Olive Myrtle Simons Thornburg

            Olive Myrtle, born on June 24, 1882, was the fourth child of George and Jeannette Simons, and the first child born on the family homestead in Brent, Washington. The family had arrived at there just the summer before and presumably built the small one-room shed that served as a home the spring before Olive was born. There were many months that Jeannette had to care for her three small children alone while her husband went to find work in order to buy supplies and equipment to begin their life of farming. There is one story of a baby, possibly Olive, being pulled into a badger hole and her mother catching her by the foot and rescuing her. Besides looking after these small children in a wild, undeveloped land, Jeannette also worked the land with her husband – planting and preserving garden produce, and cutting the wheat that had been planted.

Four generations of Simons: Clockwise from top: Olive, George, Myrtle (Thornburg), and William

            Olive grew up in a ever enlarging family and learned to work by her mother’s side from a very young age. There were many younger children to attend to and much work in the household – to preserve food for the winter months, care for the laundry and upkeep of the house.
 

            The first school in the area was established in 1890 at Brent. Olive would have been eight years old at the time. Was she able to attend this school, given that it was not in walking distance from the George Simons home? Perhaps the children were able to attend by horse back.


            In November 25, 1900, Olive married Lee Thornburg The young couple initially lived in the Brent area. Olive had her first child, Myrtle, in 1901. This child was the first grandchild for Jenny and George and the first great-grandchild for William and Eliza Jane Simons. Ollie and Lee had three more children while living in Washington – Hattie, Geneveve, and Louise. The family moved sometime before 1910 to Harpster, Idaho. In Idaho, they had a son named Elmer. Eventually the family moved to McCone County, Montana. There in 1923, a fifth child, Marie, was born. By 1930, Lee Thornburg had died and Olive was the head of the household with three children still living at home.


            Olive remained in Montana the rest of her life. She returned to Washington State for visits to her brothers and sisters and kept a close relationship with them despite the distance. Ollie died on December 14, 1961 at the age of seventy-nine.

Continue reading about the other children of George and Jeannette:

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¹ Richard F. Steele and Arthur P. Rose.  An Illustrated History of the Big Bend Country Embracing Lincoln, Douglas, Adams and Franklin Counties, State of Washington, Western Historical Publishing Company, 1904, p. 491.

² Ibid.