painful for the Cleavenger family.

“That day, I remember (a feeling of) confusion and great loss,” said Will, who was 9 at the time.

“What I remember about the day is being with my mother at the funeral home,” said Will’s younger sister Kay Nault, who was about 8. “I was looking at my grandmother, thinking she was asleep and was going to wake up. I just knew she was going to wake up. And then, (I remember) looking up at my mother and she was crying. I don’t ever remember her crying before that, before that day.”

The Cleavengers were a close-knit clan. Frank and Alta lived right there, next to Bud and Margaret and all those grandkids.

“When I was little, I used to follow my grandpa around,” said Kay, now 68.

And Alta would take the kids fishing.

“She’d take the boys, but if I cried she’d take me too,” Kay recalled. “We’d go down to that pond at the Wye, where the roundabout is. One time I remember, especially, we spent the night in sleeping bags.”

Michael said his grandmother saved his life the day of the wreck. He and one of his brothers, Joe, were in the Studebaker, set to go for a ride.

But Alta demanded they get out. “She grabbed me by the shirt, just physically jerked us out of the car,” Michael said.

“There was alcohol involved, and I think she knew that. She wasn’t going to let two kids with them in the car,” he said.

Instead, the grownups took off. Michael recalls that his grandmother planned to get some material for clothing — she made outfits for the family — on the excursion.

She was 67 when she died and Frank was 68. They were buried in their hometown of Mullen, Neb.

Their son Bud never talked much about the wreck, but he deeply felt its effects, Michael said. It was hard for Bud when Staker returned to the Island View area after his relatively short jail stint.

Michael said he personally has never felt closure. He doesn’t remember his grandparents’ funeral, and their graves are so far away.

He heard a sermon a while back about forgiveness. It got him thinking — about who he needed forgiveness from, and whom he needed to forgive.

The riverside ceremony began to take shape. Many family members should be on hand.

Last cast

Michael and a sister live in Oregon, but most of the rest of the family has remained in the Tri-Cities.

And the river has remained a central part of the family’s world.

Margaret Cleavenger died in 1998, a few months after she and Bud celebrated 60 years of marriage.

Bud followed the next year. He was an avid fisherman, and on trips he had a tradition of saying, “Last cast,” to indicate he was wrapping up.

But sometimes he’d have several last casts — he’d catch a fish or just wasn’t quite ready to be done.

“Every trip ended like that,” and there were so many, Michael recounted.

Michael spoke to the Herald by phone last week from Oregon. Several of his siblings gathered in person by the river, to take a group photo and speak about Frank and Alta ahead of the ceremony.

Like Michael, they talked about the Columbia’s significance to their family.

They talked about their love for each other. About their big family events. About all the generations that carry the Cleavenger name.

One of Frank and Alta’s great-grandsons, Rick Cleavenger, was there with his wife and daughter.

As the larger group broke up, they lingered a bit — just yards from where the Studebaker was swept away.

Rick never met Frank and Alta. They died before he was born.

But he wants to honor them. “They’re the reason we’re all here,” he said.

This story was originally published May 21, 2016 at 6:27 PM with the headline "Cleavenger clan remembers tragedy on Columbia River (with video)."