From Leanna Annie Stoll Olson

My father left a diary in which he told of caring for the animals in the barn, growing up in the blizzards of North Dakota in which they had to tie a rope from the barn to house to feed animals. The summers were hot. He said during the Great Depression there was always lots of food.he remembered having a bull that weighed 2000# and it Sold for one penny a pound...$20. He remembered going to a one room school and teacher taught all eight classes. We walked to school or rode horse 2 miles to school. He said sports was baseball, hockey, horse racing, boxing and loving girls.
He worked in his older brother, Arts auto shop when he was younger and learned mechanics and then went into world war 2. He remembered crawling into Normandy in the mud and having to sleep in it. He remembered a cow hanging in a tree from the concussion of the bomb.
Before he married my mother he was married before and had one daughter, Patty but I don't know much about that.
He married my mother Naomi ( Lee) Elizabeth Stoll May 16, 1949. We lived in Coos Bay, Oregon.
Dick and Naomi had three children...
Leanna ( Annie)Evon Stoll 1/8/1950
Renee (Petie)Elizabeth Stoll 2/13/1951 and
Mark ( he changed to Marc)Tracy Stoll 11/21/1958
Father was a mechanic and owned his own businesses. First a Texaco and then Automotive Electric and then the Raquetball Club. He was a very successful business man owning and renting out other businesses. We lived in a " leave it to Beaver "type neighborhood and lifestyle and I don't remember our parents ever fighting. My mother was a chef and actually cooked for John F Kennedy on the campaign trail.
Dad was well loved and had a very happy go lucky personality. Everyone always told me how much they liked my father. Dad also taught mechanics at the high school and college level even though he only had a ninth grade education except training in the service. He was a workaholic however and people would call him in the middle of the night to work on their boat, car, truck and he would always go.
He wrote a message to kids...don't wreck your life on drugs, stick up for your rights and make our country the best place in the world to live.
I CANNOT IMAGINE a more wonderful father. I was very lucky indeed
I was named after my mother Lee and my grandmother Anna
LeAnna( Annie ) Stoll Olson

Footnote: my father Eli went by the name Dick. He told me that it was dutch for fat because he was a chubby baby and this is what they called him...Dikkie. My dutch friends tell me that indeed Dik means fat. I was trying to get the connection between Stoll's from France and the Dutch part but am guessing it may have come from the Schwartz side ( his grandmother Elizabeth ) If you know the dutch connection, I would love to hear more? Annie Stoll Olson