Posted on 05/18/2025 8:54:09 PM PDT by logi_cal869
Harry Truman became a modern folk hero 45 years ago for his steadfast refusal to leave his lodge in the shadow of Mount St. Helens, even as experts warned that the volcano in southwestern Washington might erupt.
Reporters covering the rumbling mountain in the spring of 1980 often turned their attention to Truman, describing the 83-year-old business owner and former bootlegger as gruff, stubborn, funny and, above all, fiercely independent.
And those depictions were more or less accurate, said Dan Plute, a Clarkston Heights man who is Truman’s grandson-in-law.
“A lot of people used the word crusty,” Plute said last week. “Hard working, hard drinking — full bore, no matter what he was doing. There was no idle with him.”
Plute was married to Judy (Burnett) Plute, who was Truman’s granddaughter. Judy died of brain cancer at 75 in February 2024.
Dan Plute, 71, said his wife was quite familiar with her grandfather’s cantankerous side; she and her brother, Barry, worked at Truman’s Mount St. Helens Lodge when they were teenagers in the 1960s.
“My wife never lost her love for Grandpa Truman,” Dan said.
She was also protective of his legacy. Judy generally kept off-color stories about Truman to herself and wouldn’t tell new friends about her famous relative — it was usually Dan who brought it up.
Mount St. Helens started showing ominous signs of life in March 1980, with earthquakes and pyroclastic flows. That’s when Truman started brushing off requests, followed by orders, to leave the area, and when the legend of the stubborn man of the mountain started to grow.
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Ultimately, Truman and the mountain went out together May 18, 1980.
(Excerpt) Read more at lmtribune.com ...
I was out there in 2007 to visit one of my brothers and got to tour the St. Helens area. He told me about the loggers that were working in the area that managed to survive the pyroclastic flow from the eruption, although several did not. They couldn’t hear the ash cloud coming because it was traveling at about the speed of sound. One fellow that was fishing with two others had his back to a large tree when they were hit. He survived with massive burns, but his friends were evaporated.
All I remember about camping at Spirit Lake (1967?) is the MOSQITOES I had to fight off all night.
Too bad about his cat though...
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