Dear Editor Billy Stuver,
The December 12, 2024 Powder River Examiner “Voices from the Past” column had a 1924 story about Wm. L. Lavell, newly elected county commissioner. I read it with great interest because Wm. L. Lavell was my paternal grandfather. He died in 1933. I was born in 1936. So I never knew him.
The story was well-written and exciting. I quickly called my Lavell brothers and sisters in California, Ohio, West Virginia and Colorado and read it to them or mailed copies.
The story had other information about our grandfather that interested me, such as how he decided to buy the place on Hay Creek and about Depression Era struggles he and others were facing. Our parents and other relatives had described Grandfather Lavell to us children of course and told us stories. And my mother, who met my father while teaching at the school near their ranch about 1930, wrote about him in the memoir which she gave to us Lavell children.
All of them, Grandfather William L. Lavell, Grandmother Josie Lavell and my parents Lee Lavell and Mildred Coons Lavell are buried near each other there in the Broadus Cemetery.
My world here in Portland, Oregon, where I now have lived for 24 years, is full and compelling. So I enjoy living mostly in the here and now. But I was very pleased to read your hundred-year-old story that contributed to the knowledge my family and I had about our ancestor. Thank you for publishing it!
Sincerely,
Bertha Lavell Kramlich
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