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- Olive Retherford Giese
Olive was born March 21, 1899 in Chariton, Iowa. She was the 5th child o ut of 11 born to Frank and Flora Retherford; 3 girls and 8 boys (Lula, Le o, Jesse, Ray, Olive, Harry, D.Q., Loleta, Earl, Floyd and Vernon).
When Leta was about to be born, Ollie was sent to visit her aunt, her moth er's sister, in Missouri. Before she left, however, she named the new ba by and that was a bond that remained all their lives.
As a child she once caught her shoelace in the railroad track and was h it by an oncoming horse and wagon. No lasting injury was sustained. In lat er years she was caught in the flu epidemic that swept the country and w as so sick that the doctor actually made out her death certificate. Needle ss to say she survived, graduated from high school and worked for a time f or the telephone company in Des Moines.
A vacation to visit a friend in Bay City, Michigan, changed her life. S he met William George Giese and decided to stay in Bay City. He worked f or the Oppenheim Clothing store, but always dreamed of starting his own me n's clothing store. They were married in 1921 and in the following years t hey did start that store. It was the wrong time in history for a ventu re of that sort and in 1928 they had to declare bankruptcy. It took year s, but they did eventually manage to pay off all their creditors. Right af ter the crash of '29, their only child, Nancy, was born. Bill had gone ba ck to working for Oppenheim's and later Ollie joined him and worked in t he boys' department for 30 years.
After her husband died, she sold the homestead and moved in with her sist er Leta, who had years before followed her to Bay City. Leta always call ed her Polly and to Bill she was always Al, so she answered to a lot of na mes. Following her sister's death, she moved to an apartment in a retireme nt home in Milwaukee to be near her daughter. She was the last one ali ve of all her siblings and remained quite independent until the last 6 wee ks of her life, when at 95 years old she succumbed to a broken hip and a w eak heart.
Nancy Joan Giese Koeplin
September 2005
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
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