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Today's Featured Biography

 
Margery Laws Bahrt

Margery Laws Bahrt

My Montana roots are very deep. Grandfather Nicholson homesteaded in Montana in 1862 and Grandfather Laws family came to the Bitterroot by immigration train in 1895. Other than the cold weather it was such a wonderful place to grow up.

Life has been so interesting, so much I would never have chosen to experience but so much that I have learned wonderful lessons from. Most of all I have learned how to love other people and care about their needs. I have learned to forgive. I have learned that people everywhere desire the same thing, to provide as well as possible, to be able to care for their children and hopefully to contribute to society. I have learned I can survive when I would have thought my life would end if I had to go through some experiences. I have learned how little I NEED to be truly happy and how having MUCH does not really guarantee anything.

Other than babysitting my work life started during junior high school. I worked at the Ritz Café (Saturday night 7PM to 3AM). I started there when I was still 12 years old and had never been around anyone who drank. What an experience it was when the crowd came in after closing time at the Eagles, Elks and other bars. It quickly made a non-drinker out of me. While in high school I worked, but the most memorable was at the Roller rink. After graduation I worked as a Dental Assistant for Dr. Rothlisberger. Carol Goodwin worked at Mt. Bell and made twice the money I did so in 1952 when I moved to Los Angeles the only job I wanted was to be a telephone operator. After testing with Pacific Bell I was offered another job but was too shy to ask what it paid. I insisted on the operator position which was a job I knew paid at least what Carol made. Actually it was more since it was L.A. Big mistake, the office job paid nearly double and was 8 to 5. The operator job was in an office with 4,000 employees and the hours were split shifts of day, evening and night hours and none on a permanent schedule. Thankfully after being with Pacific Bell for only six months I was promoted into an 8 to 5 position with a higher salary. If I had wanted a career Pacific Bell was a wonderful choice as women were promoted and respected with that company. However, marriage took precedence and as we all remember in those days the man’s career came first.

In 1955 I was married and that began a life of great joy and also great sorrow. Suffice it to say the next twenty-two years brought many changes and a return to single status in 1977. This time it was much harder in the work world as I was fighting cancer, had four children still at home and of course I was older. I had worked most of my married life but always as a “supplement” and now it was necessary for me to be serious about it.

I have done accounts payables, receivables and payroll. For fourteen years I worked as a Human Resource Administrator in the hi-tech industry. Nine years I worked as an Administrative Assistant for a mortgage company. After retirement I worked a year for a construction general contractor who sent me to school to learn website design. I know a degree would have made a big difference. I didn’t get one but was never really desirous of a “career” and always had work. I was able to take care of my family, when necessary alone, and that is what counted. I retired in 1999 and so enjoyed the next seven years. In 2008 I returned to work with a job as Asst. Manager of an RV Resort. That job and one I had in 2009 was so I could pay my “Stupid Tax”. Part of a “being scammed” story we won’t go into. In 2010 I worked for the U.S. Census Bureau as an Inumerator.

I have survived:

* High School “Stuff”
* Life in genera
* Having FIVE teenagers at one time.
* Melanoma Cancer –Just passed my forty-third survival anniversary. I did it
the “alternative way”.
* Being SCAMMED by someone I cared about
* An unwanted divorce
* The death of my daughter

One of the wonderful things that happened in my life was to join the LDS Church in 1965. My life came into clear focus after this event and I have never wavered in my belief.

Another wonderful thing has been keeping good friendships. Two such were with Gail Carruthers and Carol Sutherlin. Carol and I were in 2nd grade together in Darby so we have been friends since 1940. Gail and I became friends when my family moved in across the street when we were both 10. It was also wonderful to find my mentor at the skating rink, Peggy Barker, forty-five years after she moved from Hamilton and out of my life. Another friend from Hamilton is Goldie Lemar, whom I knew at school and the rink, but not well. Because she asked me to help find classmates for the 55th Reunion we talked often, live within 120 miles of each other and have both become “owned by” wonderful little Chihuahuas and thus have reconnected.

The greatest joy of all is my family. I had six children. Dan (1956), Diana (1957), Debra (1958), Demerise (1960), Danette (1962) and David (1970). There will never be a day when I will not miss Demerise who died in 1991. I so enjoy the five who today are not only my children but wonderful friends to me and to each other. They are educated, well employed, involved assets to society. There are nineteen grandchildren and in August 2018 the 31st great-grandchild was born. The grandchildren are all adults and while they are not perfect, none has ever had a serious brush with the law, substance abuse or a lazy attitude. I’m grateful for their parents who have worked so hard to raise a worthy posterity.

I have been blessed with some travel and have felt I grew so much from the experiences of:

* Turkey for three months. I was there with a daughter and her husband, an Air Force Lt.
Col., who was the Flight Support Commander for the Air Force supporting NATO. I’m sure the “perk” of his position made Turkey much easier than had I been there as a tourist but no matter it was just wonderful.

* Italy, Austria, Germany, at the end of the trip to Turkey when my son-in-law was transferred to Ramstein AFB in Germay. We took a ferry from Chesme’, Turkey thru the Agean Sea to Bari, Italy. We then drove to Rome and visited the Vatican. We spent some time in Garmish, Germany, probably my favorite vacation place on the planet. We also went to Northern Germany and to Denmark searching for genealogy on my children's Dad's side of the family.

* Fairbanks, Alaska for a grandson’s wedding

* Germany for the second time, to spend Christmas with my daughter and son-in-law. We spent a week totally snowed in. After that we were able to go to Trier, Germany, Luxembourg and France.

* Alaska again for two weeks to visit the grandson, his wife and my first great-
granddaughter.

* Arlington, Texas where after so many decades I was able to see Peggy Barker and her family.

* The HHS reunion in Hamilton in 2006 where I renewed friendships with some really
special people who only got better with age.

* And the dream of my life, to retire and just travel where and when I wanted to. Since temperatures reached 120 to 130 degrees during the summer months where I live in Big River,CA (in the desert across the Colorado River from Parker, AZ) it was wonderful to be able to leave for four or five months each Summer. Northern California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Nevada and Utah offered great relief from the terribly hot summers. In six years we saw almost all of those States and also had lots of time to spend with the four kids and their families and brother Ralph's family who all live in the Northwest. My youngest son lives in Lake Havasu City, AZ so was near him in the winters.

The invention of the digital camera makes even an amateur like me a pro. I have over 20,000 pictures and can re-visit special times, people and places when I want to.

My one true passion is Family History research. I have been a volunteer for over 20 years in Family History Libraries for the LDS Church. I have learned so much that helps with my own research as well as being able to help others. I have one unbroken line back to 1651, other lines into the 1700's and so much more to do. Connecting with lines has also brought the very special experiences of going to family reunions:

In 1994 Deming, New Mexico where I met members of Mother’s maternal side of the family. 110 people, that I did not know existed until three months before their reunion. Distant cousins with whom the connection came so easily.

* 1998: Bellevue, Iowa for a reunion of members of my Mother’s paternal family whom I also found while doing genealogy. I was able to walk on the 5,000 acres along the banks of the Mississippi River which my Great-great grandfather homesteaded in 1832. I also went to visit the small cemetery where over seventy relatives are buried. This was my first trip “East” and my first time to see the Mississippi River. These places and people were unknown to me until about four months before the Reunion. I did not even know the surname until I started doing research. The live descendants who live in that area were “instant family”. It was truly amazing how easily the connections were made.

*October 2010 a gift from my youngest daughter, a trip to Ireland, where we visited the village where a great-grandfather was born in 1808 and to the town where a great-great-grandfather on the other side of my Mother's family was born in 1786.

MY GREATEST REGRETS:

Not knowing enough about life in my early years. I wish I had understood more about what my parents were going through, since they were senior citizens by the time I graduated from high school. Only now am I truly able to comprehend their fears and challenges. What a sacrifice they made to start a family in depression years and when they were both in their forties. I stand in awe of them. They lived to have their three children, nine grandchildren, several great-grandchildren and beat all odds in celebrating a 50th wedding anniversary.

Celebrating a Golden Anniversary was one of my goals and living this long and not meeting that will always feel like failure. Huge CONGRATULATIONS to those classmates who have celebrated a 50th and beyond.

Since life is not over I look forward to the next adventures or challenges.

I HOPE TO SEE EVERYONE AT THE 60TH REUNION.

UPDATE: Goldie and I drove from Arizona to Hamilton to attend the 60th reunion in 2011. We are all getting up there in years but not losing the zest to live. After the reunion we drove to Washington and Oregon to visit members of both of our families. Two senior women, two lively chihuahuas, a great car (Goldie's) all the time we wanted to take. What a wonderful trip.

In May 2012 I moved to Seaside, OR where I now live in a unique multi-family home with two daughters, a son-in-law, grandson Randy and from time to time numerous grandchildren when they are home from college.

July 2016 - Daughter Debi and I attended the 65th Reunion of the HHS Class of 1951. Our numbers are dwindling, only seventeen were able to attend out of the twenty-nine who are still living.

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