Merry Christmas Everyone

and to all a Happy New Year!

from Leslie

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AUNT LESLIE, JIM AND KEN

Wanted to wish Aunt Leslie a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY and while doing that I see that Ken and Jim are having birthdays, also.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY to you as well.

Love Naomi and Jim

Happy Birthday!

To Jim and Ken

I am honored to share my birthday with both of you  -  Leslie

Winter Blog, 2009/2010

How's your Winter? What's up with you?

August Rush

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Action & Adventure

2007. Rated PG. A very interesting movie. A boy uses his prodigious musical gifts to find his parents, unaware that they have begun a similar journey to find him.

New member

We finally got a new member! Welcome to Sara. 

Happy Halloween

Hi gang, I'm wishing you all a happy Halloween with my favorite photo of my sister Della Ann Binder. I'll always miss her. We made this scary man together & sat him in her window by the front door. Some of the kids thought he was real until they got inside. They didn't want to take the candy from his bowl.  Enjoy the spooky day!  Leslie

Happy Birthday Jan!

Dear Jan, we are all

Sent with much love, from Leslie

Big excitement on this old farm

Last week-end was unusual on our old dead-end country road. We kept noticing giant trucks kicking up lots of dust as they went up the hill past our house. They went to a new partially built home up on the hill above us. Not much building has gone on there for months. We thought the people had given up on finishing the home.

Then after it got dark we noticed smoke surrounding the home for hours. There were lots of bright lights and we could see people around the house so we figured if it was on fire there was help already there. Boyd finally decided that they had an enormous bonfire in their back yard perhaps burning wood scraps. Finally the smoke cleared up. All night long the big trucks came back down the hill, passing our house and stirring up more dust. I got little sleep.

Now the neighbors tell us that they were making a movie up there starring Antonio Banderas. I guess it's called "The Big Bang". The last time there was this much excitement in our neighborhood was when our barn was shown in a political commercial many years ago. I'm still trying to catch up on my sleep.

Happy Birthday Josh

J O S H,

I started planning the best birthday party ever  . . .

with


balloons

and

cake

and


music

and


fireworks

and



presents


. . . but I fell asleep



so I'll just wish you a VERY



with 

from

Grandma Wood

Family Celebration

November 1969 - Allen, Binder, Covey, Erlandson, Winters family members, plus Florence (Allen) Mikesell, and grandma Binder. Home movies taken by Eddie Binder at the Binder home in Spokane.

ca 1977, home movies of the talented Winters sisters.

Home movies taken by Eddie Binder.

1947 home movie, Mikey, Della Mikesell Binder, others

1947 home movie, filmed by Eddie Binder. Toddler Mike (Walsh) Binder, Della Mikesell, Leslie Mikesell, some Allen and Mikesell relatives, Bud and Grace (Allen) Wells, Clide Allen, Lucille (Mikesell) Bressler at her ranch in the Teton Mountains. Pat and Grandma Binder.

Happy Birthday Sheryl

SHERYL

  With Love, Mom

Life explained

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Life Explained

On the first day, God created the dog and said: "Sit all day by the door of your house and bark at anyone who comes in or walks past. For this, I will give you a life span of over twenty years.

The dog said: "That's a long time to be barking. How about only ten years and I'll give you back the other ten?"

So God agreed.

On the second day, God created the monkey and said: "Entertain people, do tricks, and make them laugh. For this, I'll give you a twenty-year life span."

The monkey said: "Monkey tricks for twenty years? That's a pretty long time to perform. How about I give you back ten like the Dog did?"

And God agreed.

On the third day, God created the cow and said: "You must go into the field with the farmer all day long and suffer under the sun, have calves and give milk to support the farmer's family. For this, I will give you a life span of sixty years."

The cow said; "That's kind of a tough life you want me to live for sixty years..How about twenty and I'll give back the other forty?"

And God agreed.

On the fourth day, God created humans and said; "Eat, sleep, play, marry and enjoy your life. For this, I'll give you twenty years."

But the human said: "Only twenty years? Could you possibly give me my twenty, the forty the cow gave back, the ten the monkey gave back, and the ten the dog gave back; that makes eighty, okay?"

"Okay," said God, "You asked for it."

So that is why for our first twenty years we eat, sleep, play and enjoy ourselves. For the next forty years we slave in the sun to support our family... For the next ten years we do monkey tricks to entertain the grandchildren... And for the last ten years we sit on the front porch and bark at everyone.

Life has now been explained to you.

There is no need to thank me for this valuable information. I'm doing it as a public service.


[From "The Growers' Guide", Sept 2009]

Some Memories, by Wayne Winters

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~S~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Some Memories of the Al Winters Family

By Wayne Norman Winters, son of Al and Hazel (Page) Winters

Written in 1987

I was born June 13, 1927  in Vale Oregon in a little unpainted house about two blocks from the railroad. At the time my dad was working for the Vale Grain and Feed Company.

My first recollections were later, when we lived in a big white house next to a coal shed by the railroad. It. was a BIG house. I believe it was a seven bedroom house when dad bought it. I remember we had a root cellar not very far from the back porch where the pump was. So we did have indoor plumbing even if it was just a shallow well with a hand pump, on the back porch.

In the 1930's, dad started the Vale transfer, a trucking business. The logo said "THE WORLD MOVES AND SO DOES THE WINTERS TRANSFER." Dad did alright for awhile. We had three trucks at one time and of course, we had a telephone. I remember mom answering the phone, thinking it was dad calling, said "There is nobody home but Hazel and she is a nut." Was her face red when she found out it was not dad on the other end of the line.

Dad would haul anything or move anything, from pianos to turkeys. He used to haul a load of sugar out and a load of turkeys back. The sugar was supposed to be for honey bees but I believe most of it went for bootleg whiskey.

I don't remember what year it was, but dad decided to remodel the house. We ended up with three bedrooms, bathroom, kitchen and a large dining room, living room combined. We used to hold dances in the dining room and living, room. To me they seemed huge! I remember dancing square dances when I was five or six years old.

Mom was very nice to me. Every time I was going to run away from home, she used to pack my lunch in a red bandanna. I would put it over my shoulder on a stick and walk down the railroad for about a fourth of a mile, eat my lunch and come home. I did that a lot. I guess mom liked it because it got the littlest one out from under foot for an hour or so. I was about four or five.

Dad had a big truck. He called it the big Graham. I believe the manufacturer was Dodge Graham Paige. Anyway it was probably a ton and a half or two ton truck. We used to go out to the Owhyee River in it and have the bed of the truck made up into beds. That's where we would sleep after the dances and potluck dinners.

I recall one time we were at mom's brother's place (Ralph Page) and they had a lot of sheep and goats. Lyle Page (moms other brother) had a tent that he slept in and us boys, Ray Winters, Winfield Page, Archie Page and myself, used to tease this big Billy goat, then run and jump in the tent. He would stand and stomp his feet, lower his head and butt at the flap of the tent. One time we were a little slow and old Billy came right in after us. We sure put up a howl, bawling and throwing Lyle's shoes at that Billy goat. We never teased him anymore.

Digging the cellar under the house was something else. We had a two horse scraper or as we called it, a slip. Mom did not know how to drive a truck but she could not run the slip so she would get in the truck, back it up and dad would set the slip. Then he'd yell for mom to go ahead. She would and sometimes with such a jerk it would flip the slip and come out from under the house with out anything in it except blue smoke. Dad sure didn't like those fast starts!

When Eva Hazel Winters was born, Max was sent for the doctor, but dad delivered Eva before the doctor could get there. Then he came and got me out of bed, as it was about six or seven o'clock in the morning. So I was the first one of the kids to see her. She sure was a pretty baby.

In the winter of 1935 dad leased a bunch of cattle and a ranch on the Owyhee River. We only lived there five years, but those five years were very impressive on me. It was there that I learned to ride and rope. I was thirteen years old when we left the Owyhee. By then I had learned every way there was to get off of a horse, fall, scraped off, over the head, over the tail, over the left side and the right side. I also learned to stitch pretty well.

In 1940 we moved to Little Valley, seven miles from Harper Oregon. We lived in a one room shack, eight feet wide and twenty feet long. By this time Leora was married and Max was in the Army Air Corps so there were only seven of us staying in that place. Hershel was off working most of the time, and Mike was a baby.

In the early spring of 1941 dad bought the old Ben Schloupe place on Cottonwood Creek, located five miles south of Harper. That is where I lived until I married Thelma Mikesell.

In November 1944 Buster Sevey, Winfield Page and I went to Portland Oregon where my Aunt Clara Garver got me a job in the shipyard, Willamette Iron and Steel Corporation. It was a navy yard and I went to work as a helper for sheet metal mechanics. In December mom and dad came to Portland and mom went to work as a sweeper and dad went to work as a shipwright.

Mom and I earned $1.04 an hour and dad made $1.32 an hour. We couldn't believe all that money. In February 1945 I bought bus tickets and we all went to Atwater California to visit Max and Margie. The Greyhound buses were sure crowded. We went back to Portland and worked till April. Then we sent mom by train to Ontario and dad and I drove a 1936 Chevy pickup back to the ranch.

It was not long after that I was drafted into the Army. Max, Hershel, Ray and myself were all in the service, Max, Air Force; Hershel, Signal corps; Ray, Infantry; and I in the Infantry. Hershel spent his time or most of it in Hawaii on the island of Oahu. Max and Ray spent their service time in the states. Later Mike put in two years in the Army Infantry in the states.

I was sent to the South Pacific in February 16, 1946 on board the U.S.S. Marine Devil *. I was one of 2700 men aboard a ship that was supposed to carry 2000. So we were really close together. We ran into a bad storm the third day out. By then there were a lot of sick men so the Captain of the ship ordered the holds cleaned and everybody to go out on deck. Fourteen of us climbed up into the forward gun tub and were watching the water break over the bow of the ship. The next thing I knew, we were under water. There were just seven of us left in the tub. Two washed overboard and we lost them. I was over the side of the ship but I held on to the elevator handle that brings up the ammo. It was a good thing that handle was there or I would not have been able to write this.

Other items of interest:
Al and Hazel Winters spent one winter in Canada at Peace River Landing on the Peace River. Hazel said she would run around in the snow with her slippers on and not get her feet wet as it was -60 degrees and the snow was dry. They lived in a floored tent.

About 1917 in Kellogg Idaho, Hazel would tend bar and Al worked in the mine and George Winters, his dad, worked in the smelter. Hazel said that Leora would go behind the bar and drink the dregs out of the beer bottles.

When Al Winters was six years old an older boy dared Al to look through a crack in the barn. Then the boy threw his knife and hit Al in the right eye causing heavy scar tissue, which blinded that eye. Hazel was always afraid that one of us boys would lose our right eye because of George and Al losing their right eyes.

http://capefearww2.uncwil.edu/voices/ronningen002.html  - USS Marine Devil info *: "It was a banana boat owned by United Fruit Company, converted to haul troops. If you haven't been on one of those, our bunks were pipe frames with canvas slung between them. Roughly seven feet by two feet. They were about 7 or 8 high but there was only about 18" maximum between the layers. On your bunk, you had not only you, but your barracks bag, your rifle, your helmet, your overcoat and everything you owned. Ventilation could have been better. The guy on the top was right under a ventilator and he almost froze and the guys on the bottom could chew the air." 

Wayne recalled that he was only in the hold, bunking with the other men, for 3 days. Then, because of falling over the side of the ship, he and another man were put into the hospital part of the ship, where he spent the last 21 days of the journey. When the men left the ship at Hawaii, Wayne was overlooked and went on to Korea with the ship. Because they thought he was AWOL he did not get any mail or pay for three months.

Hazel and Al Winters with grandchildren Anita, Jan and Debbie Winters

Excerpts from a 1964 newspaper article when Al and Hazel (Page) Winters celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary:

"The Winters were on the Owyhee river at Watson, Oregon prior to the time the Owyhee dam was built and flooded over the farming area there.

Mrs. and Mrs. Winters were married at Caldwell, Ida., September 11, 1914 in the old Owyhee hotel. They lived in the Watson area until 1924 when they moved to Vale and operated a trucking business for some time.

In 1934, the family moved to a cattle ranch on Spring Creek where supplies had to be taken in on horses. They lived there five years.

In 1942 the family moved to Harper to the Cottonwood ranch where they resided until they retired in 1959.

The Winters have seven children [Leora; Max; Hershel; Ray; Wayne; Eva; Mike], 35 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren."

Roswell Cemetery, Roswell, Canyon County, Idaho 

Winters photo album

"My Life", by Thelma Mikesell Winters

findagrave.com Memorial pages for Wayne's parents

 

Carlos William Allen, family

Cropped from photo of Carlos with older sister Florence. Click on "Slideshow" to enlarge.

Family of Carlos William Allen and Nellie (McDowell) Allen. Young Carlos also has his own family album here.

The "Zoom In" Link has been replaced by the "Slideshow" link. The Slideshow is now where you can zoom in on all photos in the album you're viewing. After you open the Slideshow, use the "Settings" to choose how large you want photos to appear.

1995 Allen/Mikesell Family Newsletter

This newsletter was passed out at our annual picnic in Spokane Washington. Also mailed to interested family members.

The "Zoom In" Link has been replaced by the "Slideshow" link. The Slideshow is now where you can zoom in on all photos in the album you're viewing. After you open the Slideshow, use the "Settings" to choose how large you want photos to appear.

Leslie's birthday

Start:

Nov 21, '09

Thoughts On My Life by Betty Lou Mikesell Erlandson

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thoughts On My Life by Betty Lou Mikesell Erlandson

(Taken from an audio cassette tape Betty recorded 14 Nov. 1975.)

Ernie, Betty and Cap, at the Black Bear Coal Mine near Driggs, Idaho

I've been thinking about my life before, when I was small.  I can't remember much before starting school when I was six.  A memory that must be the oldest one, I think, comes now in just sort of impressions. 

I was about three and there was Ernie and me in a car, maybe a truck.  We were both in the front seat.  There was an adult driving.  I'm sure it was a man.  We stopped to talk to someone, stayed in the vehicle talking and that person gave us some gum.  I remember how thrilled I was.  There was a lot to chew and I remember worrying about choking on it, but it was good.  Then we arrived somewhere.  There were adults laughing, but I was cold.  I remember being held by a woman with a warm chest and stomach.  I got sleepy. I believe that was when my younger brother Jimmy was born.  Mom said that Ernie and I stayed in another town with relatives and that one of them drove us home after Jim was born. 

Betty and Jimmy

Right after that we moved from the coal mining camp near Driggs, [Black Bear Coal Mine] where Jim and I were born, to Pocatello where my father began working in the railroad tie plant.  (Union Pacific)

I remember first a house next to a large pile of dirt.  It might have been dirt from a new outdoor toilet.  I remember playing on the dirt and getting spanked and scolded by my mother.  Another time I remember being spanked for jumping up and down on the bed.  I recall the fun of the jumping and the surprise and resentment of the punishment.

Soon we moved again and I remember a Halloween party at this other house, and how a ghost story was told that affected my sleep later.  I was afraid to go upstairs alone as long as we were living there and I never forgot that story.  It was one about going up stairs. He goes up one step. He goes up another step. He goes up three steps.  Any way it was scary!

The third and final house in Pocatello we moved into before I was six.  I remember it was said that I could pick any color I wanted for the walls of my bedroom.  I was so excited!  It took me a long time and I chose pink.  The walls were painted blue.  My mother preferred blue, I never liked that room, even later when it was painted pink.

I was excited about starting school and felt that I was a big girl.  Just before my birthday my sister Della Ann was born.  She was beautiful and oh so tiny, but my mother let me hold her.  I was to carry the dirty diapers to the back yard where a tub filled with water was ready to soak them.  This was the beginning of a particular job that continued everlastingly until I was almost sixteen.  My job was enlarged gradually to wringing out the dirty diapers from the soap, replacing the water, carrying them to the boiler on wash day, hanging out the clean cloths and when they were dry, folding them and putting them away.
 

At age nine my sister Thelma was born. I was old enough to diaper her.  The job became the ultimate in my diaper career when Leslie was born.  I was nearly thirteen and I was old enough to wash them all by myself.  I hated that, especially in the wintertime.  I did get a sort of wringer washing machine upon Mt. Kit Carson, where we moved just before Leslie was born.  The thing had a vertical handle mounted on the side, and we pulled it back and forth, back and forth, and that would make the agitator inside move, which would wash the clothes.  But the water had to be hauled and poured into it and then dumped out of it from buckets.  I remember we had a clothesline that was sort of circular and it was fun to hang the clothes on it.  I didn't mind that so bad.

1939, Betty and Jim watching over Leslie

I remember the train trip from Pocatello.  I didn't know about it until later but my mother and dad decided to come up to Washington, where my Aunt May (Mary Dean) lived.  I was so excited.  I was sort of scared because I hated to leave my friends.  I was just starting Mutual, in the Mormon Church, and I looked forward to that for so many years.  I was really upset about that.  We came on the train and I was a little sick at the stomach on the train.  My brother Jim threw up all over my mother who was pregnant with Leslie.  The porter was disgusted. 

 We arrived in Spokane, went to a little old place on Trent or Main avenue to eat some lunch.  Aunt May and her husband, Uncle Gilbert, came in and took us up to their place.  I remember going to sleep that night and listening to the coyotes.  Everything was so noisy.  I was a little bit frightened because I had never lived in timber, and this was deep timber way up on Mt. Kit Carson. 

 The next day was Jay (Dean) or Ernie's birthday.  They were a day apart.  We went on down in a day or two to this dump that we chose as a house.  It was cheap, had an oilcloth ceiling in the big living room, kitchen.  I had to scrub that and I drew a picture of my dad with his initials underneath.  I went to scrub it out but it left an impression all the while we were up there, no matter how hard I scrubbed.  Oh, my dad was mad!

It was a beautiful place to go down into the canyon or else go up the hill and sit in the apple tree and look over the whole countryside.  I would like to live there, myself now.  Not in that house of course, it's gone.  The walls were covered with newspaper.  The first few weeks I spent all my time reading the newspapers and magazines.  I remember a Tug Boat Annie story but I never could read all of it, because some parts were pasted facing the wall. I practically memorized parts of it.

I remember Rice's coming up after we moved there.  They were our friends in Pocatello and they came to visit us overnight.  We all slept on the floor on blankets.  We had some good times up there.  The crows, hawks, or eagles would come and we'd have to go get the gun.  My dad taught me to shoot the gun, so I could kill the hawks so our chickens wouldn't be taken.  We had to have them.  We nearly starved the first year we were up there until the garden got started.  We raised strawberries.  Somebody gave us some strawberries.  I was allergic to them.  Every time I picked them I broke out.  That saved a lot of work, but then I found work somewhere else to do.  Work! Work! Work!

I started school and I didn't like it.  It was a small school.  The kids were all used to each other and didn't know me and they didn't care to get acquainted easily and I was shy.  Then right after I started, Della Ann and Thelma got scarlet fever and we had to burn our books, I guess dad did, I couldn't.  I loved to read.  I would go down in the valley and find a little moss covered place and read and go for a walk, in the summer time.

We got to go to a community type church, way up at the schoolhouse, which was several miles straight up the mountain.  It was fun. Then the Reorganized Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter Day Saints started a mission there because there were some people nearby that did belong to that church, called the Loves. So the mission got pretty good, quite a few people.  That's where I came to know the doctrine of the church and the people.  I joined the church.  I came down to Spokane and was baptized, all of our family, in two different sessions.

RLDS Church where the Mikesell family were baptized

I remember being chased by a farmer's cow.  The dirty people who lived near us, I don't think I'll give their name, but they were filthy.  The woman was big, heavy and fat.  One time she got sick and she lay on the bed.  I cleaned up her bedroom, tried to sweep under the bed.  There were all kinds of things, a dead chicken under there, dirt and dust.  They wanted me to stay for lunch several times but all I would do is take a slice of wonder bread out of the bag.  They never baked.  They got their water out of a big drum out on the porch for cooking and drinking.  The cows and animals would get loose and come up on the porch and drink out of that thing.  I wasn't going to drink that water.

We got our milk from some people, who were real clean, but it wasn't pasteurized and I got a terrible cyst on my neck.  To this day it's a sore spot.  They took me into town.  I thought I would go to the hospital, but the county doctor did it in his office then sent me to the juvenile home for a week to recuperate.  It was cheaper than the hospital.  I'll remember that experience.  It's done a lot to help me go the straight and narrow way because I didn't want to go back there.  The children were so miserable, running away from home, getting into trouble.  Anyway, I've had a pretty good life."  [end of tape]

Betty evidently doesn't remember one of the worse things to happen to her in her life. At the time the Mikesell family was living in Alameda (now part of Pocatello), Bannock County, Idaho. From a saved old newspaper article we learn: "Betty, age three years, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Jeff Micksell of 415 Randolph, experienced an accident Sunday that could have easily resulted fatally. The family was traveling north on the Blackfoot road near Fort Hall, when Betty, who was alone in the rear of the car, unlatched the door and tumbled to the pavement while the car was traveling quite rapidly. She was brought to the Lynn Bros. hospital, and upon examination was found to have sustained nothing more than a number of bad body bruises and an injury to an eye."  The article was wrong. Later it was found that Betty had two broken ear drums and had trouble with her feet and back for the rest of her life.

Betty was a poet, short-story teller and playwright.  She liked to put her thoughts down in poem & story form, sometimes just on scraps of paper that were handy at the time inspiration came to her.  Other poems and stories were done for classes that she took at different times in her life, always striving to improve her writing.

On a scrap of paper Betty typed  "writing talent hidden in the family genes somewhere.  A member of my extensive family needs only to grasp a pencil and paper, look pensive and everyone crosses their fingers in hopes that maybe the right genes have appeared at last.  In 1939 I won $2.00 in a ditty contest and was praised by everyone.  In 1940 I had a literary love affair with Edward Lear and spent hours writing.  In 1942 I had some small success with poetry and that did it.  I love to write." 

In a letter Betty wrote:

"Your card yesterday reminded me of when I was thirteen & fourteen years old, living up on Mt. Kit Carson.  I would rise very early on fall mornings & quietly tiptoe out into the dawn, past the rabbit shed where I could hear their thumping, (calling for me to feed them) and went down into the draw behind the outhouse. 

In the shady draw I ran through a small area of thick pine trees.  The thin straight path among the trees was used by deer - It was cool there in the hot summer but now the hoar-frost took longer to melt, but when it did, the days of fall were heavenly.  I usually stopped to listen before I began climbing out of the trees & up the hill. Birds were everywhere with that wake-up song each song making a chatter & clatter.  I know that their song is understood by them - each to the other - but I wanted them quiet so I could hear what I was waiting for - the sound of my younger brother [Jim] following me. 

He was an early riser also & usually caught up with me before I left the trees. We never talked much but were happy to be together there.  We looked at the tiny purple-starred flowers on the forest floor and tried not to step on them.  Where the rising sun-rays caught them the flowers were covered with dew glittering in the sun.

    

At the top of the hill we would climb an old apple tree and sit & study the spread-out land below us - miles and miles of it - so majestic in the early morning calm.  Winding roads below promised adventure to us, low fields were gold blankets of wheat.  White farmhouses, cattle feeding, and, many times, deer grazing were all before us. 
    
In the far distance to the left we saw the city - big & scary when we chanced to be there but from the tree it looked very small.  On our right we viewed, way in the distance, broken-topped peaks (some with white hats) that showed us a strange land - Canada.

 We thought of it as a chaos of mountain behind mountain all bracing themselves for the heavy snows soon to fall. Closer below us, we laughed at bundled up farmers coming out of their houses heading hurriedly for their outhouses & barns.  We felt like Angels watching them unaware.  All the time in the tree we would be munching ripe apples so cool & crisp & good. 

Then we filled the bag I had carried with those wonderful Winesaps and others I don't remember.  We said goodbye to the far away mountains, to the town (just waking up) & the flowers below us blooming like a vast bluebell carpet.  We scrambled to home past an old rickety gate that sagged, sorrowing for the loss of it's yard & fence & house & owners long gone.  Soon we heard our dear daddy calling us to hurry with our chores.  Breakfast was ready and a school bus would soon come after us."

About Christmas Dec 25, 1947 at the Mikesell's [On Haven St., Spokane WA] Betty wrote:

"Early, Evan & I went over & after opening the gifts we just played around - Making records etc. until dinner. [Betty & Evan had a  recorder, that recorded on records, with a microphone that was usually passed around the family circle for each person to say something.]

Christmas 1954 at the Mikesell home

Ham was served with jello for dessert. Salad & potatoes & gravy were as usual good. Then we painted, colored & talked until four when Evan & I left. Mom, Dad & I recalled the previous Christmas's when although all the family was home we had nothing for Christmas.

 In 1941 we were separated, dad, Jim & I on Mt. Spokane & none of us received or gave a gift at all except the girls got some from the neighbors. No food in the house but we were all happy in the prospect of maybe future prosperity in a greater degree than ever before. Daddy was sick that year. [Florence & other children were in the Mikesell's, just-rented tiny home, on south Ferrall street in Spokane.]

Next year I hope Ernie & Jimmie can be home for Christmas." [Both Mikesell boys were in the service. Ernie enlisted 15 Oct 1942 in the Air Corps, at the age of 20, and Jim was in the Merchant Marines until he enlisted in the Army on the 12th of December 1945, having just turned 18. Perhaps he lied about his age to get into the Merchant Marines, he had quit school in the 11th grade but later went to college.]

ca 1944. Mikesell family

left: Edith [Ernie's wife]; Ernie; Della Ann; Thelma; Dad Jeff; Jim; Leslie [in front]; Mom Florence; and Betty. In front of Mikesell home, 424 S. Haven, Spokane WA.

Evan and Betty (Mikesell) Erlandson family photo album

Mikesell family photo album

Betty and Evans 50th Wedding Anniversary

Betty Lou Mikesell Erlandson by Thelma Mikesell Winters

Betty and Evan by Della Mikesell Binder

Memories I have of my sister Betty Lou Mikesell Erlandson
by Leslie Mikesell Wood