Saidee Frances Isabell Durkee Munroe is my grandmother. Frances was raised by a single mother, married at age twenty and became a widow at the age of forty-three.
Her father was a Civil War Vet and her mother was an English immigrate. Francis story begins in Chitwood, Lincoln, Oregon in 1898 and ends in Paradise, Butte, California in 1991. She lived with her mother in the Los Angeles area when she met her husband Bill Munroe in 1918.
Bill was born in Yankton, South Dakota. His parents came from Falls River, Massachusetts to Yankton. They left Yankton and move on to Trinidad, Colorado and finally to Los Angeles, California. Bill and Frances married 1919 and made Southern California their home. This is where they lived until Bill passed away in 1941. Frances remained in Southern California after his death and raise her family. In 1958 she retired and moved to Paradise, California. Her oldest son Wendall was in poor health and never married. He lived with her all his life and passed away in 1979.
Frances was very independent and lived by herself for the next eleven years. At the age of ninety-two she moved in with her daughter Marian as she could no longer live alone. At the age of ninety-three she became too ill to remain in Marian’s care. The last three months of her life she remained in an assisted living home and passed away at the age of ninety-three.
My grandmother I feel was a happy, active, health, hard-working, independent women. Frances had great faith in God and this faith guided her through her life. She had to learn how to survive in a world without a father and husband most of her life.
