ON APRIL 29th, 1900, MY MOTHER ELLA JEAN BEUTEL WAS BORN.

      She was born of Bavarian descent in a Jackson, Minnesota hospital, just a few miles across the border from her home in Spirit Lake, Iowa.
      At the age of 4, Ella Jean Beutel and her parents left by train for Kalispel, Mont., enroute to their planned homestead at the settlement town of Eureka, Mont.. After reaching Kalispel, they then traveled the remaining distance of 85 miles to Eureka by horse and wagon, taking 3 additional days.
      There, they finally established their family homestead. Ella Jean grew up in that quiet little logging and mining community, but not before being joined at the age of six by her sister Alice and then a brother Lawrence 2 years later. She rode her horse back and forth to school, both winter and summer, and until she graduated at the age of 18.
      At the tender age of 19, she met and married our father, John D. McNaughton who had just been honorably discharged from the Canadian Army and fresh from being a machine gunner in the 1st world war. They went on to produce 11 children over a period of the next 18 years. With our Dad being a casualty both physically and mentally of the war, the increasing family burden on our mother was more than a cross to bear, but she withstood it in a way throughout the years that couldn't be outdone by anyone else, and particularly the manner in which she did it. Through all of the chores she had no choice but to undertake, she walked proudly and with dignity ahead of us to the Catholic Church each week. Even when all she could afford was a dime for the collection plate, she made sure we got there every Sunday.
       I'm sure my mother's biggest challenge was in making sure there was enough food for the table, since our  Dad hardly ever brought a paycheck home in support of the family. When he did land a job, he would be in a logging camp somewhere for a month or two. When he did get paid, he seldom ever made his way home until it was gone. At which time he would come home and devour part of a venison roast that was mean't for the rest of the family. Then he'd leave again on his drinking spree.
       I don't intentionally mean to demean my father, since I can only imagine what he suffered during  the first world war with it's mustard gas and all, but I find it necessary to describe it in illustrating what it put our beautiful, dear mother through in her trying efforts to raise a family of eleven.
       At times, she would sit us all down to dinner and then take up her position in a chair by the kitchen window, gazing out at the neighborhood while the rest of us ate, and going without food herself so we would have enough for us kids.
       More than enough times that I want to remember, she would burst out sobbing at the challenge of it all, with no one to appeal for help to but God. We would all gather around her while she did this and coax her not to cry, telling her things would get better, even though we didn't know how.
       We all made it through that life, with the 2nd world war on, and two of our oldest brothers, a brother-in-law and our Dad again in the mix. But we all made it through as we watched Mom baking dozens and dozens of cookies to send to them wherever they were in overseas service. They all came home.
        After the last of the brood married and moved away from home in our small town of Fernie, B.C., Canada in 1959, Our mother returned to the States and settled down to the job of raising retarded children in a hospital facility in Boulder, Mont. until she retired at the age of 65. From then on, although she could have lived with anyone in the family, she took up residence in Seattle Wa. where she could be near all of us, and we visited her frequently. At the ripe old age of 99, she passed away in her sleep as she always wished she would.
        Since then, I decided to look up the history of my mother's maiden name, Beutel. I was pleasantly surprised with what I learned. The name goes back to the middle ages in Bavaria when a family's last name was sometimes attached to the trade they were in for earning a living. In the Beutel case,They were a family of wood stave barrel makers for beer and wine casks. they became so well known in their talent for producing these "butes" (containers) that the name became a part of Bavarian Aristocracy as the name Beutel. They were a well known, well off family and were so much a part of the wine and beer system that they also had a special tartan in their name. I must say it is a very pretty 3 tone blue and something my mother, with her astute manner of walking and always with her head held high each week as we followed her to church, would have been so proud of.
        I know now why she was so adept in the making of beautiful wedding dresses she used to sew in order to enhance the family income. I'm so honored to be one of her sons.
        I have written this story in honor of my mother, who is I'm sure, celebrating her 112th birthday somewhere with some of our older siblings in the great beyond, and smiling down on the rest of us this day. a day when Prince William and Kate are celebrating their first anniversary as well.
        Also on a day of infamy when Hitler married Ava Braun. Where they died in a bunker by their own hand a short time later. April 29th, 1945.   Just sayin'.