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.