7189 Old Adobe Way, Templeton, CA 93465, tele: 805 461 9021...Daughter Susan 818 421 9161 23720 Archwood St. West Hills, CA 91307
add: 801 New York Ave, Hamilton, MT 59840. tel: 406 961 3282
RUBY ARTHELLA FERGUSON (GARDNER)
I was born July 12, 1923 at Milo, Bonneville, Idaho. And blessed August 5, 1923 bye Albert S. Newman.
My Mother is Ruby Luella Lords, born May 5, 1898 at Ashley, Uintah, Utah. Daughter of Daniel James Lords and Ella Catherine Cook. Both faithful member of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
I remember Grandpa and Grandma Lords having a small home in Ucon, Idaho. They had enough acreage that they raised a large garden and sold the produce from it. I remember going there with my mother to help them pick the corn and vegetables. They would take them to Swan Valley to sell, going from house to house in order to sell it. They also sold to the grocery stores. As they got older they sold the acreage, and kept the house. I went to Ucon High School only about a half a mile away from there home. Sometimes I would walk to their place and stay all night. They had a big old roll out couch that I slept on. Grandma always cooked a big delicious breakfast that was very good.
Grandpa Lords had sugar diabetes and had big sores on his legs and feet that would not heal. After he died Grandma lived at my folks for awhile and then to her daughter Zelda's, where she passed away. Grandma really missed Grandpa after his death and lived only seven months more.
Mom was the second girl in a family of eleven children. Only six living to marry and raise their own families. Leo died at age 4 in 1910 of Diphtheria, three children was taken with Diphtheria in 1919, Leona a teenager; , Mary Devera nearly six and Daniel Clyde 5 months. Grandmother was too sick to even attend the graveside services. Three years later Diphtheria took Eldon Jay fourteen years old. This cut their family to six all who lived to have a large posterity, Phoebe Jane, Ruby Luella, James William, Wilford Eugene, Zelda Agnes and Leah May.
Leona and Mom was very close, going on dates and doing things together. She said it took a very long time to get over losing her sister.
When I was growing up they all lived within a few miles of us, so I knew them all really well. At this time only aunt Zelda is living she is in her 90's. Aunt Leah passed away a year ago.2003.
When my Mother was five years old, she and her brother Billy was helping their father clear and burn sagebrush for a homestead. Mom got to close to the fire and her clothes caught on fire, she ran down the field to her father, and when he saw her he ran to her and rolled her in the dirt putting out the fire. She was so badly burned she had to be carried on pillows for weeks. It was after this and after she got married she got rheumatic fever.
Primary was held in her parents home in Taylor, Idaho. She completed eight years of school. She walked to school at Taylor. They also lived at Shelton for awhile.
My Father was Jesse Leo Ferguson born February 11, 1900, at Tilden, Idaho. Son of James Albert Ferguson and Mary Agnes Gneiting. They had a family of eleven children, Albert William , George Henry, Mary Ellen, Charles Wilford died at the age of 17, Martha Caroline, James Dewey, my dad Jesse Leo, Alice Lavon, Clara Ada, Joseph Edward died at the age of 7, and Leslie Ernest.
I remember Grandpa's farm at Shelton not far from where we lived. They had a large orchard and us kids loved to go out in the orchard and eat apples and climb the trees. Grandpa had an old player piano in one of the rooms in his big house, and when we visited them we spent a lot of time playing the songs on the rolls by pumping the pedals. I don't remember Grandma Ferguson hardly at all, as she died in 1926. I was only 3 years old.
Uncle Les and Grandpa lived there after the rest of the family was married and gone. Grandpa died at the age of 83 (1946).
Dad went to grade school at Shelton and attended Rick's Academy at Rexburg, which he said was about the same as high school now. Rick's is now B.Y.U. Idaho, a LDS Church College.
We did not visit Dads family as much as we did Mom's, I guess it was different with Grandma gone. Dad's brother Bill lived across the road from Grandpa and Les and their brother Dewey just down the road a short way. Dad lived in Milo about two miles away. Dewey and Dad ran sheep together on the dry farms for many years. Shearing was a lot of fun for us kids, we played games and jumped on the wool sacks. Sometimes we had to tromp the wool down into the huge wool sacks. Mom and Aunt Sadie cooked a huge meal for everyone including the Shearer's, in the old building on a wood stove that was kept there for that purpose. The food always tasted so good and it was like a big family get together.
George Henry lived in Idaho Falls, I hardly knew his family, just seeing them at family reunions. At Dad's 80th Birthday party George came and he was 90 years old. Mary Ellen I hardly knew. Martha Caroline died at 36.
Alice Lavon and Aunt Clara Ada we visited often. Mom took us to Aunt Clara;s in Idaho Falls to can corn, she had a canner and we all helped. All of my father's family have passed away now.
My parents were married October 27, 1920 in the Logan Temple, at Logan, Utah.
I was the second child in a family of six children, Jesse Merle was born November 25, 1921 at Shelton, Idaho. Ruby Arthella July 12, 1923 at Milo, Idaho, Dearold James,
June 19, 1925 at Milo, Idaho Arla May, August 9, 1931 at Idaho Falls, Idaho, Veron D. November 6, 1933 at Idaho Falls, Idaho and Renea Sept 26, 1936 at Idaho Falls, Idaho.
Renea passed away December 12, 1937 at Milo. She had pneumonia, I remember her playing in the jumper which hung from the ceiling to the table. She loved to jump. The day before the funeral they brought her home and put the casket in the front room. That was an awful night, I don't believe any of us got any sleep. We didn't have any pictures of Renea so Mom held her little body and they took a picture. I have that picture.
I
I grew up on a farm in Milo, Dad farmed raising wheat, hay and potatoes. We milked cows and had chickens, pigs, horses and a band of sheep. Dad always said sheep was where the money was. We had an old white horse called Whitey. I would ride it out in the field and I could hardly get her to go, all she wanted to do was put her head down and eat, but when we started back towards the barn, she really went . One day as she turned the corner I fell off, but didn't get hurt. Most of the time she was a good riding horse for us kids. We also took care of the bum lambs, those that had lost their mother, mother's wouldn't claim them or had no milk for them. Mom took care of a lot of them on the back porch until they was big enough to go out in the cold. Then we would take over and feed them the bottle.
We always had chores to do, Arla and I scrubbed and washed the kitchen and porch floors every Saturday. Mom was a very neat housekeeper. We had some raspberries in the garden, but every summer we would get up at five o'clock and go pick raspberries to can, We picked over at Labelle at a place where we picked and got a percent of what we picked to take home and can.
I was baptized 5 September, 1942 at Iona, Idaho bye Harold Don Bishop and confirmed 6 September 1942 by Glen H. Johnson. Somehow my baptism records were lost and we didn't have a copy either, so I had to be baptized again when I was nineteen. I guess I always thought I had a second chance.
I attended a small country school, Buck School. I had a really nice teacher and my friend Jaunita Cleverly and I even went home and stayed with her sometimes. I skipped the fifth grade and then in the middle of the sixth grade I got Whooping cough and was out of school for six weeks, so that made that year of school hard for me. We walked to school in the summer, when winter came and we had lots of snow, Dad had a sleigh and horses so we would cover up with quilts to keep warm and he took us to school. I graduated from the eighth grade at Buck School.
I one day took Arla for a ride on the bicycle when she was small, she was riding on the front crosspiece just in front of the seat. Somehow she got her foot caught in the front wheel. It cut a big place on her ankle, I sure was scared and hurried back home with her crying and the blood running all over her foot. She still has a scar there.
We didn't have electricity until I went to High School, so I remember one night the family had all gone somewhere and I was home alone. It got dark so I lit the kerosene lamp and sat right by it. I was really afraid of every little noise I heard.
After we got electricity the folks remodeled the pantry and put the bathroom there. Boy that was great. How I hated that old privy out back. We had a small storage room off from the kitchen and there was an old wind up phonograph there where we would sit and play records. I still like to play some of the old records we used to listen too.
We went to Shelton Ward to church, then later they moved the boundary and we went to Milo. I remember many good times there. My best friend Jaunita Cleverly was married in the temple and had their reception in the church. That was when they had receptions and dinner. It was lots of fun. I loved to dance with my older brother Merle. Dad was a very good dancer too, and he really liked to dance.
The young kids and primary always put on a play or pageant on Christmas Eve and it was a lot of un to be in them.
In May of 1999 we went to Idaho and to the Ririe cemetery where Mom, Dad and
Renee are buried, we drove by the big old brick Shelton Ward Church House where we went to church so many years, they are remodeling it and making a beautiful Wedding reception center out of it. They haven't held church there for a long time.
I shared a bedroom with my sister Arla for many years until I got married. She is eight years younger than me.
I went to Ucon High after graduating from the eighth grade. By then the bus came right by our place, so that was really nice. Girls never wore pants like they do now. We always wore dresses, even at home. In the winter we wore long cotton socks under our skirts and long legged panties that we tucked down into our socks. I always hated them and was so glad when warm weather came.
Idaho is known as the potato state because of all the potatoes they grow. Every fall school would be let out so the kids could pick the potatoes during harvest time. I made a bit of money picking up the potatoes each fall to buy school clothes and supplies. One summer to help out I worked for Egans at Shelton and stayed there a lot of the nights. I got up at 6. 0'clock, cooked, made bread and cleaned for 50 cents a day.
Mother's youngest sister Leah Randall and family lived in Idaho Falls, she worked out and I tended her kids a lot in the summer. Aunt Zelda Jardine had me come and stay with them to help her during harvesting.
The year I was a Senior at Ucon High, I met Morris Gardner and his family, they had just moved to Ucon. We dated some that year he was a year behind me in school. I graduated from Ucon High in May, 1941. I graduated from Seminary the year before.
I had my Patriarchal Blessing Nov 1, 1939 by Joseph A. Brunt. I worked for a year at a clothes cleaner, Morris had gone to Ogden to work with a friend Joe Farnsworth. When he came back in the fall we decided to get married. He was working at the potato warehouse at Ucon and staying with his Aunt and Uncle Wally Robinson. We talked about going to the temple and Morris said he would ask the Bishop at Ucon and see, but he hadn't been going to church for a long time as he had been working and staying
different places. The Bishop explained to him what he had to do and he got discouraged and didn't want to wait so we was married at Idaho Falls, Idaho by Stake President David Smith in his home. Morris's best friend Joe Farnsworth and his girl friend Ada Jean Southwick and my Mother went with us. Married Dec. 19, 1942 in Idaho Falls, Bonneville, Idaho.
We had a wedding reception and dance at the Ucon High School gym with a orchestra, it was a lot of fun. Lots of people came and we got many many presents. We rented a house in Ucon because that is where he was working in the spud house.
The following spring Morris's folks bought a place at St. Ignituis, Montana so we decided to move up there. When we left Mom felt really bad and cried, she didn't think we should go. We had a 1929 Model A Ford Pickup which Morris had bought in Ogden the summer before for $25.00. No heater and on Monida pass the snow was so deep we couldn't go, so we had to set and wait for a snow plow to come.
We rented and 80 acre farm and farmed with horses, and milked cows by hand. We received a small cream check and with that and pheasants and strawberries plus we had a few chickens, we got along. My folks came to see us and brought some of moms good canned fruit and vegetables. I got really homesick, as that was the first time I had been away from home very long. It was really good to see them. Our furniture consisted of a cedar chest of mine, a bed and orange crates for dressers and cabinets.
Morris's two sister and husbands Elsie and Elmer Taylor with four small children, and Mary and Merle Lewis also moved to Saint Ignituis and lived on farms near us.
We went to the St. Ignituis Ward where I worked in the Primary and made many friends.
In l943 October 8 Elsie's husband Elmer died and left her with four small children.
We then all moved back to Idaho. We rented a small house in Ucon and Morris got a job in the spud house that winter. My brother Dearold worked there too.
On January 9, 1944 our first child a son Davar was born . He was a lot of company for me while morris worked. We just had a wood and coal cook stove to keep warm. One night it got so cold and the fire went out. I got up and fixed it and poured a little fuel oil on it and boom it started alright and blew black soot all over the house. Davar was asleep in the bassinet and he looked like a black baby. Boy did I ever learn a lesson from that.
In the spring we moved a ways out of Idaho Falls on a farm and worked at farming and feeding cattle for Byron Telford, who had a big feed lot. The other couple that lived and worked there too was Don and Georganna Hymas, we became real good friends with them. Years later after we had moved to Hamilton, Montana when we would go to Idaho Falls we would go by Moore Idaho and see them.
In 1945 Morris was drafted and went into the Navy. We moved a small two room house by my folks place and Davar and I lived there. While he was in San Diego my folks took Davar and I to see him, that was when we bought Davar the navy suit like Morris's and the picture we took of them in their suits, we still have.
It was so lonesome without Morris at home, but thank goodness my family was close. My brother Dearold and his wife Lavon had a small home over n the other side of the folks. I was grateful for the church and working in the Primary. Morris went to boot camp at San
Diego and then served on a APA troop transport the USS Sandova. Going to the Phillipines, Japan, Hawain Island and the Marshal Islands. When he came back to San Francisco, I went where he was and left Davar with my folks. We both got so lonesome to see him, I got a job in Wooworth's for a few weeks. The night they said the war was over Morris put me on the train to go home. He came later and was released with an Honorable Discharge on October 1, 1946. The war was over.
We went back to work for Telfords and moved to Howe, Idaho on his farm. No electricity, a wind mill pumped our water. We ate a lot of sage hens, antelope and fish. No church to go to there, so Morris, Davar and I went fishing on Sunday.
In 1947 Telford built a large potato warehouse in Big Lost River Valley at Moore, Idaho, so he moved two one room houses there for us to live in. Morris worked at the potato warehouse, and my brother Dearold and Lavon moved out by us and Dearold worked there too, as well as Don and Gorganna Hymas.
In l948 we moved back to Ririe, Idaho and rented the Oren Lee farm of 140 acres. We lived there two years, we milked cows and raised grain and hay. Our landlord was 87 years old., he lived in one side of the house and we lived in the other. One morning we found him dead sitting on the old wood box outside the kitchen. His brother Frank Lee was about 80 years old and he lived down in the field on Willow Creek, he came up to the house and shook Oren and said "I guess he is up there telling the good Lord what to do."
While we was there Morris went to the church to a Temple preparation class to prepare to go to the temple. We was sealed in the Idaho Falls Temple November 10, 1948. Davar was four years old and he looked so sweet and innocent with his blonde curls and dressed all in white. When they brought him to the Sealing room it made me want to cry.
Our first daughter Valene was born while we lived there July 13, 1949. That fall Morris was helping dear old get his potatoes out and we had an awful thunder and lightening storm. I was in the kitchen with Davar and the lightening hit the log chain on a tire swing in the front of the house. It riddled the tire and came up the sidewalk into the house. Broke the big front window and set the curtain on fire. I thought the World had come to an end the kitchen floor seemed to roll and it was so scary. I ran to get Valene in her bassinet, she was alright and then put the fire out. When Morris came home it was dark and we had no electricity or phone. He sure wondered what had happened.
That winter was a terrible winter, the snow was in drifts as high as the telephone poles. We had a cistern we put water we hauled from the folks place to run the house. We ran out of water so Morris hooked the team up to the sleigh with the big 1000 gal tank on it and went through the field to my folks for water, on the way back he got nearly to the house and tipped the sleigh, water and all over . The highway going to Ririe was closed for two weeks before they got it plowed out.
That next spring we moved closer to Ririe, renting the Carlyle place. We raised potatoes and grain, the crops was good, but the price of spuds had dropped to 60 cents a hundred for no 1's. We would have been better off to have left them in the ground. Consequently it took what we made on the grain crop to pay the expenses for the potato crop. We had little left.
Morris's folks bought 130 acres on Highway 93 out of Hamilton, Montana in the Bitterroot Valley so in March Harold Cook and Morris took a trip to Montana. There was lots of snow and cold when they left here, but in the Bitterroot Valley they were working in the fields. They thought it was great. Harold and Jean bought a farm south of Hamilton. We moved up on the farm with Morris's folks on Thanksgiving Day 1950. His folks lived in one end in two rooms and we lived in the old log house part of the house there.
It wasn't very long until we decided we had to find work to make a living. The soil was so different from Idaho, if you was lucky the water would run only about 100 feet on our place. In l952 Morris went to work for the Soil Conservation in Hamilton. H snow survey eyed in the winter and engineering work in the summer. Davar and I tried to keep the irrigating going and we hayed after Morris got home from work. Grandpa Gardner put in a big garden of raspberries strawberries and corn. Every summer we picked and picked and sold them to help out.
In 1955 his folks decided to go back to Idaho, so they sold us the place. We tore down the old building and Grandpa Gardner and his brother Ezra built us a new house. It seemed so good, we even had a laundry room. That next summer when my folks came up the bought us a new automatic washer and dryer.
We went to Hamilton to church, where they had a Branch. There was a branch in Stevensville and one in Darby Grant Patten was the branch President. We became good friends with he and Margaret. I worked in the Primary and later was President when Davar and Valene was small.
On April 17, 1956 a son Kevin Jay was born in Hamilton, Montana.
In 1960 we started a consignment auction barn in Hamilton, Gardner's Auction Service. we branched out into SBA sales, real estate, doing benefit auctions for schools, churches, clubs and the museum. I helped Morris haul furniture and things in the evening because he worked at the Soil Conservation all day.
Our 2nd daughter Vicki Lyne was born January 26, 1960 in Hamilton, Montana. I would take her to the auction's and put her in the bassinet by me while I clerked. She was a good baby, to be able to do that. Morris's sister Elsie would come to visit and she would put little ringlets in her hair. At first she had very little hair, but later more blond curls.
In the summer Valene and I would get up early to pick raspberries to sell and we put Vickie in a playpen out in the garden to play or sleep. No wonder Valene didn't like to pick raspberries when she got older.
In 1962 we sold the farm on Hiway 93 and rented a house by the grade school in Corvallis, Montana. Kevin started 1st grade there. We then bought 409 acres on Black Lane road, three miles from Hamilton. We had a house, garage and shed built. Raised hay and pasture for calves. We had a big garden with lots of corn and raspberries. A few years later Morris plowed it all up and put grass in, he said every time he wanted to go on a trip, I had to weed, pick or put up raspberries or corn. When Rod and Valene bought a piece of ground by us and put a house on it, they planted three rows of raspberries and I picked those a lot of the time. In l999 he took his out and Thad their son came over and he said Grandma what do you think of Dad getting rid of the raspberries. He really liked them too. I always made freezer raspberry and strawberry jam and supplied the grandchildren with jam when they came.
In 1956 they started a Branch of the church in Corvallis, renting an old building. We had to clean it, going and sweeping the cigarette butts up and getting rid of the beer bottle the day before. We used the upstairs part while the members did all kinds of projects so we could by ground for a new building. Morris was the branch secretary for two years. Our kids went to Corvallis schools and all graduated there. We soon had a new Chapel just south of Corvallis. I worked in the MIA presidency. The year Vicki was born I was Beehive teacher, and the girls made a baby quilt for Vicki. I worked as Relief Society
Presidency and secretary for many years. We went to Missoula to Stake meetings and conferences.
We have gone to church their the rest of the years. It is now 2004.
In 1970 we bought a 481 acre ranch at Francois Lake in British Columbia, Canada. My sister Arla and her husband Milton Gardner 9sisters married brothers0 lives lived there just a short distance from our place. Our place had a one room house on it. So we had Milton build a house on it, but never finished the inside completely when we sold it and 160 acres of the ground. We had many years, about 20 of going up there for a week or two each year taking friends and going fishing. Lots of Natives lived around us there. We later sold the rest of the ground to Milton and Arla. They are still up there, but moved across Francois Lake and build a new home in 1995. They are closer to church and town of Burns Lake. We still like to go almost every summer and see them.
In the 30 years of auctioning we went to nearly every Montana Auctioniers Conventions and the Nqational conventions all across the United States. We enjoyed them very much. The last few years we didn't get to the National conventions, our health isn't that great. I have Arthritis , Macular Pucker and Glaucoma on one eye so my eyesight isn't very good. Morris had a heart attack in 1974, then diabetes, prstate cancer and the radiation for that.
Dad passed away in May 1989, he was 89 years old.
Our son Davar and his wife Vicky have Gardner's Auction in Kalispell, Montana. They have four boys and 1 girl. Their oldest, Todd, went on a mission to Scotland and when he was released his parents and both sets of Grandparents and his sister Tonia went on a trip over there and he came back with us. He now is in the auction business with his dad.
Kevin and his wife Lynda have Gardner's Auction in Missoula. They have three sons. Adam, Christopher and Landon
Randy and our daughter Vickie have three boys and one girl, Randy works with Kevin at the Missoula auction.
Rod and our daughter Valene live by us and own and work at Rod's Auto and Align in Hamilton. They have a daughter Tara, married Sven Krause and a boy Nicholas and live at Pensicola Florida. Sven is in the Air Force. A son Thad and wife Julie live in Tacoma, Washington. He is a captain in the air Force.
This year 2004 we have 14 grandchildren and 13 great grandchildren.
Morris passed away March 3, 2005
Arthella passed away August 15, 2011Arthella's ObituaryRuby Arthella Ferguson Gardner was born July 12 1923 at Milo, Bonneville, Idaho, to Ruby Luella Lords and Jesse Leo Ferguson. Arthella was the second child in a family of 6 children. Her baby sister, Renae, passed away at a year old with pneumonia. She grew up on a farm in Milo. Her Dad raised wheat, hay and potatoes. They milked cows, had chickens, pigs, horses and a band of sheep. Mom's family didn't have electricity until she went to high school. She remembers her folks remodeled the pantry and put the bathroom there and how great that was not to head out back to the bathroom! In grade school she remembers walking to school but when the snow came her Dad had a sleigh and horses so they would cover up with quilts to keep warm as they rode to school. I think this is where her love of quilts first started. Every fall school would be let out so the kids could pick the potatoes during harvest time. Mom made money for school clothes picking up the potatoes. They always had chores to do and Mom and her sister Arla scrubbed and washed the kitchen and porch floors every Saturday. In the summer they would get up at 5 o'clock and pick raspberries at a place where they got a percent of what they picked to take home and can. Planting and picking raspberries is something that Mom loved to do and continued with this the rest of her life. Valene remembers all too well getting up early during the summers and picking raspberries with Mom to sell them for money and just last week she told me that as she was picking I would be playing in the playpen it really annoyed her that I wasn't old enough to help…Things like this happen when you are the youngest in the family! The year Mom was a senior at Ucon high, she met Morris Gardner and his family who had just moved to Ucon. They dated that year and then
on Dec. 19th 1942 they were married at the Stake Presidents home in Idaho Falls. She talked about her wedding reception and the dance that they had in the Ucon high school gym with an orchestra and how fun the night was. In the spring of 43 Mom and Dad decided to move to Montana where Dad's folks had bought a place in St. Ignituis. Mom said her Mother really felt bad and cried when she left and didn't think they should be moving to someplace like Montana. I could see why as Mom went on to explain that Dad had bought a 1929 Model A Ford pickup for $25.00. It had no heater and on Monida pass the snow was so deep it wouldn't go and they had to sit and wait for a snow plow to come and they nearly froze! To hear Mom talk about her time in St. Ignituis it must have seemed like a long time on that 80 acre farm they lived on and the cows they milked by hand and all the pheasants and strawberries they ate as they only had a bed and orange crates for dressers and cabinets but it was actually only less than a year and then they picked up and moved back to Idaho. On January 9th their first son Davar was born. Mom said he was a lot of company for her while Morris worked. They just had a wood and coal cook stove to keep warm. One night it got so cold and the fire went out. She got up and fixed it and poured a little fuel oil on it and BOOM it started alright and blew black soot all over the house. Davar was asleep in the bassinet and she said that he looked like a little black baby. For those of you who know Arthella really well this is especially funny! In 1945 when my Dad was drafted into the Navy he moved Mom into a little house by her parents so she wouldn't be alone. In 1948 they moved to Ririe and worked on 140 acre ranch it was this
year that they went to the Idaho Falls Temple to be sealed as a family with Davar. While they lived on this farm their first daughter Valene was born . Dad's folks bought 130 acres on highway 93 right out of Hamilton, On Thanksgiving day in 1950 Mom and Dad moved back to Montana but this time it was in the Bitterroot Valley. In 1955 Grandma and Grandpa Gardner decided to move back to Idaho and they sold the place to Mom and Dad. Mom said it was then that they tore down the old buildings and Grandpa Gardner and his brother Ezra built them a new house and it even had a laundry room! In April 1956 a son Kevin was born and in 1960 Mom and Dad started Gardner Auction Business in Hamilton. Mom helped haul furniture in the evening because Dad worked for the Government Soil Conservation during the day. This same year their second daughter Vickie was born and Mom wrote that she took me to the auctions and put me in a bassinet by her while she clerked and she said I was a good baby to be able to spend so much time in a playpen. I am sure that I was. In 1962 they sold the farm on hiway 93 and bought 40 acres on Black Lane 3 miles from Hamilton. They had a house, garage and shed built and raised hay and pasture for cows. Of course Mom had a big garden with lots of corn and raspberries to pick. At this house I didn't get out of work as much anymore and that made my sister really happy. But it seemed that just when I was old enough to really help, Dad decided to plow it all up and plant grass because he said that every time he wanted to go on a trip Mom didn't want to go because the berries were on or the corn was ready to harvest so he fixed that! The best part was that Mom felt so bad about not having raspberry bushes that she asked Rod to plant her 3 rows at his house! I am not thinking that Valene was very happy about that!
In 1970 they bought a 481 acre ranch at Francis Lake in British Columbia. Mom made it perfectly clear to Dad she wasn't going to live there but she would visit in the summers. She loved going there to visit with her sister Arla and my Dad's brother Milton. They fished and had great memories of doing this for 20 years. In the 30 years of auctioning they went to nearly all the auctioneer conventions Mom especially enjoyed this because she could shop while Dad went to the meetings. And boy, could my Mom shop! She loved to sew and quilt she would do it all day everyday if she thought she could. She made many beautiful quilts for all of her children and grand children. She made beautiful dresses. This was especially fun since she only had 3 granddaughters and 11 grand sons! One time Kendra had cut her dress at primary using some scissors and I told her that her dress was ruined she should have been more careful and she just kind of shrugged it off and said its ok Grandma will fix it. I told her no it is right in front and it won't look good. Well ..we gave it to Grandma and when we got it back you couldn't even tell where she cut it. And Kendra said see…..I told you she was good! Mom taught us how to work, how a penny makes a dollar I can still remember cleaning Kevin's room with her (why was I cleaning your room?) and Kevin found a penny on the floor and threw it in the garbage can and Mom made him get it out and gave him a big lecture on without the penny you only have 99cents not a dollar. Funny the things you remember and they have an impact on your life. After Dad passed away and Mom moved to town it was quite an adjustment for her. She hadn't been in her house very long when she called me and said this is really scary here people walk in front of your house on the sidewalks! She started to like it more and more as she planted flowers, strawberry plants, trees and bushes. She also got
used to her new ward after being in Corvallis ward for almost 50 years. She was delighted to see some of her friends in her new Blodgett Canyon ward that had once lived in Corvallis. We are grateful for all of her friends and the love and support you have all shown her whether you were a friend for 50 years or one she had just met with her new journey that she was on for the last few months. We will be always be grateful to Aspen Hospice and their compassionate staff that found out just how strong willed our Mother really was. It even surprised us at the strength and endurance she had. I have a niece that grew up by her Grandma and Grandpa and is very compassionate and loyal when it comes to family as she made many trips back to see them and help no matter where she lived and when I asked her for a special memory she emailed this. Grandma's love was symbolized by special Christmas dresses, fresh-baked loaves of bread and commemorative quilts. It was in these ways, and numerous others, that she showed she cared. They represented her daily involvement in our lives. She was a fountain of smiles, patience, wisdom and love. She was more than my grandma. She was a confidant, a supporter, a teacher, an advisor, a friend. she leaves behind a family who knows what it means to be loved. Her loss leaves a void, but her life leaves us with a lifetime of special memories. She was more than a Grandma she was also a valiant Daughter, sister, wife, Mother and friend and we are eternally grateful for the memories and lessons she taught us all.