Land record weirdness

 I've been looking into my Craddock side lately, thanks to that mini-vacation I mentioned that got me thinking about my ancestors who worked as miners in Montana. I knew the Craddocks were miners, but that was about it, so I set out to learn more about them. 

I found records of some land transactions made by my ancestor James E. Craddock, who lived in Victor, Ravalli County, Montana for a number of years until his death in 1917. I'd seen some articles about his son Ernest buying leases for mines in the area, still don't know much of what that was all about (there's always more to learn about how our ancestors lived!) but then I started finding some land records for his father that left me a little confused. 

In the past, when I'd seen land transactions, they seller (grantor) would be selling the plot to the buyer (grantee) for a set amount. If the amount was $1, it was usually to pass the land to a relative legally without making them pay the full value of the property. What I found for James though defies this logic. Here's the timeline (all purchases and sales were for land in Victor, Montana): 

14 April 1909 - James bought two lots of land from George and Louise Watters for $1
22 April 1909 - James sold four lots of land to A.P. Williamson for $1
18 November 1910 - James bought three lots of land from the Victor Townsite Company for $120
28 March 1911 - James bought two lots of land from John and Rosealinda East for $1
11 November 1911 - James sold land (the lots he purchased from the Victor Townsite Co) to Jennie Martin for $1
23 August 1913 - James bought one lot of land from his son William for $500
19 November 1913 - James sold the lot he bought from his son to Pleasant Davis for $1
14 February 1914 - James sold the land he bought from the Easts in 1911 back to John East (but not his wife) for $1 

This leaves me with a number of questions: 

• Who are these people he bought from and sold to? I know A.P. Williamson, as he's related to my late Grandpa Jim Crawford, but he's not a blood relation to the Craddocks that I know of. The rest of them are strangers to me. 
• Why so many land transactions for just a dollar? Especially sales of land that he paid a lot of money for. 
• Did any of the earlier transactions have anything to do with his work as a constable? He served as a constable for Corvallis Township for a few years between 1904 and 1910 or so. 

I don't think my ancestor was guilty of any wrongdoing, I'm not trying to suggest that. I just don't know what these transactions mean exactly, and why there were $1 purchases and sales between individuals who were not related in any way that I know of. Veeeeery intersting. 

A possible answer to the never answered question: Why?

We took a mini vacation to Montana recently drove up Friday morning and came home Saturday afternoon. Since we moved to Idaho two years ago, I've been really looking forward to taking my kids to Butte, showing them some of the sights that are familiar to me, like the Berkeley Pit, the home of my grandpa Unc (Clarence Morris, my great-grandma Rosie's second husband), and others. While we were there, my dad showed us some of the sites related to mining, the industry that basically brought Butte into existence and provided labor for many of its residents, including some of my ancestors. That got me wondering if I could get some details on my ancestors' work in the mines there, maybe even identifying which mine they worked in. 

Fortunately, Butte city directories helped me find exactly that! The 1939 and 1942 directories included the names of the mines that miners worked in. My maternal great-grandfather Jim Harris is listed in both directories as a miner in the Belmont Mine. 

Belmon Mine, Butte, Montana in 1927, from StoryOfButte.org.

While going through the directories, I found that Jim and Edna Harris, my great-grandparents, lived for a few years at 610 1/2 S Montana, but around 1942, they moved to 609 Silver Bow Homes. I've never heard of Silver Bow Homes, and thought it might be a housing development or maybe an apartment complex or something. I went to Newspapers.com, and found something very interesting! 

There was an article from September 1942 about how Silver Bow Homes, apparently an outfit that rented homes to customers, approved a rent schedule with a reduced rent payment for men working in industries related to the war effort. The rent included light, heat, water, cooking fuel, and electrical refrigeration. Since mining definitely qualified as war-related, this may have been what induced him and his family to move there. I've documented dozens of moves in my family history, but this is the first time I've come close to identifying a specific "why" for someone in my family tree that I never got to meet in person. I tell my clients all the time that we may never really understand the why behind what they did, so this was a fun little gold nugget to find, and a great reminder that sometimes we do get at least a possible answer to the one question that almost never gets answered. 

In Memoriam: Randall Frederick "Hoot" Gibson

 A few months ago, on March 27, 2023, my uncle Randy "Hoot" Gibson passed away. He hadn't been sick very long, only a few months, when he was diagnosed with cancer. He fought it hard, and after only a few short months, he passed away. 

In the last decade or so, my dad's family has been dealt some pretty heavy losses - my cousin Jimmy Pushard in 2011, grandma Blossom in 2013, Para Fred in 2021, and now uncle Randy. In all cases, we didn't have a funeral, though we did have a family get together of some kind, and in the case of my grandparents, we had a big family memorial over the summer last year. I get that for the Gibsons, funerals just aren't their thing, but in a way I really wish they were. They really give a chance for closure, and just that sense of everyone getting to say goodbye together. But that's just my wish. 

I have too many memories of times with uncle Randy to pick one or even a few to start with. He and his family were the only relatives we had who lived in Washington for most of my growing up years, us in Federal Way and them down in Vancouver. One of my earliest memories is celebrating Christmas at their home when I was like 5. It was fun having everyone together like that. He served in the Navy during the Vietnam War, and worked/served in Navy for quite some time afterward. I remember going to his retirement from the Navy years ago, can't remember exactly when. But it was really something to hear all these people get up and talk about how much they admired uncle Randy and enjoyed working with him. 

He and my dad were avid Seahawks fans for years, and would take trips from Montana out to Washington to go watch Seahawks games, probably at the Kingdome (the best football stadium ever, in my opinion, though that doesn't mean much coming from someone who only watched sports like three times a year). 

He was one of the most genuinely happy guys I've ever met. Every family get together I would look forward to his loud, infectious laugh, his big happy grin, and a "Hey BJ!" from him. He, my dad, and Papa Fred went on a fishing trip together every summer, and I always thought that was a wonderful thing for them to do (not that I'm super into fishing or anything, but that they found a great way to just get away and spend time together). 

He and my aunt Sandy were devout Catholics, the only ones in our family. That came in handy when I found some Catholics in our famliy tree, and needed help understanding some of the religious experiences and events in their lives. One of the things I've always admired about my dad's siblings is that, even though they were all different religions, there was nothing but love between them when they got together. Don't get me wrong, there were bumpy times and hard times, but through it all, they stuck together and worked things out in a very admirable way. 

It's still hard to think he's actually gone, since I never got a chance to see him even sick or anything. But at least I know there will come a day when I'll get to see Uncle Hoot again, and hear that familiar laugh and give him a big, back-pounding hug. Goodbye for now uncle Randy, till we meet again. 

In Memoriam: William Andrew "Bill" Berstad

Two weeks ago, my mom's only brother, William "Bill" Bergstad passed away after courageously fighting stomach cancer for the last five years. I won't say he lost his fight with cancer, because he didn't. He fought with everything he had, he never lost his faith in God despite the pain and difficulty, and we saw miracle after miracle as he kept defying expectations and assumptions. 

Uncle Bill's funeral was this past Friday, and it was really touching to see how many people came. Of course we had a lot of family there, but there were many other people that he knew from the church he led, Set Free Ministries, people he worked with, and just dozens of others he had interacted or connected with in some way. 

Most of my early memories of him are of either visiting him in Spokane, riding one of the horses he owned (it was so huge, I was terrified, but Uncle Bill was so calm and patient), him coming to my baptism when I was 8, playing with his pet chihuahua Suzie, or marveling at his physical strength. When I was about 12, my parents added on an extra car space to our garage, and had bags of cement and other materials in our driveway. I was asked to bring one bag into the garagge, and could barely move it. Uncle Bill was visiting at the time, and saw me struggling. He came over, said something like "It's ok, I've got this" and picked it up with one arm, slung it over his shoulder like it was nothing, and brought it inside. 

The times I saw him over the years, he was always nice, always smiling, laughing with people, or making them laugh. He was just an easygoing guy, kinda loud sometimes, but not in a bad way. He was just letting you know he enjoyed his life. I could tell from the pictures he shared on Facebook how much he loved his kids and grandkids. It was so weird at the celebration of his life, I kept expecting to see him walk in, throw his arm around someone and start telling a joke. It was hard seeing Aunt Carol, my mom, my grandma, my aunt, and everyone missing him so much. But I could also picture him seeing so many of our family that are already on the other side of the veil - Levi, Grandma Edna, Grandpa Tom, Grandpa Jim, not to mention all of our ancestors going back through the generations. I hope he had a good welcoming party. 

God be with you (and with us) until we meet again, Uncle Bill.