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- [Hiram Dexter from Gail.FTW]
Paul Dexter was born on September 10, 1894 in Clarks, Nebraska and received his early schooling in Pleasant Hill School District 15 in Merrick County. According to a drawing tablet I have he was taking further schooling in February 1914 at what appears to be an auto mechanics school of some sort. He took a lot of math also. Around 1915 or so he went with his brothers, Kenneth, Cedric and Lloyd along with his parents to Montana where they each homesteaded a section of ground in and around Kinsey & Miles City, Montana. His father also purchased a section in the same area. Paul met his wife Leta Eaton in Montana but went on to mine coal in the Badlands to earn some extra money to get married. Coal was free for the mining at that time. Mom (Leta) told me the story of how worried she was as she hadn't heard from him in a long time. He finally showed up one day very thin and was recuperating from lead poisoning. He told her he almost died. She was so happy to see him and know he was okay. After returning to Montana he married Leta Elva Eaton on March 28, 1921.
They lived near his brother Cedric and his wife Gertrude in a place called "Poverty Bench" and tried to farm. They would have barn dances for recreation and he played the violin for these dances. His brother Cedric also played the violin. Paul and Leta started their family there where Lucille and Barbara were born. Leta raised chickens to have eggs to sell as well as chickens to eat and sell for extra money. She bought her treadle Singer sewing machine for $35.00 worth of chickens paid on the "installment plan". So many chickens a week.
Farming was very hard in Montana. Either droughts or too much rain ruined the crops and as the name of the place suggested there was a lot of poverty and very little money. Sometime between 1924 and 1927 Cedric had moved to Portland,Oregon then on to Washington State and gave up farming. He wrote to his brother Paul telling him to give up farming and move to Yakima, Washington as there was work to be had and a fair living for the family. Paul, Leta, Lucille and Barbara moved to Yakima where Paul got a job at the local Cascade sawmill where he worked for 35 years. They had three more children there but lost Barbara in a car accident in 1927 at 7 years old. Paul's father, Mark, was driving the car when another car came thru an intersection without stopping at the stop sign. Barbara was thrown out the window of the car and landed in a ditch. She died of internal injuries shortly thereafter. Lucille also received a bad head injury in the accident. Mark never fully recovered from this having happened.
During the next few years after arriving in Yakima, Paul either bought or built four homes on North 4th Street in Yakima. In 1936 the depression was still not good but Paul had saved $3,000 and felt (since I believe he was out of work at this time) it would be a good time to build his final home and help men feed their families also. Every day men would line up to get a days work so they could feed their family and help Paul build the house at 909 No. 4th Street. In order to dig the full basement, a team of horses were hired along with some equipment that could be pulled behind the horses to dig out the dirt for the basement. (Information on this given to Maxine by her oldest sister Lucille and her brother, Harold.) According to Lucille she was fascinated watching the digging of the basement. She said many families liked our mother and father very much and were friends for most of their life partly because Dad gave them work when there was no work to be had. I, Maxine, was born just after the family moved into the new house.
Paul lived a full life being active in the First Methodist Church and working at the sawmill grading lumber and became foreman. During the WWII he was a Head Air Raid Warden in our district, responsible for seeing everyone in the area knew what to do in case of an air raid. They even dropped fake bombs (boxes) near our home so everyone in the area would be alert and put up their blackout drapes!
He worked hard and was a good husband and father and provided a good living for all of us. He died of a heart attack after taking down the storm windows. He came in feeling tired after a days work, brought in some peonies for Mom from the garden and put them in a vase then having eaten dinner sat in his favorite chair to watch TV. Around 10 PM Mom had been in the kitchen working and noticed he hadn't moved for a long time. She went in to check on him and found he had not only fallen asleep but had a heart attack and died in his sleep. [Broderbund Family Archive #110, Vol. 1 A-L, Ed. 6, Social Security Death Index: U.S., Date of Import: Jan 11, 1999, Internal Ref. #1.111.6.63809.87]
Individual: Dexter, Paul
Social Security #: 533-09-8368
Issued in: Washington
Birth date: Sep 16, 1894
Death date: May 25, 1970
Residence code: Washington
ZIP Code of last known residence: 98901
Primary location associated with this ZIP Code:
Yakima, Washington
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