Remember When

70 YEARS AGO • OCTOBER 27, 1947

FISH PLANTING

The Forest Service and the State Fish and Game Commission are working together to build a five-year fish planting plan for Sanders County. Ray West, forest ranger at Plains, and A.G. Stubblefield superintendent of state fish hatcheries, are doing the work. They are meeting with all local sportsmen’s clubs and local forest rangers to get their advice and recommendations on the streams and lakes in the local districts.

The following plants have been made so far this year:

Thompson River, 27,000 Cutthroats.

Little Thompson, 1400 Eastern Brook.

Clear Creek, 1400 Eastern Brook.

White Pine Creek, 2800 Eastern Brook.

Trout Creek, 1400 Eastern Brook.

Rock Creek, 9000 Native.

GRIZZLY KILLED – WOMEN MAKE THEIR KILL

As far as hunting, the women are doing alright, Mrs. J. Oliver and Mrs. Ben Cox both shot a big elk apiece the first day of hunting season. The men had to do the packing out. And it comes out too that Paul Harlow was the one who killed the big grizzly preying on his sheep last week. It took a lot of blasting to stop the bear too.

50 YEARS AGO • OCTOBER 20, 1977

MARTHA TIMLIN

Funeral services were conducted Tuesday afternoon in the Community Congregational Church for Martha Bernice “Peggy” Timlin, 79, long-time Thompson Falls business woman who died in the Plains hospital Saturday.

Mrs. Timlin was born Oct. 23, 1897 in Nebraska.

For many years she was prominent in the business community. She owned and operated the former Sanders County Abstract Co., now the Sanders County Title Co., the Black Bear Hotel, now known as the Towne House Hotel; the Peoples Store, family clothing outlet, and later built and operated with members of her family the RiverAire Motel and Bowling Lanes. The motel now is known as the Lodge Motel.

Survivors include two sons, Richard and Earl Wollaston, both of Thompson Falls; two daughters, Mrs. Neva Wood and Mrs. Beryl Hoff, both of Thompson Falls; 15 grandchildren and four great grandchildren.

NOVEMBER 3, 1977

EX-FIRE CHIEF PASSES AT 69

Funeral services were conducted Monday afternoon in the Community Congregational Church for Charles Brewster Applegate, 69, retired Thompson Falls’ fire chief.

Applegate died Thursday in the Plains hospital. He was born Jan. 8, 1908 in Denver, Colo. He was married to Grace McHarg in Santa Ana, Ca. July 10, 1933.

He loved most of his life in Thompson Falls where he was employed as an electrician by the Thompson Falls Lumber Co. until his retirement several years ago.

He was a 30-year member of the Thompson Falls Fire Dept. and was the second person to serve as fire chief. (Earl Davis was the first)

THE ‘BARN THAT BABIES BUILT’

Excerpt from Looking Back, Reflections of Orin P. Kendall

I don’t know when Dr. A.W. Rew came to Thompson Falls, but I do know that he was really the old type country doctor with a territory that extended from Thompson Falls to the state line. The population may have been small, but the territory was vast.

The Great Depression saw no decrease in the number of babies born. In fact, there possibly was an increase. Many of the births were in the home with the doctor and a neighbor lady in attendance. With money almost non-existent many of his trips were made free with a promise to pay later.

One of the first improvements that the doctor made was to build a barn. Everybody who owed the doctor for services was given an opportunity to work out his bill. The response was good. In fact, one father, who owed for several children, remarked that he thought he would continue working so as to build up a little credit because he anticipated having more children.

It could be that some of the natives, who were born in the 1930s, may have more of an interest in the Barn That Babies Built than they realize.