From Hillsboro (and a HilHi 1950 grad) Ad Rutschman entered Linfield College in fall of 1950. He was a Linfield student 1950-1954. In 1954, he earned a Linfield bachelor's degree in physical education. In 1958, he earned a Linfield Master of Education degree.
He went on to coaching success and fame at for both the HilHi Spartans (for whom he starred as an athlete) and the Linfield Wildcats (ditto, for whom he starred as an athlete.)
Did you know that while he was a Linfield student – and an outstanding student-athlete for the Linfield Wildcats in football, basketball and baseball -- he worked in downtown McMinnville at Hudson’s Café?
The café was on Third Street near the Mack Theater. “At noon, I peeled potatoes for my lunch. Then, at 10 o'clock at night, I mopped, waxed and buffed the floor for my dinner,” he told Wildcatville in November 2020 and January 2024.
With an iconic curved front window, Hudson’s exists today at 522 NE 3rd St. as Mes Amies, a McMinnville women’s clothing store/boutique. (See photos.)
Asked if he (Ad Rutschman) or his folks ever had a Hudson (no relation to Hudson's Cafe apparently) automobile? No, he said, they owned a Graham. Read more about Graham automobiles here: https://auto.howstuffworks.com/graham-cars.htm
About Hudson’s Café:
=History of the Rotary Club of McMinnville includes this about changes to the club, 1946-1951: World War II was over and the club was “beginning to change. After years of membership hovering between 30 and 35 members, the club started to grow in the 40s, and expanded in size to around 60 members. The old-timers began dropping out of the club. Club officers and directors were now largely from members joining after 1940. The club meeting room changed (Aug. 8, 1947) from the Chamber of Commerce rooms in the Wright Building, to a new meeting room in Hudson’s Cafe, on Third Street. When the club moved its meeting place to Hudson’s Cafe in 1947, it of course, discontinued the practice of buying the groceries and hiring the cooks to prepare meals for the meeting …”
=According to an issue of the McMinnville N-R/News-Register in about October 1953, a luncheon was held in Hudson's Cafe to honor three former Linfield coaches, Henry Lever, Morris Pettit and Wayne Harn. Pettit related that the college gym was in the building that later became the science hall and then an apartment house known as Newby Hall. He also noted that he had ushered the return of football to Linfield in 1922 after it had been dropped about the turn of the century. A lot of games in the '20s were played against area high school teams, he said.
=An article by Starla Pointer in the McMinnville N-R in 1999 said in the 1950s, McMinnville Kiwanis Club had about 100 members - more than twice as many as today. The club met in Hudson's Cafe, then moved to the Palm Cafe, the Westward Ho, the Bayou Golf Club, the top of the 1893 building and Michelbook Country Club before settling in its current location, the McMinnville Community Center. Paul Durham, Linfield College football coach, was the president when Alan Jones became a member in 1953. Durham was one of several Linfield professors in the club then. Business owners frequently joined the club, as did men in all lines of work. Jones was employed by McMinnville Water & Light, later becoming manager of the utility.
=In the Aug 14, 1948, Salem Capital Journal it was reported American Association of University Women was to hold a state board meeting Aug 21 in McMinnville. The meeting was to assemble in the students' lounge of Pioneer Hall on the Linfield College campus, at 9:30 o'clock In the morning. Later a luncheon would be held at Hudson's.
=There will be a formal recognition of Armistice Day on Sunday, Nov. 11. At 8 a.m. on Sunday morning there will be a veterans' breakfast at Hudson's cafe, as announced by Don Jones, commander of the local American Legion post and William Butler, commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, according to the Nov. 5, 1951, Salem Capital Journal.
= ‘Linfield College Fund Raising Under Way’ said a headline in the Feb. 20, 1948, Salem Oregon Statesman. In McMinnville’s Hudson café on Feb. 18 evening was site of campaign to raise $250,000 for Linfield college development.
=According to ‘Pasero Says’ sports column in the Sept. 25, 1958, Portland Oregon Journal: Linfield Boosters to Honor Durham “… How time flies … Proud Linfield boosters Saturday will honor Coach Paul Durham, who is starting his 11th year as Wildcat boss … Durham, in the post war years, coached at Franklin before being lured back to his alma mater where he’s been highly successful. Marv Flitcroft, former Linfield athlete and now coach at Dayton, is in charge of a reception for Durham at Hudson’s café in McMinnville at 4:30 pm Saturday.”
=A story in the Portland Oregon Journal of Dec 12, 1957, says a Dec. 16 meeting of the Yamhill County Association of Insurance Agents will be held in the Dawn Room of Hudson’s Café.
………….
Photos posted here include one
found by McMinnville historian Ruben Contreras, Jr., in the Salem Public
Library “Oregon Historic Photograph Collections.” (There’s a cropped version of
the photo, too.) Taken in 1952, the photo shows Salem Cherrians – a Salem
booster group similar to the Portland Royal Roasarians -- posing on McMinnville’s
Third Street in 1951 in front of Hudson’s Cafe. On the right hand side, look at
the window. You see signage for “Hudson Café.” The Cherrians were in
McMinnville to march in the parade launching 1952 McMinnville Shodeo, a horse
show and rodeo held from 1943 to 1962. Other photos by Mac News.
