By CHERYL ROMANO/YachatsNews
WALDPORT — Colleen Nickerson, a longtime Waldport resident, founder and curator of the Waldport Heritage Museum and president of the Alsi Historical and Genealogical Society, died Sept. 24, 2023 after a short illness. She was 82.
Born Colleen Ruth Cochran on Nov. 26, 1940, in Twin Falls, Idaho, she moved to Waldport as a teen-ager with her parents, Tom and Naomi Cochran. She met her future husband, Robert Lee Nickerson, in high school, and the couple was married in 1958. Robert died in 1991.
“Waldport has lost a truly remarkable woman, one who touched many lives and who was so proud of her family and heritage,” said Tom Fullmer, executive director of the Waldport Chamber of Commerce. Fullmer began working with Nickerson in 2021, when she was asked by the city of Waldport to move the Waldport Heritage Museum into the Alsea Bay Bridge Interpretive Center.
“If anyone wanted to know anything about Waldport, Colleen was the resident expert and an invaluable source of history and anecdotes,” Fullmer said.
Nickerson first became involved with the museum after her husband died and when the facility was located in a lesser-known building on Grant Street. She told Yachats News in 2021 that she initially got involved to pursue her own family’s genealogy — her great-grandparents homesteaded on the Yachats River.
After the city acquired the interpretive center from the state in 2020, she worked hard to have the museum relocated to its more visible, current home and became a part-time city employee.
Sometime after the move, Fullmer recalled a comment from Nickerson that she had seen “more people in the new center/museum in one month than she had seen at the original museum in one year.” Since the combined museum/visitor center was opened on July 1, 2021, more than 15,000 people have been tallied from every U.S. state and 37 countries, Fullmer said.
Waldport city manager Dann Cutter recalled Nickerson as “A force of will when it came to the museum, and her commitment is the reason it exists today.”
He said that Nickerson gave notice of her intent to retire just weeks before her death and that longtime city recorder Reda Eckerman has transitioned to part-time work as the museum curator.
“She has left a legacy we should all be grateful for,” he said. “And admirably, how many of us work until we are 82!”
Nickerson leaves five children: Robert (Nick) of Waldport, James of Philomath, Thomas of Siletz, Donald of The Philippines, and Colleen Jeni Wiederhold of Waldport. She is also survived by sisters, Patrice Baptist of Canyon Country, Calif. and Virginia Myers of Salem, as well as 12 grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren.
The family said that Nickerson’s ashes will be scattered in a private gathering at Alder Grove Cemetery in Waldport, which she served as sexton. Donations in her honor are suggested for an animal shelter of choice, or to South Lincoln County Resources.
Dear Colleen, you will be missed. Your dedication to preserving our local history was monumental. After all, what is a town without a past? Colleen, you helped to save our annual Beachcomber Days celebration, an event which brings us all together, at a time when it seemed it might fade into obscurity.
Bless you, Colleen, thank you. Rest in peace.