Name: Gordon W. VanFossen

Dates:
Birth date: July 31, 1929
Death date: January 04, 2012

Obituary:
Gordon W. VanFossen, 82, passed away January 4, 2012 at his home in Billings, Montana. He was born July 31, 1929 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the son of Helen (Wagner) and Clarence M. VanFossen. Gordon attended schools in Tulsa, graduating from Central High School in 1947. He then went on to graduate from University of Tulsa with a degree in Petroleum Engineering. He married Patricia Gladson on March 26, 1948. They had three children. He worked as a Petroleum Engineer and lived in Elk City, OK; Casper, WY; Houston, TX; Glendive and Billings, MT. He worked for Shell Oil, Spellman Prentice, Great Northern Drilling and Cenex, and did consulting after he retired. He and Patty were long time members of Grace United Methodist Church. Patty passed away in 1998.

Gordon enjoyed hiking and being in the Montana mountains. He sang in many choirs and participated in many service organizations, including many years of service to the Boy Scouts.

Gordon married Ruth Pitcher in 2000 in Red Lodge, MT. They lived there for several years until they moved to the Mission Ridge Retirement Home.

Gordon was preceded in death by his parents and his first wife, Patty. He is survived by his wife Ruth, of Billings; three children, Susan (Larry) Iacopini of Billings; Steven (Jan) VanFossen of Missoula; Shevin (Tim) Stewart of Meridan, Idaho; six grandchildren, Tracy (Iacopini) Brockman of Houston; Vince (Cindy) Iacopini of Billings; Dax VanFossen of Kalispell; Ali (Matt) Mandell of Helena; Drew VanFossen of Missoula; Jennifer (Matt) Hall of Kent, Washington; six great-grandchildren and one on the way. He is survived by brothers, Gary (Dorothy) VanFossen and Kent (Lynda) VanFossen of Tulsa, OK and many nieces and nephews.

Service:
Memorial Services will be 11:00 a.m. Saturday, January 14, 2012 at the Mission Ridge Retirement Home. Private interment will take place at Mountview Cemetery. Memorials may be made to the Salvation Army, 2100 6th Ave. N. Billings, MT 59101.

Gordon was the brother of Kent and Gary VanFossen, and Kent is the father of my husband, Brent.

We spent too short a time visiting with Gordon and his first wife, Patty, not long before her death. We had just hit the road and spent a couple weeks with them in 1997 on our way back from Alaska and heading south for the winter.

We spent many hours listening to their stories (and telling a few of our own), especially his stories of working in the oil industry during its heyday, and growing up with his two crazy younger brothers.

We only had a few meetings since then as our travels took us far and wide.

In 2005, Gordon made medical history as we reported in “Cooling technique prevents brain damage | Taking Your Camera on the Road.” He had a heart attack. A representative of the then new body cooling device had just that morning talked to the doctor treating Gordon. Desperate to save Gordon’s life from the heart and potential brain damage, he tracked down the representative and told him he wanted to test-drive the new equipment right then and there. The family believes this is what saved his life, or at least the quality of his life for the next 6 years playing golf and traveling.

Two hours after getting the news about Gordon, I was driving to a doctor appointment of my own and heard on the radio of a high school football player who collapsed during a practice. He was rushed to the local hospital and was currently in serious but stable condition as the doctors cooled his body down using the same hypothermia process. It’s now used frequently to lower the body temperate and give the body time to heal itself. How far this technology has come from Gordon’s experience.

As the family prepares to travel to Montana for the funeral and services, our thoughts are with all of them during this grieving time. Gordon left a huge legacy, and he will leave a huge hole in our hearts which we will soon fill with the memories he left behind.

I’ve heard from so many with information on the photographs, the Tulalip Tribe wishing to know more about the images we have of our Native American family members from that area, from potential cousins and relatives, and those who knew our family. Friends are calling and people are sending me copies – it’s amazing!

Truly, this is an incredible and humbling experience and I’m treasuring every moment and chance to uncover more details on my family.

Expect to hear some interesting stories about all these discoveries over the next few months as I dig up what treasures are found.

Thank you again to everyone waiting patiently for me to respond. You’re turn is coming!

Titled “Blogger digs into her roots: Snohomish County native works to uncover her family’s history,” the article quickly describes some of my family’s history related to the Snohomish County area on the Knapp and West sides.

For the most part, the article is correct, though the fun and adventure of my family’s history in Snohomish County is condensed due to the column’s limitations. Still, columnist Kristi O’Harran did a great job fitting in all the detail in the limited space, but I wanted to expand upon some of the story more here.

UPDATE: O’Harran just sent me an email with several names and contact information for people who recognized some of the people in the photographs from the article or know my family or has information to help me with my family history research. I’ll be calling them in the next day or so. I can’t wait. What a gift!!

The Story Behind The Story

This is from the Elwell/Knapp family archives, we'd love help identifying the people and place.

She was fascinated by the West family’s role in protecting the coast of Washington State, my grandfather raising his kids first in Marysville then Friday Harbor, Washington, while he worked with the various naval military such as the Marines, Navy, and Lighthouse Brigade, which became the Coast Guard. She loved the stories of my father and his sister growing up in Friday Harbor in the San Juan Islands in the lighthouse there.

What fascinated her most was the Knapp family’s connections with logging, Frye’s Lettuce farm, the Elwell family (with brothers Robert and Lloyd marrying into this family descended from Chief Seattle), and then both Robert and Wayne going into security, with Robert working the Monroe Penitentiary and Wayne at Seattle’s Boeing Security, key industries in the Pacific Northwest.

Snohomish County settlers Horace Harriman and Charles Elwell, but which one is which?

The West family were part of a religious migration arriving with the Mayflower and splitting off south in what became the United States, with my branch breaking north into Canada, eventually following the Quakers to Raisin, Michigan. Several generations back, one ancestor broke from the mold of pious farming and community building to ride the rails to Oregon to the logging camps up and down the Pacific Northwest. His son, Walter, caught up with one of our recent family’s biggest mystery women, Louella Brunner Pinder Parrett and had a son with her. That son, Howard West Sr., ended up in a Catholic orphanage in Portland, Oregon, with his half sister, Carmen. Eventually, he got out, lied about his age, and joined the military, eventually leading him to the USS Arizona, from which he kept a log book from 1924-1925 which I’ve published on the blog for historical purposes. In it, he casually ends the log with his marriage to Faye Vaughn in a courthouse in California. He continued with the military at bases along the Pacific Coast until he finally reached Friday Harbor, then his last years as a guard at Chief Joseph Dam in Bridgeport, Washington, with his second wife, Anna Mae Larmar.

What’s missing is the legacy left by the descendants of both sides. I still know so little about my living relatives, but I can tell you that on the Knapp side, my mother, Ramona West Boylan Fletcher, became a leading real estate agent and broker, owner of the well-known American Properties agency in Everett, helping residents and immigrants “settle” and build in Snohomish County for almost 40 years. Her grandchildren recently graduated from high school and one is playing college baseball locally.

There are doctors, lawyers, writers, business owners, teachers, a fire chief, and more among their descendants who cover a lot of Snohomish County as well as Skagit, Whatcom, King, Pierce, and other counties in Washington State. Others are in Oregon, California, and elsewhere around the country and world.

Part of the story I also told the writer was about how tough it is to work on the family history blog without much help from the family. I do what I can, but it isn’t enough to record all the stories about family members to help paint a fuller picture of what our family’s history is really about, the whys, hows, and lessons learned along the way as they pushed themselves through their lives on this planet. I’d love more help, and it’s hard for people to understand how they can help, which is why I do so many articles describing how someone can contribute to a family history blog or start their own. It’s so important to preserve the past for today as well as the future generations who will have the same questions as we do now about where we came from.

If you would like to contribute to our family history blog, I’m looking for photographs, audio, video, stories, notes, legal documents, whatever it takes to help define a life. I’d love a biography written about every family member, dead or alive, that helps us preserve their story. Through the family history blog, I’ve been honored to connect with people whose family connected with ours recently and hundreds of years ago. I’ll take whatever anyone wants to contribute to help paint their family’s story and how it connects and intertwines with mine.

If our family isn’t related by blood but you recognize pictures of people or have any information on our family’s history, I’d still love to have your help.

It takes a village to raise a citizen, and it takes a village to help preserve that citizen’s history.

Thanks to the Everett Herald and Kristi O’Harran for sharing the story of my family history research and my family.

Four days later, the stack of paper spewing out of the printer has grown to five inches and a trip to the local LDS Family History Center added a half a dozen GEDCOM files to import and sort through.

I decided to import the largest GEDCOM file first, thinking that this would give me the most information and then I could add in the missing information from there. Start big, work small.

The fact that the file size was over eight megabytes didn’t deter me. I’m used to working with large file sizes, though not with GEDCOM files, which are really glorified text files with a lot of code that instructs a genealogy software program where to put which bit of data in the database. So 8MB of text is a LOT when you really give it some thought. However, I didn’t think. I just did.

It took over two hours for the file to import, and I do not have a slacker computer. When it finished importing, I looked at the total number of possible relatives now in the new genealogy project file I created just for this purpose.

45,875

This is beyond a “guess whose coming to dinner” freak out! After being in a small family, I suddenly realize that I’m part of a BIGGER family.

This opens up so many doors to travel through. I’m overwhelmed, shocked, dismayed, freaked out, furious, frustrated, eager, anxious, shaking…and the list goes on.

My gratitude to the people who put all this work into a single GEDCOM file is beyond words. What a life effort of research, fact checking, documentation, and tracking. Incredible.

I feel like it will take me more than a lifetime to understand what is now in my computer and how I can process that much information and that many lives.

I think my next destination is Wisconsin. That’s the logical choices as my immediate family left there in the 1930s and 40s, turning the light out on logging in Northern Wisconsin’s once booming lumber town of Taylor Rapids. Another part of my mother’s family is from the Lessor, Shawano, Wisconsin area near Green Bay, and there is a National Archives there to dig through.

Depending upon what we find there, who knows where these 45,875 people will lead me.

Hans Anderson from Norway

Our original Hans Anderson arrived from Fredriksvern, Norway, to Manitowoc, Wisconsin, in 1851. He was one of six children, for whom we know nothing. We also don’t know his original name, his parent’s name, or what boat or port he arrived in. But we do know his children.

Hans Anderson (June 21, 1844 – September 1, 1924) married Sarah Olson (c1846 – 1930), also born in Norway, on June 15, 1867, in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Sarah and Hans moved around a lot with their family, beginning in La Crosse, Wisconsin, and then moving in 1867 to South Dakota. About 1875, he and his family moved to Cicero, Outagamie County, Wisconsin, where he appeared on the 1880 Census. In 1894, they moved to Lessor, Shawano County, Wisconsin, until 1904 when they moved to Sawyer in Door County, Wisconsin. The Census reported that Hans was a farmer throughout his long life, dying at 80 years old.

Together, Sarah and Hans had 11 children of which 6 died very young. They were:

• Amelia Anderson
• Louis Anderson (c1869-?)
• Otto Anderson (c1870-?) married Julia
• John Anderson (c1873-1855) married 1) Helena A. Blickfelt/Swendsen (Svendsen) (1879-1906), 2) unknown, 3) Charlotte King
• Caroline Anderson (c1871-?)
• Shena Anderson (c1873-?)
• Gena Anderson (c1873-?) married John Swendsen/Svendson (1870-?), son of Christopher Svendsen (Norway)
• Mary Anderson
• Ida Anderson
• Anton Anderson (May 1880 – ?) married Lily (1880-?) in 1906 in Wisconsin
• Unknown Anderson

We are searching for the parents of Hans Anderson, or one of his brothers. We’re looking for immigration records, and pouring though old microfilms looking for some record of how he immigrated and what his original name was. It’s been very frustrating as the Norwegians changed their names, often drastically, from the original when they immigrated, making the process that much harder.

Helena Blickfelt/Svendson

What we do know about his life is that he was married to Sarah for most of his life. They were also blessed with many grandchildren. But all was not joy. When their son, John, lost his wife, Helena, leaving him with six living children to raise, the rest of the family stepped in.

Helena Blickfelt Anderson’s life was a tragic one. Born with a twin who died at birth, her mother died very soon after. According to family stories, Helena was unofficially adopted by Christopher Svendson and his wife, for unknown reasons. We can assume that the Andersons and Swendson families were close as Helena married John Anderson and John Swendson, Christopher’s son, married Gena Anderson about the same time in Wisconsin.

John and Helena Anderson Children, circa 1910

When Helena died, Hans and Sarah took in three of the grandchildren to raise. John and Gena Swendson took in two of the other children, repeating what his father had done with Helena many years before.

As age finally made it more difficult to live independently with three young children, in 1914 they moved in with Helena’s adopted family, John and Gena Swendson, reunited five of the Anderson grandchildren. Plus any children the Swendson’s had on their farm in Lessor, Wisconsin. One of those grandchildren, Raymond, became the Raymond Anderson whose grave has been lost in Monroe, Washington.

If you have any information on Hans Anderson or the Christopher/John Swendson (Svendsen) part of our hunt for our Grandfather Andersons, please leave a comment below. We’ve hit a dead end and we need some help. Thanks!

Update: 2006

We’ve found the father of Hans Anderson. On a whim, with only a day or two of notice, my mother and I caught a plane to Wisconsin to research both sides of her family. At the Michigan National Archives in Green Bay, Wisconsin, we found Andrias Anderson, and you can read the story in Finding the Citizenship Documents for Andrias Anderson.

We found his tombstone and most of his family and immediate descendents in the Our Savior’s Lutheran Cemetery in Lessor, Shawano, Wisconsin, helping to fill in even more blanks.

We’ve still a lot to learn about this man who made the long journey from Norway to New York with his family, his wife and what we believe to be only one of his six children, Hans, and to understand why he went to Wisconsin immediately, who came with him, and what was his life story before and after he arrived in the United States. We continue to dig, but now we have the oldest member of our Anderson line in place. It’s just a stepping stone across the see to uncover more information!

The following pages are excerpts from a form of collected works, a three generation journal if you will, consisting of thoughts, beliefs, mottoes, experiences, and just the lives of three women.

The three women who left this impact, among many others, and this heritage are:

• Nora Mae Knapp, daughter, wife, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother
• Ramona Mae Fletcher, daughter, wife, mother, and grandmother
• Lorelle West, daughter and wife

This collection is not complete. There are many other works by the above women. And it will never be completed as long as children are born and life goes on on this big, old earth.

I dedicated this to the daughters of yesteryear and tomorrow. Carry your heritage proudly and realize that the beginning is not the end.

We can’t conquer time,
Our enemy true;
But we can find the sublime
And learn what to do.

Generations past
But feelings last.
I am today,
My ancestors in every way.

A reflection is due
On all that is true,
Three generations spread
Of thoughts you have read.

Their hopes and dreams,
Their lives and schemes,
All reflections of each others:
Me, my mother, and grandmother.

This collection is yet complete.
Never shall it be so.
For this is too great a feat
For all the world to know.

Some day a daughter will read these words
And feel the awesome blow
That what she feels today, will lurk
Around in her child.

Time passes on,
Memories exist.
Will they know of us
Forty generation’s on?

Lorelle, December 12, 1981

The days are bright and golden
altho’ the nights are cold,
And leaves that fall upon the ground
are deeply tinged with gold.
The air is fresh and balmy
and skies are azure blue.
Birds are singing everywhere,
their voices clear and true.
And when the sun goes down at night
it casts a lovely glow
Against the mountain peaks above
for they are white with snow.
Were I an artist, I would choose
to make of this a setting,
But I’m a poet as you see
and so will cease regretting.
Nora Mae Knapp, September 18, 1945

October’s Halloween

October is the Witching Hour.
You must be careful in October,
For there are ghosts and spooks and sounds
That make your dog a’growl.

Dead leaves fly like
witches on broom sticks.
And I like the monster
that asks you for a toothpick.
Lorelle, October 1969

Across the years
Time does fly
Season pass by
But thoughts won’t die.

And as they both learned the secret
Of realization complete,
I will feel what mom feels yet,
And also learn of my grandma’s defeat.
Lorelle, December 12, 1981

Make sure the image you give others is the real “you”. The real “you” that you are capable of being…Act your best. Think in your mind the way you want to be and can be. Then act as if you are already there.
Ramona Mae Fletcher, 1980

My Sled

My sled is fast and slick.
Whenever we go over a stick
It makes a big bumb
Then down the hill we go with a bump.

When I’ve got the flue,
I feel all blue.
Because I can’t ride in my sled,
Instead I stay in bed.
Lorelle, December 1969

As I sit here alone tonight, my thoughts drift swiftly back.
Along the paths of yesteryear, when I wasn’t an old sad sack.

I realize I’m getting old — I have wrinkles on my brow
That once was very smooth and clear, but that’s not so – not now.

I spend a lot of time alone. Daughter is in bed.
I hear the old clock ticking loud but telling me instead:

“Old Nonie, you are growing old. You’ve lost your zip and zoom.
And now all you are good for is to sit around in gloom!”

If I had something else to do – something that was fun -
I maybe would snap out of it – Gloom would be on the run.

But I will try to chase it, if I have to use the broom.
Even if it don’t bring back my “old time” zip and zoom!
Nora Mae Knapp, September 1945

School Begins

School is beginning.
Hear the bells a-ringing.

“Hurry! Don’t be late,
For school and books will not wait.”
Lorelle, September 1969

Emma Katherine Baker

When ever one needed a helping hand
Dear Emma was always there,
You could always depend upon her
With her your troubles share.

She was so patient, kind and true,
A friend so rare indeed,
And never a chance would she pass by
If anyone was in need.

She was happy in doing for others
Even tho’ she was ill.
She holds a large spot in my heart
Though hers has long been still.
By Nora Mae Knapp, circa 1945

Winter Fun

Winter is a lot of fun
When you take a run
Out in the snow.
When the winter winds blow,
Come and play with me.
Let’s not have tea.
Let’s play in the snow.
Don’t get touched by the blow.
Now we know winter is here.
Lorelle, December 1969

Ma

I wish that you were here tonight
As I have wished before.
We’d laugh and cry as usual
Then I would read some more.

And you would talk so I can’t sleep
As you so often do.
But this time I would talk right back
And get the best of you!

Our eyes would have such bags beneath,
But we would have our fun.
I seldom laugh when you’re not here
So you had better come –

I soon will know about the bus
And how often it goes by.
And then I’ll let you know about it
In a letter on the fly!

I have a couple roosters
And I’m hoping you can share
With us the feat that they will make.
They won’t be burned nor rare.

I’ll cook it nice and tender
For I know you have no teeth.
And I’ll sharpen up my kniff real good
And keep it in a sheath.

But don’t wear anything that’s good
And have corks in your shoes
For you might fall upon the path
And give your knees the blues.

Well, now as it is getting late
And I must go to bed,
I feel a little tired
And my shoes are filled with lead.

Where did I get my talent?
It must have come from pa –
Ma said she can’t write poetry
Neither can I – Ha! Ha!

September 24, 1945, Nora Mae Anderson

I am walking along the long and winding road.
Sometimes I take a side road that leads me away,
But usually I find my own way back.
Occasionally, this new path is the one I desire to make my path way.
Whatever I choose, I do it myself.
I make my choices. I decide. No one leads me.

Let me make these decisions myself.
Let me carry my own weight first.
Let me do my own searching.
Let me do my own learning.
Let me find my own way.
Let me find my own self.
Let me find out.
Let me find me.

Love me now.
Hold me now.
Make plans for next week.
Not next year.
Care for me now.
Love me now.
For the future is too far away and yet,
Will be here too soon.

And if I have not had a chance
To make the most of my future,
I will regret it forever.
So let me have “my time”
Because you’ve had yours.
And because of this
You can only
Love me more
Because I will be
A better person
For all of this.
Give me now
And maybe someday
I will
Love you
Forever.
Lorelle, April 4, 1980

Me

I’ll soon be forty-one years old,
Not too bad looking I am told,
But cranky as an old Ford car
And when I eat I go too far.

I am fat and bulgy; lazy, too.
Not many teeth left with which to chew.
Hair turning grey, my back is lame,
But plenty of meat left on my frame.

My feet are flat, my waist is thick,
I think I weigh as much as a ton of brick!
But I don’t care. I’ll get by somehow
Even if I am the cat’s meow!

I have a man who is not so thin,
As some men are, and I must grin.
It would be funny if he were a rail,
Walking beside a big fat whale.

I wear size forty in a dress
Size eight is in my soe.
I realize how odd am I
And feel a trifle blue.

But grin and bear it, I must do
As I am growing old,
A movie queen I’ll never be
But not toooo bad I’m told.

I sometimes think they kid, tho’
When I look in the glass,
And see my old face looking back -
’tis then I sign – Alas!

It’s hard to keep my spirits up
With such a form as mine
And now that I’m nearly forty-one,
For youth I greatly pine!

If I could turn a few years back
Like the pages in a book,
I’d be sixteen years old again
And swinging in the brook.

I’d pick the dark blue violets
That in the grasses grew,
I’d drink cool water from the spring
As I once loved to do.

I’d go barefoot down the road
And fish in the river,
I’d catch the fish, but hated crabs –
To see them made me shiver!

I’d take another ride on Jim
And think that I was brave
To ride a horse as wild as he
And hear my brothers rave.

And then they’ed get on with me –
‘twould be white head and brown bean,
We’d gallop along to old “Charlestown”
On the map it can’t be seen.

But we cherished that dear old sand hill,
Where I’d make a speech again.
I’d visit the dear old “Friendly tree”
And play again in the rain.

Nora Mae Knapp Anderson, 1945

Don’t just do fine. Do excellent.
Don’t do good when you can do great.
Don’t hide when you can seek.
Don’t leave when you can stay.

Do what you can be…the best!
Lessons learned from her mother, by Lorelle, 1978

Don’t repeat.
Just Learn.
And go on.
And leave it behind.
Ramona Mae Fletcher, 1977

The goal of this website/blog is to document my family tree and family history. The purpose of this website/blog is to also share with you what I’m learning and have learned about researching family genealogy and history. There is a lot to learn and a lot of information out there, more information and more easily accessed information than at any time in our history. With all this information out there, it is now overwhelming to begin the search to trace your family roots. Hopefully, together we can help each other through the process.

I am not alone in creating this family history blog. I’ve found some fabulous long lost relatives (didn’t even know they existed until I started digging) and immediate family members who will be helping me out. So this is a team family effort and I’m excited about sharing what we’ve learned with you.

There are some challenges in creating a genealogy blog, especially with the free blogging tool, WordPress. I will be documenting my efforts on one of my other websites, Lorelle on WordPress, so you can follow along with how this develops.

So stay tuned for some exciting changes to this site and great information and resources!