My grandmother, one hundred years ago

Carol Ruth Bonde in 2016

Friday, September 16, 2016 1518

My grandma, Ellen Bonde, was 80 in 1967.  Therefore she was born in 1887.  Therefore 100 years ago, in 1916, she was 29 years old.  At that time she had her first three daughters, Corinne, Helen, and Carol Ruth, ages 6,4, and 1.  They had just moved from Faribault, Minnesota, to Kalispell, Montana.  They found a house to rent in Kalispell that would be quarantined in 1918 when her youngest child died in her arms of scarlet fever.  [One hundred years ago, the Great War, in which the Central Powers (Germany and Austria–Hungary, joined later by Turkey and Bulgaria) were defeated by an alliance of Britain and its dominions, France, Russia, and others, joined later by Italy and the US.]

The Great War must have seemed remote from Kalispell to the young couple, especially Ellen.  Carl Bonde worked as a wholesale grocer and Ellen was a stay-at-home mom.