Claudius Thayer

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Claudius was the husband of Estelle Bush. He was the son of William Wallace Thayer, Oregon's sixth governor, and later Oregon's Supreme Court Justice. Claudius studied law and was admitted to the bar, although he never followed the profession. Claudius was physically crippled, and because of this, Asahel Bush, Estelle's father was opposed to their marriage, and the couple eloped in 1884.

Claude and Estelle established residence in Tillamook and opened a bank there. After many years, they sought a change of climate that might possible help Claude's weakened condition. They moved to Oakland, then Los Angeles and Pasadena before settling permanently in Berkeley. Claudius was a gentle and uncomplaining invalid never entirely free from pain. He always walked with difficulty, and his last years were spent in bed or in a wheelchair. He was a man who devoted himself whooly to his books, his writings, his only daughter, and his wife.He made translations of Vergil and of Livy for his daughter Euginia when she was in schools in the East.

He wrote novels, poems, essays, speeches, short stories and plays. He began writing poetry while a young man and continued to do so all his life while he worked with the other literary forms. As he wrote he put his poems in notebooks, and from these he selectted ones to be sent to various newspapers and magazines. When they appeared in print, he would clip them and past them in his notebooks. The Oregon State Archives have five such notebooks, records of a creative lifetime. After Claudius died, Estell came home to Salem where she became active in the Literary Club and was revered as Mother Thayer by her many friends. It became her custom to open each meeting of the Club with a poem by Claudius. She collected his poems, selecting ninety-four of them for publication as POEMS by Claudius Thayer. She then boxed up his manuscripts and had them placed in the State Archives