Phillip Bernard Lerwill
and
Edna Verian Lee

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     Phillip Bernard Lerwill and Edna Verian Lee lived in Monroe, Oregon until the spring of 1912.
 Phillip and Claude Lee were informed by a friend, Perry Martin living one mile south and 1/2 mile east of France Siding that the State of Idaho was leasing unimproved land around Lamont for around $ 2.50 and acre.  Phillip and Claude made a trip to Idaho and Phillip leased 320 acres of sage brush land.
     The State eventually put this ground up for auction and allowed the families to purchase the leased land.  In the spring of 1916 we sold all our possessions in Oregon, including a model T Ford, and with four children, Lois, Hebert, Doris, and Georgia, boarded the train at Monroe, Oregon.  We were each allowed 200 pounds of baggage.
     We got off the train at France Siding and walked to the Martin home.  We remodeled a granary and lived there and Phillip rode horseback 3 miles to his new land which was 1/2 miles west of Lamont by the railroad crossing.
     He bought six head of horses and two bottom plow and went to work.  Each night he turned the horses out and hobbled them.  Some nights they wandered quite a distance.  In September when school started at Lamont, we moved from the Martin place and lived in two tents until our house was built October 16th.
     They ordered a pre-cut house out of Portland and he hired a handy-man to help him build the house.  He also dug a well, and hauled and cut his wood into timber.  He hunted for our winter meat.
     The winters were severe and we walked down the railroad to school at lamont in a one room log school house.  Ralph Lamont was our first school teacher.  He taught 1-8 grades.  Lois Lerwill graduated from the 8th grade the first year.  A couple of years later they built a two room school house.  Virginia Duke and Miss Kunkel were the teachers.
     Around 1917 George Ferney from St. Anthony built a large room upstairs and social events were held there.
      The fall of 1918, World War I had called all eligible young men to war.  The flu epidemic was very severe and many died from the flu.  This was our 1st or 2nd harvest at Lamont.  My Aunt and one  and one-half year old son, who had been born at our house (she had been living at Arbor Valley) came walking down the track the first of December.  She was expecting another child.  Her name was Olive Burks, son were Malcom and Lennis Burks.
     We had the threshing crew who were pulling bundles of wheat out of the snow and threshing the grain.  The crew came and stayed right in our home, sleeping on the floors and our mother feeding them three meals a day.
     Immediately my aunt became sick with the flu.  George Ferney fixed the recreation room for a hospital room and my mother took my aunt there to nurse her.  The Doctor came from Ashton and delivered the baby.  My aunt lived only a few days, but the baby girl, Linnie, survived.
 Schools were closed that year due to flu and the war.  We kept my aunt's two children for two years until my brother Harold was born March 19, 1920.  He also was delivered at our house.  The railroad gave the train permission to stop at the railroad crossing by our house.
     For several years we suffered drought conditions and very poor crops.  My father was a very good farmer, and always got his crops in early and the harvest in before the storms in winter.  Around 1930 he bought his first tractor and sold all those horse that had to be fed three times a day.  He enjoyed not having  the chores of currying, feeding, watering, and harnessing the horses, but he also loved all animals.  He said he never made any money until he used a tractor.  My brother Hubert died in 1934, and at that time Harold was 12 years old.  He stepped in and filled Hubert's shoes.
     The winters were severe and the only transportation was by railroad, sleigh, and snowshoes, etc.  Developing the Lamont community was not for sissies, hard work and a desire to be able to raise a family was always uppermost in our minds.
     My father loved the freedom of living in the Lamont area.  He enjoyed the view of the Teton Peaks, the good drinking water, and privacy, but when he retired, he enjoyed an automatic furnace and electric stove, a luxury he never expected to have.
      In 1945 our farm was sold to Harry and Elaine French.  Phillip and Edna purchased an apartment building in St. Anthony.
     Edna was often called as a midwife.  She was called to deliver the Lee Gallager children and the Harry French children, and many others.

Editors note:  The above information was written by Georgia H. Lerwill Harris Cherry, and submitted by Garry Lynn Lerwill.  The following notes, data, and general helpful information come from them also:

Families living in the Lamont region around 1916:

The Lamont family living on the right-hand side of the hill on Bitch Creek, where the road crosses Bitch Creek, Elmo, Clyde, Ralph, Grace, Belva Eloise, Elmo's two sons, Ben and Dean, Clude married a Bailey girl, one daughter.

Schults family:

Conlins, Tom, Mary, & John

Jasper Litton family: Ralph ( St. Anthony lawyer), Ray, Ruth

Gibson:  Hazel, Berniece, Cora, Billie

Niendorf:  Harry, Paul (md. Berniece Gibson), Don, Harry (md. Hazel Gibson).

Elias Cook family: living on Conant Creek;  Joe & Lilly Cook had the post office in their home several years.

Elias Gardner, Bishop (Presiding Elder) of L.D.S. Church services at Highland, Ray, Laura, LaJetta, Reva and two others.  LaJetta married Arvid Glover, who was a cousin of Alta Martindale Lerwill.  (Alta married Harold James Lerwill).  Their daughter was Utana Bean.

LERWILL'S
Phillip, Willis, Walter, Clarence
Ada, Linnie, Herbert, Ollie
 

George Ferney came about 1917: Clifford, Lydle, Merlin, Lillian, & Leland.  Lillian married a Wort from Jackson and they had the Wort Hotel.  Merlin married Leona Athinson from Highland area.  Fred Morrison & Dolly & son Douglas.  When Fred died, Dollie married Ernest French.

Frank and Ella Smith:  When Frank died, Ella married Roy Callow.  Frank and Ella had three children. They never attend Lamont school.  Morrison and Smiths's wives were sisters- they all came from Oregon.

The railroad was built around 1910 or 1912 from Aston to Victor.  About that time, they were building the Jackson Dam.  Before the railroad was built they freighted the merchandise from Marysville on the Reclamation Road & over the hill to Jenny's Lake.  Marysville was named after the residents living there by the name of "Mary".
 

     Phillip was born in Brooks, Oregon 1 June 1881.  His father was Walter James Lerwill and his mother was Ruth Fletcher.  When his mother died, his father later married an Indian woman and Phillip was a long time unforgiving of his father for this.  Later, after his father died he realized that his step mother was a good woman and that he should have not been so unforgiving.  Edna was born  4th July 1883 in Lancaster, Oregon which was just outside of Junction City.  Her father was James Ellison Lee and mother was Mary Eveline Swearingen.
     The thing that I remember most about my grandparents was they lived a hard life.  The farm they lived on was dry land grain.  They had no electricity, no central heat and the water came from a well outside.  Although I believe that later on they did have a pump in there kitchen.  Also the "outhouse" was outside.  They did not have phone service.  I believe that there was a phone at the store in Lamont.
     When ever we went to see them we went their by train.  In the winter the snow would be so deep that it was hard to see out the train windows.  The train would usually stop to let us off at the road crossing by their place, even though Lamont was only down the road about a mile.  I did not go there often in the summer as I always went to my other grandparents in the summer.  The always traveled in the winter by horse drawn sleigh.  In the winter they usually had a drift of snow that was as high as the house.  Often they would tunnel through the drift instead of making a pathway.
     When ever we took a bath, the water had to be heated on the stove and then poured into a metal tub.  The bath was done in the kitchen as there was no bathroom.  In the living room there was a big stove that was used to heat the house, but it seemed that the only place that was heated was right around the stove.  The bedrooms were real cold, but after getting into bed we were kept warm by the big feather bedding.
     Just east of the house across the road was a small hill that was great for sleighing or skiing.  But often Harold would put his skies on and have the horse pull him around.
 In the summer that I did go there we also had a lot of fun.  I caught my first fish on Conant Creek.  I was fishing with Harold and I hooked this fish.  I was so excited that I pulled on the pole real hard and the fish went flying through the air and almost back into the creek where Harold rushed to it and caught it.  Granddad liked to go hunting and fishing when the time permitted and the hunting and fishing was good around there.
     Their farm was a pretty spot of this land.  The Grand Tetons were visible in the distance and it was rolling hills that had groves of Aspen trees.  The remainder of the land was grain fields
Granddad had a touring car.  I don't know the make, but  it had the folding up sides.  He did not like to drive at night as the on coming lights bothered him.  When driving at night if a car approached him from the other way he would turn off his lights and wanted the other car to do the same.
     When they sold their farm in 1945 they got an apartment in St. Anthony.  They lived there until Phillip died 24 June 1961.  Edna stayed there for awhile and her mother, Mary Eveline Swearingen Lee came to live with her until she died.  When Edna sold the place in St. Anthony she lived with Arthur and Doris Say in Oceanside for awhile and then later on when she became sick she move in with her other daughter Georgia Cherry.  She died at Georgia's home on 9 th July 1971.
 
 

Children of Phillip and Edna.
1. Lois born 11 Sept. 1902 at Junction City, Oregon
  marr: 1. Robert Hawks, 2 Jan 1925
           2. William Neff, 2 Nov. 1929
2. Hubert Lynn born 4 July 1904, died 1 July 1932. unmarried
3. Doris Ada born 19 Aug. 1906
 marr: Arthur Leonard Say 22 May 1924
 died  31 Jan. 1991
3. Georgia Helen born 16 Sept. 1908 at Harrisburg, Oregon
 marr. 1.Clinton Harris 10 Nov. 1928
          2. John Cherry 12 Dec 1935
4. Harold James born 7 March 1920 at Lamont, Idaho
 marr. Alta Martindale 30 June 1941
 died. 16 Aug 1980

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