into Marble Creek or Homestead Creek about quarter of a mile long. And somehow
the fire started in that log plume. Somebody put to much and got fire too close
to it and burned everything out. So the homestead was worthless and my Dad had
to let it go back for taxes.
But anyway after the homestead my Dad had a store in Deary he also
worked in a store in Bovil for awhile and then later on he moved to Troy and had
a store in Troy until 1928.
In 1928 we moved to Nez perce we lived there for a year and a half, then we
moved to Garfield and lived there for year and a half and came back to Troy.
Now the Nez Perce adventure cost my Dad probably around 15 or 20 thousand
dollars. He had a forged contract that they gave him and he couldn’t get out of
it without a law suit. He couldn’t afford a lawsuit at that particular time.
So from that point on he had to work very hard. My Dad only had about a 5th
grade education but he was self educated. He would read everything and he could
converse on just about any subject. He also could not only read and write
Swedish but also English as well. He worked very hard in elequition to rid
himself of a Swedish accent. I learned when I was in the army in the south
pacific just what a learned man he was he would write me letters and everyone of
them had some information there and I was utterly surprised and amazed at the
knowledge he had. My Mother also was a very determined person she
was totally and wholly dedicated to her family and she would sacrifice almost
anything for us, believe me. Now in her later years she is enjoying somebody
else waiting on her and helping her which she certainly deserves.
When we moved back to Troy in 1931 my Dad worked in the butcher shop for
Ted Thompson and Simon Hagen. Later when Simon left Dad was out of work and
even worked for the WPA for a while and all of us lived on $30 dollars month for
about 6 months. My Dad and Loel would even go out and cut wood and sell the
wood for maybe even a $1.00 to $1.25 a cord and could only cut about one cord a
day. Later on my Dad worked at the Troy Mercantile in the butcher shop. When
the war broke out and they started building Faragut my Dad went up to Faragut
and worked up there first of all filing saws and then worked in the kitchen
cutting meats in the kitchen. Later he came back and worked in Moscow. My
folks had moved to Moscow by that time. Dad worked for Randelman till he was
about 75 years of age. Of course he only worked part time but he still worked.
Every Christmas he would make 200- 300 pounds of potatoskard. Everybody
around loved Dads potatoescard. He made it with the best material. So he
really knew the formula for making that potatoescard. Dad died in 1964 at the
age of 81 and as I said my Mother is still living and just recently celebrated
her 96th birthday.
Now the rest of the families I don’t know as much about and some of you
will have to fill in some of these things about your own Mother and Father on
your own.
Anna I believe was the next one who was married and she married Frank
Hayes and lived in Bovil. Merle was born in 1911 and is now deceased. Erma was
born about 1914 or 1915 and lives in Spokane Washington. Anna divorced Frank
Hayes and moved to Spokane when Merle was in high school. Merle actually lived
with us for a year when we were in Nez Perce Idaho. Later Anna married Joe
Colverson and had a daughter, Donna Colverson born about 1930 Donna is now
deceased.
One time when Anna was actually staying at Bear Creek Donna was about 8
years of age. She was going to make some candy on the kitchen stove. The fire
was out. She was going to start it with some kerosene. She went out on the
porch and got gasoline by accident didn’t know it. She threw it on the fire and
it fused right out at her and caught her dress on fire, and she screamed. Anna
was up stairs and how she got down stairs and out of the bedroom before Donna
could get out the front door I don’t know. Anna got her down
wrapped a blanket around her and got the fire out. Donna was very badly burned.
Merle happened to be there at the time. So they took her to Moscow to the
hospital. She almost died in the hospital in Moscow. They really didn’t know
how to take care of her there and they finally transferred her to Spokane to a
burn center. She was in that burn center for I believe 9 months or almost a
year. They had to give her some pretty strong medicine or she would of died.
That caused her later on to develop somewhat of a dependency on some of those
pain killers. Donna was married 3 times and she died of cancer in her late 40’s.
Anna was married for the third time and lived outside of Troy. She married
a man quite younger than her Brant Gunderson. I believe she was happiest with
him but she died when she was 78 and it wasn’t long afterwards Brant died
because he seemed to lose interest in life after she died.
Emma married Simon Hagon in 1910 they had 2 children. Eveylon was born in
1911 and Luette was born in 1919. Eveylon lives in Clarkston Washington and
Luett lives in Lewiston Idaho. There is a little story about Emma when she was
small. It seems that Emma use to walk in her sleep and Grandma was always
worried that Emma would get out side an the coyotes would get her. The coyotes
would howl every night. Well one night she heard the coyotes howling very close.
She thought she even heard a wolf howling. She went into check the bed and
there were three of the kids that were sleeping crossways. She couldn’t see
Emma. She woke up my Grandfather and I think my Dad and they went out looking
for Emma and they couldn’t find her. They went out calling Emma and Grandmother
thought that surely the coyote or the wolves had gotten Emma. Then somebody
went to check the bed and there Emma had kind a fallen down in the middle of the
bed and the other two kids were practically on top of her and Grandma didn’t see
her. Boy Grandma was relieved.
Well Emma was a very fun loving person and she would joke with her nieces
and nephews. She use to joke with me. Sometimes my Mother would get a little
angry with her cause she would say, ?you better look out cause the boogie man
will get you.? Sometimes Emma would tell me that and when I would go home I
would look under the bed for the boogie man. But she use to love to go out in
the woods and go Huckelberrying. She past a way in 1980 at the age of 89. Her
husband Simon had a heart condition and past away in 1936. He was only in his
40’s when he past away. Well from 1936-1980 somebody would
always tell Emma, ?Emma you need to find another man?. Well she never even
looked twice at another man because Simon was her love and that was it.
Bill was in his late 20’s when he married a widow Ida Hawkinson Olson. She
had two sons Harald who was 12 who now lives in Spokane Washington and Leonard
who was 6 and now lives in Utah when they were married. But Bill thought of
them as his children. just like anybody else. Bill just recently past away
while living with a step grandchild, Sandra Miller, out of Spokane. His wife
Ida past away a few years ago. Bill was a carpenter and built several houses in
Moscow and Lewiston. Sometimes they would build a house from scratch. They
would build a foundation and maybe one room and live in that room until the rest
of the house was finished. I remember one time visiting Ida said, ?I wish that
just once I could live in a house, a completed house, just once in my lifetime?.
Well they did later on, but both of them were what you call pack rats. If one
was good enough they had to have two of everything. So they had all sorts of
gadgets and all sort of things around the house all the time. But Ida just
loved to have people come and sometimes when you’d come she would say, ?I wish I
knew you were coming I would of baked a cake?, and then she would put out a
spread you wouldn’t believe. But she past away in 1980 at the age of 87.
Now Bill was 95 when she past away just this year. This is 1986 by the way.
Bill was also a landscape painter. Many of you have pictures in your homes I
don’t have one. Also he use to go around and collect rocks and various other
things. I know one time we visited him he had a whole shed filled with
different kinds of rocks, garnets and various tools and things. My wife Fran
would of loved to have some, but he wouldn’t offer. He was a great kidder. I
remember that when we lived in a house in Troy when I was about 6 or 7 years old
he lived with us and helped to remodel our house. He would kid with me at night
and he would go do his paintings and various other things. They tell a story
when Loel was a little kid they had gone out and caught some fish and one was a
pretty good size and one was small well when they went to eat (they had been
cooked). Well Bill took the big one and Loel said, ?you big pig you took the
big fish. He said, ?which one would you of taken if you got to chose first? and
he said, ?I would of taken the small one. Loel said, ? well that is the one you
got isn’t it?? That was the way Bill was he was always thinking. Even I
visited him last fall and he was always thinking. He was thinking about prices
and various other things. In 1928 he actually invented a ball point pen. It
was rather large. It was a cylindrical type of
thing. In 1967 when we visited them that ball point still worked, but he never
developed it. He had a mind that was thinking but allot of times he didn’t
carry out what he wanted to do.
Hilma married Ed Danielson whose mother had married Grandma Dalberg’s
brother in Sweden after Ed’s father had been drown in a skating accident when Ed
was an infant. So Ed’s half brother and sisters were cousins to Hilma and my
Dad and your Dad and so forth. Ed was 20 when he came to America and came to
Bear Creek. He worked with my Dad in the woods and various other things. My
Dad even played a trick on him one time and got him to put snuff up his nose and
it almost gagged him. Hilma and Ed were married in about in 1913 or 1914 and
Vivian was born about in 1915. Later Vivian developed rheumatic fever and
developed a serious heart condition and died of dropsy about in 1935. Right
after Ed and Hilma were married they lived in Elk River. Ed was working in a
mill there as a mill right. The first month they were married Hilma ran up a
grocery bill of $90.00 and Ed was only making $135.00 a month. Well when he got
the bill he told her I think you better go back home and ask your mother to
teach you to cook. Well Hilma all of her life was rather generous and sometimes
rather inclined to be a little extravagant. Ed was making $200 a month when
other people were making $100 a month so they had the money to spend. But after
Ed worked for the Nyberg construction company for many years as a trouble
shooter, he retired and came back to bear Bear Creek. Well he worked at mills
and various other things around there. Ed was at times a heavy drinker and
later on (at first Hilma was not) after Vivian died she kind a lost her will and
she sometimes drank rather heavily. She was the only one of Grandma and Grandpa
’s children that developed a drinking habit. Because they had seen what it had
done to their father. I’ll tell you more about that later on. But Hilma past
away at the age of 65 from throat cancer. and as I said she really never got
over their daughter Vivians early death. Ed was 84 when he past away.
Hjolmer married Petre Slind in early 1917. Lavern was born in 1917 in
Deary. Marjorie was born in 1919 in Deary, in fact Marjorie was born just a
week before I was born in December of 1919. Glen was born in 1923 in Deary.
Glen died of a hear attack in 1984. Glen was very badly wounded in Europe in
Normandy in 1944 he was the only one in his squad who came back alive. He had a
bullet go through his chest and lodge in his lung and it went between two
arteries. The doctor said later that even he couldn’t have placed that bullet.
It was just miracle that it hadn’t severed one of those arteries and he bled to
death.
He was in the hospital for quite awhile and was discharged and came home. He
worked for the post office until he retired.
Alan or Jr. was born in 1933 in Deary. By the way Laverne and Jr. and
Marjorie you will have to fill in allot of the event that I don’t know about and
allot about your life history in your own.
Now Hjolmer was a very good baseball player and played on the Deary town
team even into his late 40’s now if he had the schooling and some additional
training he could have played professional baseball. Some say he was good
enough to make the majors. I think I watched him play once when Deary played
Helmer at a 4th of July celebration and he hit the home run that won the game
for Deary. Now when Hjolmer was about 10 or 11 my Mother and Father were
married and lived at Bear Creek for awhile. There is one story that Hjolmer had
a broad brimmed hat that Grandma made him wear and she didn’t like it so he put
the hat over a hot can and burned the brim off. Grandma then took and cut off
the rest of the brim and made him wear it. You can imagine how funny he looked.
Also one year when he was suppose to go to school. They only wen