| Summary: | 1886 - 1986: Century of Change celebration before they all parted. Will, who went to school near Chinatown in Boise, loved firecrackers and sky rockets; he built a special stand to shoot off the rockets, but one exploded in his hand and injured him. Before the celebration was barely underway, a downpour started, which turned into a cloudburst and then a flood of the Cannon Ball River. No one could get out of town. Houses floated past on the river. Haystacks with chickens on them careened by. One haystack was seen with three hens. When the haystack went under the bridge, the hens hopped off, crossed the bridge and hopped back on the haystack as it went down river. The crops came back and New England was listed as the "greatest primary wheat market in the nation." Seven elevators were finally built to serve the area. ./ Jm^^rm ^^^m jprmwTviiiiim "**. ■ ~i Bill a--.* . i_ i Ml lilS ■j " i W.C. McKenzie Hotel. Will and Anna, and the whole family together, used to love to go camping. At first they went down in the Badlands. Later they enjoyed month-long trips to Yellowstone Park, starting in 1918, when the park was full of soldiers. In 1915, Anna went to Caldwell for the birth of Thomas Curtis McKenzie, her eighth and last child. As soon as he was old enough to travel, they all started out for the World's Fair in San Francisco. In 1914, war started in Europe. Later, America entered the war. Prices for grain and meat rose, and farmers prospered. But in 1919, the bad times came. It was a dry year, with poor crops and hay yields. People began to leave the country. "Between two days," as the phrase was, folks who could not make a living, or pay their bills, packed their families and whatever else they could into their old cars and left, usually for California of Seattle. Will had extended credit to many of them. He was still operating the stores at Cook Ranch and Amidon. Every morning John would start out at 5:30 with stock for the other stores. He would unload and be back in time for school. He graduated in 1920, at age 16. He took part in football and track. During a track meet that spring, he collapsed at the end of a race. This did not alert school authorities or his parents. He died of rheumatic fever August 28, 1920. His grave was lined with sheets with flowers pinned to them. Will finally came to church to see his son buried. After John's death, Anna developed heart trouble and went to Medicine Lake, WA, for treatment, taking Martha and Elizabeth with her. They attended St. Theresa's Academy in Boise. Mazie and Margaret stayed home from the College of St. Theresa's in Winona, MN, to take care of the boys for a semester. When Mazie got her degree, she found a teaching job at Sacred Heart Academy in Missoula, MT. It was determined to sell the property in New England and move to Missoula, where the University of Montana was located, which Robert could attend. The diocese bought the store; part of the upstairs had been used as a public school. It now became St. Mary's School. The hotel was sold to W.L. Gardner and was turned into the Riverside Apartments. The family left in August of 1923. Will stayed to close out the property. The community gave a party before the family left and presented them with a 12-piece set of silver in the "Bird of Paradise" pattern. Will put it on display in the store, and it was stolen a few days later. After a last trip to John's grave, the family left for a new life. Family members who are deceased are Anna, Will, Margaret, John, Robert and Edwin. Anna and Will are buried in Idaho. Mazie (Mary Flanagan) lives in Great Falls, MT. Martha (Mrs. Raymond Yorkston) lives in Everett, WA. T. Curtis McKenzie lives in Laurel, MT. Elizabeth (Mrs. Harold Goldhahn) lives in Bigfork, MT. Robert graduated from M.I.T. as a civil engineer, and designed the gates of the spillway at Fort Peck Dam, then the penstocks at Boulder Dam. He was chosen to work with General Groves on the Manhattan project, selected to deliver the detonator of the atom bomb to General Dolittle just before the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ending the war. Later he was in charge of the Los Angeles office of the Army Engineers. He retired, and then had charge of building the aviary at the Los Angeles Zoo. He also took part in developing the Minuteman and Titan missiles. CHARLES C. MEAD C.C. Mead was born in Randolph, VT, and graduated from the state normal school there. He taught one winter on St. Paul Island in the Bering Sea, and spent a season seal hunting in the Arctic Ocean. He also taught in California and New Mexico. Following the death of his father, Col. John Mead, he came to New England in the fall of 1887 to settle estate affairs in the New England Colony. The original colonists unknowingly built their western homes on Section 4-135-97 instead of on Section 3. This was homestead land. W.C. McKenzie platted the original townsite of New England using the plat 25 Scanned with a Zeutschel Zeta book scanner at 300 dpi. Edited in Multi-page TIFF Editor.
|
|---|