OTTILIE was born May 24, 1906 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada to Emil and Rosalie Marion (nee: Herr) Muench. It pleased Tillie that her birthday was also on the day in May when Queen Victoria of England was born.
In 1910, when Tillie was four years old, she moved with her parents, two sisters, Martha (6) and Wanda (1), and two brothers, Richard (2) and Robert (born in route) to a homestead chosen by her father about 16 miles southeast of Swift Current, Saskatchewan, on the S.E 1/4 of Section 34, Township 13, Range 11, in the Bigford District. The family always referred to their farm as the Bigford Homestead. Two more brothers, Edward and Reinhold, and two more sisters, Emma and Olga were born there and two babies were stillborn.
"My mother's heart stopped during labour when Edward Fredrick was born, February 24, 1913 on the farm." Tillie said. Luckily, Rosalia revived and lived to raise all of her children to adulthood. On June 27, 1920 Olga was born prematurely and their mother again nearly lost her life. Olga was the only bottle-fed baby and was Tillie's special care.
Tillie's youth was one of hard work, and during years of crop failure, they lived in dire poverty as well. "Even in good years, during the summer time, we kids had to go out in the pasture and pick up dry cow chips for cooking fuel. This was usually done barefooted and once in a while we stepped into a fresh green cow plaster and it oozed up between the toes. In wintertime, we had many terrible blizzards and it was best to stay home," she said.
Tillie related stories her mother had shared about her own youth in Russia. Rosalia told of the time one of her ancestors died. As was the custom, her clothing was sold. Later the family learned that the woman had sewn the few coins they'd saved into the hem of her skirt – what little wealth the family had was gone.
For a time, before the older Muench children began to leave home, there were 11 people at the table. The three eldest girls and one boy had finished the eight grades of school before Reinhold and the younger girls started. When Olga began school, there were five Muench children attending school together. Whenever Mother gave them a part of an apple for lunch, she cut it in four or five pieces, however many were going to school that particular day. Sometimes it would be one plum or sometimes a nice piece of sausage that went into their lunch.
Tillie often spoke of the fun times she and her siblings enjoyed, picking Saskatoon berries and wild goose berries, which made very good pies. Tillie became a very good cook, like her mother.
When Tillie was 17 years old, she went to Swift Current to work, as family housekeeper, for a lawyer named Cathrie. That's when she first saw a bathtub and electricity, and had a bed to herself. For five years she worked for various families. She moved to Moose Jaw in 1924, where she worked as housekeeper for a Doctor whose practice was in his house. A year later she moved to Coderr, Saskatchewan where she worked until April 3, 1928 to join her parents at the farm they'd bought near Chester, Washington, just south of Spokane, Washington, USA. She only returned to Canada for infrequent visits with her family, who in 1931 had returned to Canada.
She and Albert Edward Leeson were married on November 23, 1929 in a traditional home wedding in her parent's two-story white frame house at Chester, Washington. Tillie descended the staircase, dressed in an oyster-white calf-length dress beaded with tiny pearls and rhinestone scrolls around skirt, and a white floor length veil crowned with a headband adorned with orange blossoms and tiny white blossoms sculpted from wax.
They moved to Klamath Falls, Oregon in July 1930, left there in March 1931, traveling to Helena, Montana, and then returned to Spokane. All three of their children were born in Spokane: Chester Floyd (1931), Mona Inez (1932) and Carol Elizabeth (1936.)
Tillie wrote in her memoirs, "We lived on Morgan Acres until we sold our home in 1939, moving to 6 N. Lee Lee Street, where we rented until February 1940. We moved into our small house that Al built at 1502 Front Street, one block from our shop that he'd built; The Spokane Blacksmith and Welding Works, at 1503 Trent Ave. We lived on Front Street 2 ½ years, moving to E. 734 Baldwin in the late fall of 1942, where we'd bought a twelve-room house. We stayed there until November 1, 1945 when, after contracting to sell our house and business, we moved to the Bull River valley, fifteen miles from Noxon, Montana, onto a 160 acre ranch we bought.
"Our children found it a drastic change. In town they had a ten-minute walk to school. Now they had to be on the bus by 7:20 a.m. We often didn't see them in daylight for five days a week for several months in the wintertime. The house was always cold in the wintertime as I never really found all the cracks. The upstairs was hand-hewn shakes over poles for a roof and COLD!"
She failed to record her love of all children, or to tell how she never failed to give any child lots of affection and attention. She often raced or wrestled with her own three, even after they were teenagers. All during her life she loved gardening, cooking, canning and being outdoors. She was outgoing and always friendly. Tillie was well known for growing beautiful flowers, and for sharing whatever she had with others. She was frugal, and when she lived on Front Street, she walked to thrift stores, bought wool garments and took them home. After laundering them, using a razor blade, she'd carefully take them apart so she could cut quilt pieces from the best part of the material. Using as many embroidery stitches as she'd mastered, Tillie fashioned lovely quilts, which she gave freely to those less fortunate than herself.
She shared with her friends and neighbors the produce from the gardens she grew, milk and hand-churned butter, pastries from her kitchen, and flowers, and meat when there was any to spare. Her table was often shared by anyone who stopped in, either on business, for a visit, or just traveling through the Bull River valley.
Tillie did not like playing cards, abhorred alcohol, hated smoking, and wished she could dance, and loved swimming and hiking. She enjoyed both ice and roller-skating, sewed, knitted, crocheted and did embroidery, too. She loved shoes and hats and always had a considerable wardrobe of each. Because she'd frozen the tip of one ear and it curled over a tiny bit, and because a bout with influenza when she was a child had thinned her hair, she preferred wearing a hat wherever she went.
Tillie became a naturalized citizen of the United States on March 22, 1954 at Sanders County Courthouse, Thompson Falls, Montana. The Leeson family ranched in Montana for 16 years before she and Al retired in a small house Al built on Highway 200, about 5 miles west of Noxon. Their three children were already married, and each had a home and family.
Tillie attended churches of several denominations while living in Spokane. After moving to their Bull River Ranch, she had no opportunities to attend any church and missed that very much. After their children were grown and had left the ranch, Jehovah Witness members visited her frequently. They encouraged her to study with them, and shortly afterwards Tillie joined the Jehovah Witness Church at Noxon. She remained faithful to that religion the rest of her life.
Tillie and Al returned to Spokane in 1962 where Al was working with Chester, who had bought the welding business Al had sold in 1945. Al died of a heart attack in April 1964. Tillie became very active in the Jehovah Witness Church, and traveled as much as she could afford. She died of a brain-stem level stroke following a gall bladder surgery in October 1987. Both are buried in Greenwood Cemetery, Spokane, Washington.
Her three children credit both their parents for instilling in them honesty, love of family, good character, good morals, and a strong work ethic. ###
When Arthur Frank Vanek and Mona Inez Leeson wed on August 31, 1949 they linked the following family trees, [Maternal ~ Muench and Leeson] [Paternal ~ Vanek and Gremaux].
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