Jack’s 2nd Birthday: Two Days After His Father Elmer is Shot and Killed
Iva, Page 90
After Elmer’s death, Iva was alone with seven children ages 17 to 2. Two-year-old Jackie was approaching three. He had piles of golden curls that his sisters loved to comb.
Ellen and Oliver arrived from the Rogue Valley to run the ranch in the mountains. The depression settled in full force.
Relatives of Grandma Ellen answered her call to help on the ranch. The Davis family with three grown sons arrived to help her and Oliver on the property. But the help for Grandma Ellen was too late. The relatives on the ranch brought her own horse back to Carpentersville. Iva drove her green Model A Ford down the Coast Highway to pick her up at the store.
When the children came home from school, Grandma Ellen was already in bed. Oliver remained on the ranch with the Davis family. Dr. Cartwright came when called. He recommended abdominal surgery. He had done it successfully before. Grandma had assisted surgeries that failed. No way. Grandma Ellen lived for about six weeks, until November 1932.
Grandma Ellen was buried in a Pauper's grave in the Gold Beach Cemetery at the Presbyterian Church not far from Elmer's grave.
Grandma Ellen and Oliver had used the money from the sale of their property in Central Point, their car, horses and other farm equipment to help Iva and the children get through the past two years since Elmer's death. Now they were destitute. No source of income.
Friends and neighbors shared from their own meager store — potatoes dug from the ground, fish from the Rogue River or the ocean.
Elmer’s brothers’ and sisters’ families sent what they could but everyone in the Great Depression suffered the loss of jobs and lack of markets.