In the late 1890's Irene's father Thomas Jefferson St Clair suffered a broken back some say in a Logging accident, 0thers say while attempting to fix a Wagon wheel. He ultimately ended up in a County Poor house in Spokane, Wash around 1898 and finally passed away in 1902. Her mother Marie Miller by now destitute had to give her up. At age year & 1/2 she went to live with the Rev Westheim & his wife -Pastor of a Lutheran Church in Spokane. She was raised by this family and was a girlhood friend of this writers mother, also a St Clair grand-daughter. Irene left her family at age 16 in 1913 and was living in dire circumstances in Tacoma,Wash. Her by then Step-father retrieved her from her plight & brought her back to Chico, Calif some 600 miles away, where she was re-united with her mother in abt 1914. The people at the Childrens Home Society that placed all of her siblings in homes back then took an Interest in her plight along with the Deputy City Auditor of the City 0f Spokane & were intrumental in locating her birth mother & what a Happy Re-union it no doubt was. She met & married Lucian Bell in the fall of that year and Samuel Gandy - her Step-father was a witness at her wedding on Sep 14, 1914. So now this Young lady finally had some happiness in her difficult life. Sadly after the birth of several children she passed away of Scarlet fever in 1923 & was laid to rest in this cemetery near family.
In the late 1890's Irene's father Thomas Jefferson St Clair suffered a broken back some say in a Logging accident, 0thers say while attempting to fix a Wagon wheel. He ultimately ended up in a County Poor house in Spokane, Wash around 1898 and finally passed away in 1902. Her mother Marie Miller by now destitute had to give her up. At age year & 1/2 she went to live with the Rev Westheim & his wife -Pastor of a Lutheran Church in Spokane. She was raised by this family and was a girlhood friend of this writers mother, also a St Clair grand-daughter. Irene left her family at age 16 in 1913 and was living in dire circumstances in Tacoma,Wash. Her by then Step-father retrieved her from her plight & brought her back to Chico, Calif some 600 miles away, where she was re-united with her mother in abt 1914. The people at the Childrens Home Society that placed all of her siblings in homes back then took an Interest in her plight along with the Deputy City Auditor of the City 0f Spokane & were intrumental in locating her birth mother & what a Happy Re-union it no doubt was. She met & married Lucian Bell in the fall of that year and Samuel Gandy - her Step-father was a witness at her wedding on Sep 14, 1914. So now this Young lady finally had some happiness in her difficult life. Sadly after the birth of several children she passed away of Scarlet fever in 1923 & was laid to rest in this cemetery near family.
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