This story was originally published on LincolnChronicle.org and is used with permission.
Lincoln County Commissioner Claire Hall was an advocate, a fanatic, a bleeding heart, a quipster and most simply a friend.
County employees, friends, local and state leaders gathered Saturday to remember the late commissioner who died suddenly Jan. 4 amid a recall election and months of health setbacks.
Hall served as a county commissioner for 21 years, building a reputation as an advocate for unhoused people, affordable housing, progressive causes and who publicly came out as transgender in 2018.
As dozens shared memories and words to remember her, they painted a vivid picture of Hall – oscillating between humble and larger than life, diligent and lighthearted, humorous and kind.
The crowd shed tears when county shelter director Chantelle Estess recounted the many times Hall came to the winter shelter to listen to stories, serve meals and remember the names of the people she spoke to. But most of all, how Hall saw people who were often invisible and looked at them with compassion. She called them “her people."
“Claire brought dignity in a place where dignity often was stripped away. She brought comfort without judgment,” Estess said. “She made people feel seen.”
Often shelter residents would be surprised to see someone of Hall’s position there. One woman took Hall’s hand and told her that no one important ever stands with them, Estess recalled. And Hall replied that the woman was important.
“That was her gift,” Estess said. “She didn’t make people feel small. She made people feel seen. Her legacy isn’t measured by position or title, but by changed hearts, restored dignity and people who walked away and believed they mattered.”
The crowd laughed when one of Hall’s oldest and dearest friends, Jane Stoltz of Corvallis, told a story about Hall’s witty comeback with a talkative waiter and the easy humor that emanated from her.
Stoltz told the crowd about Hall’s love of the Beatles, the memoir she would never get to write, a beloved pin with Oregon’s motto she wore with pride, and a plethora of tiny details only a close friend could really know. She shared a conversation she and Hall had after she had just publicly transitioned and how her generous spirit was the reason Stoltz had a news career.
“Last fall, Claire spent some time in the hospital. I visited her there four times. The last time was the best. She was feeling better and was quite animated. We laughed for two hours,” Stoltz said, “It was the last time I would see her.”
State and local leaders spoke of Hall’s enduring legacy built on her advocacy for unhoused people and housing issues. Her fanatic tendencies around baseball and Star Trek. Her courage in living her life as a transgender woman very publicly.
“She gave me strength every day to exist in a world that is cruel to us,” said Marci Grace Frederick of Central Oregon Coast Trans Community.
At times, the memorial was funny and poignant.
One speaker waved a banner with the words “Claire Cares” and someone in a marijuana leaf printed suit helped her hold it up for the crowd to see.
The whole 250-person-filled Hatfield Marine Science Center auditorium clapped and sang “She’ll be Coming Around the Mountain.” And at its conclusion, three cellists played in a way that made one wonder how such beautiful sounds could come from assemblages of wood and string.
Congresswoman Val Hoyle remarked at how full the room was. And how even that the full lecture hall did not encompass every life Hall touched.
“Hundreds of others whose lives were touched by Claire, by her kindness,” Hoyle said. “Everyone that she met, she saw them as they were, and it didn’t matter – from the most important person to the person that was on the street. She met them with an open heart, and she lived her true self, and by doing that, she was a trailblazer.”
