Alfred
Arthur Younkin
(1888-1965)
Alfred
Arthur Younkin was born on March 17, 1888 in Casselman, Somerset County, PA, the adopted son of Charles
and Sarah (Artest) Younkin. He and his wife became pioneer apple growers in
Washington State.
Alf married a cousin, Lillian Rhoads (1891-1983), the daughter of James and Minnie (Younkin) Rhoads.
The Younkins had three sons -- Leland Alfred Younkin, James Melvin Younkin Sr. and Harold "Raymond" Younkin.
Alf is pictured with the Casselman Cornet Band in the book, Down the Road of Our Past.
In the early 1900s, Alf moved to North Dakota, where he may have worked for the railroad. Later, hearing from friends that the western apple industry was booming, he went back east, married his sweetheart Lillian, and then with his father Charles, the three of them migrated to Washington State.
Alf and a partner, Scott Wilkins, first tried planting apples at Hiawatha Valley west of Moses Lake, Grant County, WA. When that enterprise did not work out, Alf and Lillian moved to Wenatchee, Chelan County, WA.
In Wenatchee, the world of the Younkins became focused upon apples. Circa 1914, they planted 20 acres of apple trees. In about 1928 they founded an apple sorting warehouse. The warehouse remained in the family for some 65 years, until the late 1970s.
Alf is said to have been one of the first growers in the area to graft over some of his trees to Red Delicious, using tree branches sent from the eastern United States. He often sent crates of apples to his Younkin cousins in Pennsylvania at Christmastime, one of whom is known to have been John W. "Emory" Younkin in Rockwood, Somerset County.
Article featuring Lillian in the Wenatchee Daily World, circa 1972
Alf and Lillian celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary,
seen here, attended by their children and grandchildren.
Son Mel served in the US Navy during World War II. In 1998, Mel's children and grandchildren printed his memoirs in a a family booklet, World War II Through a Porthole, which is republished on this website.
Mel
later took over the business and was pictured in front of the Younkin Warehouse in a 1965 article in the Wenatchee
Daily World, seen here.
After a long life of hard, outdoor work, Alfred passed away in May 1965.
Lillian outlived him by nearly two decades. She died in Wenatchee in January 1983.
Granddaughter Diana (Younkin) Burnell Egan (1948-2006) of Salem, OR, was deeply interested in preserving the family's heritage. She was the chief organizer of the Younkin Reunion-West held in Turner, OR in 1996-1998 and 2000. She also attended the Younkin Reunion-East in 1992 and 1996 with her brother and daughter. Sadly, Diana passed away after a long illness on May 27, 2006.
Grandson James Melvin Younkin Jr., a mountain climber among other talents, has displayed some of his photos on his own website.
Copyright © 2000-2001, 2005-2006 Mark A. Miner