Biographies of pancreatic cancer victims

Hack McInturf

During the Great Depression, Haskel "Hack" McInturf's parents loaded up the family car, left Missouri and headed to Oroville to look for gold and better times.

To the day he died, McInturf remained in Oroville, except during frequent trips with his family to sites throughout the United States.

In the early years, he worked with his father in several area gold mines, then took a job at a local wood preservation plant, before settling on a teaching post at an Oroville high school.

In 1953, McInturf married a local girl, Judy, who had bet a friend she could convince him to take her to the movies -- and won. Their long love affair was well documented in the many poems he wrote for her during their marriage. One, called "Judy Never Home," humorously bemoaned his wife's busy work and social life.

Hack McInturf was always working on a project, "a man of many talents," as his wife said. He made wooden furniture, wrote a historical book, built a monument to Ishi, the last of the Yahi Indians, and served for two terms on the Butte County Board of Supervisors.

McInturf was diagnosed with late stage pancreatic cancer in August 2004 and received chemotherapy in San Francisco.

"He was very pragmatic," said Judy McInturf. "It was, 'Hey, this was the hand I was dealt.' He never complained."

McInturf died in January 2006. He was 77.

Delmas Whittier

Delmas "Del" Whittier was the son of a logging man, and took after him. He, too, worked in the lumber industry most of his life, cutting trees for 25 years.

Whittier was born in Plumas County, but moved with his family to Palermo, just south of Oroville, when he was a baby. In the eighth grade, he met Bev, the woman he would later marry.

After his knees gave out, he set up his own sawmill operation and continued supplying lumber to local customers. Bev Whittier said her husband built the couple's current house, milling each piece of wood himself.

Whittier was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in April 2006, after complaining of stomach pain. He had a so-called "Whipple" operation, a radical surgery in which part of the pancreas and other structures are removed. He opted against chemotherapy.

But he took trips to places he had never seen. The couple went to Tennessee to see the fall colors and to Oregon to catch crab, among other excursions.

"He said he wanted to live until he died," said his wife.

He did well until January 2007, she said.

"He had been up to walking four miles per day. He was trying to keep himself in good shape."

But on one trip he became short of breath, and doctors discovered the cancer had spread to his lungs.

Del Whittier died four months later. He was 72.

Ray Gregory

Raphael "Ray" Gregory moved to Berry Creek, northeast of Oroville, at age 9. After his stepfather died, Gregory became the family's sole breadwinner. He was 14 years old.

He worked cutting trees and hauling lumber, and later, while in junior college in Marysville, he drove a school bus, said his wife, Marilyn.

Always ahead of the curve, Gregory graduated high school at 16 and went to the University of California, Berkeley, before joining the U.S. Army. He later spent time working in Germany as an electronic engineer. He retired from work at Point Mugu Naval Base in 1989.

He never forgot his friends in Oroville, especially his old fishing buddy, Hack McInturf, and the two families frequently took trips together.

Gregory was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2003. He, too, had the Whipple surgery and did quite well for more than two years, Marilyn Gregory said.

He broke his hip in January 2006, and soon after that learned his cancer had spread to his liver. He died in May of that year, at age 78.

Pam Davis

Pam Davis has lived in the Oroville area since she was 7 and has spent the past 23 years in the same house in nearby Thermalito, just a few blocks from her job as a school secretary at Plumas Avenue Elementary School.

Small and fit, Davis looks younger than her 51 years. Even her husband marvels at her energy, exhibited recently during an October hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon.