Children of Ben and Ellen, by age
Ben was working as a clerk in a hotel in Blue Earth,
Minnesota when he met Ellen BeaMiller, a young lady from Wisconsin. She worked as a maid in the same hotel.
A short time later they married and Ben began working for
the Post Office.
The family lived in Blue Earth until 1908, when Ben left his
job at the post office and moved the family, Ellen and six children, to North Dakota where
he filed a homestead claim a few miles south of Crystal Springs. His
father and brother had moved there earlier and urged him to come.
At first Ben raised sheep, but as war loomed in Europe he
followed his neighbors in raising wheat to feed the armies. Wheat turned out to be one disaster after
another and eventually they lost the homestead and moved to the West Coast.
Ronald, born first, fought in WWI, where he was gassed. He came back and he and his father had
words. Ronald would not submit to the
old man’s domineering ways and short temper, and swore he would never be
whipped again. When the family moved
west Ronald moved to Mt Vernon, in northern Washington. He had a farm and a great number of
children. He came down to visit for his parent’s 50th wedding
anniversary, but was too ill to come down for Ben’s 100th birthday,
and died soon after. After grandma died one of his daughters, Susan, came down
to care for granddad. She left a short
time later.
Vera was a schoolteacher in North Dakota. She married a Mr Thomas, a socialist. They had five children. They moved to Springfield, Oregon. At some point Mr Thomas, according to my
dad, crawled out the bedroom window and hightailed it back to North Dakota, and
was last seen living on an Indian reservation.
Thelma married a man named Bill Briese. They moved to Battleground, Washington, where
they had a farm, and Bill worked for the aluminum company in Vancouver,
Washington during WWII and afterward.
They had one daughter.
Eleanor, or “Nonie,” married Owen Thomas, a brother of Vera’s husband, after
they left North Dakota. He was also something of a socialist. They settled in Springfield and raised three
children. The youngest daughter, Jackie,
was near enough to my age that we were friends growing up. Nonie was the oldest of the children who made
the car trip from North Dakota.
Cecil drove the old Ford touring car from the homestead in
North Dakota to Colfax, in Eastern Washington, where the nine remaining children
and Ben and Ellen lived for a few years before moving to Springfield. He married a woman named Mary, and they
raised three children. Dick was my age
and we sometimes played together growing up.
Cecil worked at the Booth Kelly mill in Springfield and drank too
much. There were stories of violent
behavior. When granddad was in his
seventies I heard him say he was going up and whip Cecil because he was drunk, but
it was only a threat.
Aldyce was a tomboy, leading the younger children in an
active lifestyle on the homestead, riding horses and playing sports with the
boys. She was rebellious and wild, and
left Springfield High School during her senior year and went to San
Francisco. She never moved back, and
eventually married Bill. She never had
any children. She and Bill lived in
Indiana and retired to Sun City, Arizona.
They visited Jane and me in Aspen.
Everett, my dad, was the first child born in North Dakota,
August 13, 1909. He grew up on the
plains, moved west with his mother and eight siblings, Cecil driving them all, packed into a Ford touring car, open topped, with their few belongings tied to
the sides and back. He graduated from
Springfield High School in 1929 with a
number of athletic awards. Like many
star athletes before and after, he thought the glory would never end, and
neglected his studies. He struggled for
work during the Depression, finally becoming head of maintenance at Chase
Gardens Nursery. Like most of his
brothers and sisters he liked to drink and dance; when he was 27 he met Lois Abercrombie at a dance in Vida, a
small town outside Eugene and married her a few months later, June 5, 1937. They had a son, Nick, born April 29, 1938, and 13 years later a
daughter, Cynthia. Everett had joined
the Army National Guard in the mid 30’s, and served with the 41st
Infantry Division in WWII in New Guinea, 1st Sgt with the HQ Company. When he was demobilized in 1944 he worked for
Chase Gardens again until the steamy environment of the greenhouses reactivated
the malaria he had contacted in the jungle warfare. He then worked for Georgia Pacific in the
plywood mill. When I was 21 and going
into the Navy he sold the house in Eugene and bought a 98 acre spread near
Goshen where he raised cattle.
Freeman was born within a year of Everett and the two were
inseparable for most of their lives.
Everett married Irene Opie (?) and they had three children. The two oldest, Skip and Patty were my
favorite Squires cousins. Irene was very
active in the Springfield parks department, responsible for the WillamaLane
swimming pool and activity center. She
then worked at the UofO, history dept office.
Lela was part of the group of children led by Aldyce who
spent their summer days in North Dakota keeping track of the small herd of mild
cows, riding horses and playing baseball.
After high school she followed Aldyce to San Francisco, where she
eventually met Ralph Stelzreid, a merchant seaman. They married and bought a four story
apartment house on Hays Street near Golden Gate Park and had three children,
Jack, Judy, and a third son Rick, born late,
about my sisters age. Jack died
in his twenties.
Fay married Jack Williams.
They had three children, Danny, Diane, Jeanie and Rita.
Danny died quite young.
Bruce married, moved to Baker, Oregon, where he had a farm,
worked for the post office, and had three children. The oldest was Peggy, about my age.
Lorraine was last born. She was a babe in arms during the car trip to
Colfax. She married a log truck driver
named Prociw who died in a terrible accident loading his log truck a few years
later, leaving her with two boys, Dennis and Billy and a girl, Nancy. She never remarried. She was the last to die, in 2013.
They liked to drink and dance and have fun, and they all
lived well into active old age. Vera was
in a bowling league in her nineties.
They were a tough old bunch.
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