Steve Allen Tyler of Eugene died Sept. 20, 2003 of age-related causes. He was 86.
Tyler was born March 12, 1917, in Tulles, La. He married Helen Shores in 1940. He lived in Baton Rouge, La. until 1943, when they moved to Klamath Falls. He lived in Klamath Falls 1943-1950, when he moved to Eugene. He lived in Junction City from 1954 until 1973, when he returned to Eugene.
Tyler received a bachelor’s degree from Northwestern State University in Louisiana and master’s degree in business from Louisiana State University. He received a law degree from the University of Oregon.
He served in the Navy at the rank of lieutenant. He worked as a loan officer and was also employed as a business education instructor in Amarillo, Texas, and at the Oregon Institute of Technology. He later established a private law practice. He was a member of the Lane County Bar Association.
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Edward V. O’Reilly of Eugene died Sept. 21, 2003 of respiratory failure at age 85.
He was born in Michigan, N.D. in 1918. He and Patricia Sullivan were married in Seattle in 1948. She died Jan. 13, 2003.
O’Reilly moved to Oregon as a teenager and graduated from University High School in Eugene in 1936. His military service included active duty from September 1940 to May 1946 with the 41st Infantry Division. He was a retired colonel in the JAG corps. He attended the University of Oregon, earning a B.S. in education and a J.D. from the University of Oregon in 1952. He then practiced law in Eugene from 1952 until his retirement in 1990.
O’Reilly served on a variety of bar committees and received the state bar’s 50-year member award in 2002. He wrote that his proudest moment was his admission to the bar, and he fondly remembered the celebration with the OSB’s class of ’52 on admission. He also belonged to the Lane County Bar Association.
He enjoyed golf and ocean salmon fishing. He is survived by a son, four grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
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Cash Ridley Perrine of Bend died Sept. 13, 2003 of natural causes. He was 71.
Perrine was born April 28, 1932 in Ashland. He served in the military, including 17 months in Munich, Germany. After graduating from Willamette University Law School in 1958, Perrine moved to Bend with his family and started a private law practice that continued until his retirement. He was municipal judge for Bend and city attorney for Sisters. He was a member of the Central Oregon Bar Association and Bend Elks Lodge, serving as exalted ruler in 1966-67.
Survivors include his wife, Mary; three sons and two daughters.
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Frederick H. Torp died Sept. 15, 2003 of complications following surgery, 10 days before his 90th birthday.. He was born Sept. 25, 1913 in Allendale, N.J.
For 50 years, Torp was a leading Portland business lawyer, beginning in 1946 with the firm now known as Stoel Rives. He co-founded Tonkon Torp in 1974 when he was 61, with the objective of having a firm that would never exceed 15 lawyers. The firm now has more than 70 lawyers. Earlier, he was employed with Davis, Auerbach and Cornell in New York City from 1938 to 1942 and was chief editor of the 1939 edition of Mertens, The Law of Federal Income Taxation.
Torp specialized in tax, corporate and banking law, and represented a number of major Oregon public and family businesses. Clients included: Omark Industries, Stimson Lumber, Orbanco Financial Services Corporation, Northwest Acceptance Corporation, U.S. Bakery, U.S. Bank, Sprouse-Reitz Stores, Benson Glass, Brady Hamilton Stevedore Co., Western Communications and The Oregon Bank. He was also a long-time legal adviser to the Junior League of Portland. He was admired and sought after by clients for his business knowledge and strategy as well as his legal skills and served on the boards of directors of several of the aforementioned clients.
He was considered a stern taskmaster with young lawyers, but his training influenced a generation of Oregon lawyers who became outstanding attorneys in private firms as well as business executives, law professors, political office holders, judges and a cabinet member.
He was a graduate of Columbia College, New York City (B.A., 1934) and Columbia University Law School (LLB, 1937). To pay for college and law school during the Depression years, he played the clarinet in a dance band in New York and on cruise ships. At Columbia, Torp met his first wife, Elise Arneson of Portland, whom he married in 1942.
Torp enlisted in the U.S. Navy after Pearl Harbor. He served in the Pacific, first as communications officer aboard the light cruiser USS Reno. The vessel sank after being torpedoed off the Philippine island of Samar. Torp and other crewmen spent 10 hours in the water before being rescued. He later served aboard the USS Intrepid, an aircraft carrier that was in Tokyo Bay for the Japanese surrender. He was discharged as a lieutenant commander in 1945.
Torp helped organize and served on the board of the Community Child Guidance Clinic, now known as the Morrison Center for Child and Family Services. He also served on the Oregon Board of Health, the Legacy Good Samaritan Hospital and Medical Center board of trustees and the Lake Oswego School Board. He was director and president of the Oregon Historical Society
Torp’s first wife died in 1972. In 1978, he married Nancy Morse-Moller, who survives him, along with a daughter, two sons, a stepdaughter and stepson and grandchildren.