Remember When?

30 YEARS AGO JANUARY 26, 1995

CELEBRATES BIRTHDAY

NOXON - The oldest living native of this community celebrated her 89th birthday a day late with friends last week, and the snowy-haired, bright woman made a wish when she blew out the candles on her cake. It was to live another year and celebrate her 90th birthday with the same friends.

Mary Miller was born January 10, 1906 up Pilgrim Creek Road. She spent all her life in Noxon and Sanders County, graduating from Noxon High School and then marrying her sweetheart, Kenneth Miller. The couple worked hard all their lives and Mary doesn’t regret a moment of it.

“My mom had a restaurant. It was called the Imperial. It was a bar before that,” she says. “The addition is all that’s left to the building.”

Mary and Kenneth operated a service station and cabins for years near Noxon “The station was first located in Noxon, and then we moved it over to Government Creek where we built the cabins,” she explains. They also had a service station in Thompson Falls. Kenneth died in May of 1972 and she has lived alone ever since, close to town.

There are many memories stored up in Mary Miller. One of her earliest recollections was of the 1910 fire. “I was just four years of age when the fire swept through the area,” she says. “I remember I was cleaning radishes from the garden in a 5 gallon pail of water, when my pet cat who had been out hunting in the forest ran home past where I was sitting. Her fur was ablaze and I doused the fire with water from the bucket. I can still see steam rising from her fur,” she adds. Despite her efforts, the cat died shortly afterward.

Mary still loves cats and has several with whom she shares her home.

Since her childhood, Mary has seen Noxon change a great deal, especially recently with the influx of new people. “I used to know everyone; now most of the faces are of strangers.”

One of her good friends is Evelyn Boyd, a realtor, who lives on Highway 200 across the river from Mary. “Evelyn is like a second mother to my daughter, Sandra Lee,” she says. “Evelyn and her husband had the inspection station at the north end of the bridge in the “Y” before they moved it to Government Creek.

Mary still tends her house and goes grocery shopping for her needs, despite having recently had a stroke which has made it more difficult.

Mary Miller’s daughter, Sandra Lee lives in Spokane. Miller has three grandchildren, each of whom she is quite proud of.

ICE FISHING NETS BIG FISH

A morning of ice fishing netted a Thompson Falls woman a fish worth bragging about.

Marlene Craig was fishing through the ice in the Clark Fork River for perch and had taken quite a few eight inchers when she felt a yank on her line.

What she finally pulled out of the hole was a lunker - a 41” long, 20 pound northern pile. It was quite a struggle for the petite woman and she thought her Ultra Lite perch fishing rod and line would break trying to pull it out, but they were up to the effort.

The broad smile Marlene wore when she brought the weighty trophy into the Ledger office showed it was worth the effort. Her husband, Francis, who was fishing with her, gave all the credit to his wife for the catch.

“I cut a 7” diameter hole, and she had a hard time pulling that fish up through it. The thing scraped the sides of the ice,” he says.

Friday morning was perfect weather for fishing. The sky was clear, the sun shining and temperatures hovered around 34 degrees. “It was perfect,” says Marlene. “It wasn’t a bit cold for fishing.”