CARBON COUNTY

I am Rebecca Maloney the County Coordinator.  If you have genealogy items of interest you would like to share- PLEASE Contact me !   Thank you to the previous CC's and volunteers that have helped with this MTGenWeb Project!

Bertha Columby Thomas Andrew

Newspaper article from the Billings paper
People you know A Belfry lady

Bertha Andrews house, like the 92 year old Bertha herself, is interesting and lively.

She sits under and oil of a nesting eagle done by her 2nd Son "J.T. and recalls:

"We moved here in 1917 to get some place for our boys and the house was just like that when we moved in," she says as she points to an oil painting on the opposite wall of a house with a sod roof.

When she and her husband and the boys first came to this country, they contended with indoor rain and falling mud for 8 years.

"Kids would wake up at night and holler, 'Mama, it's raining in my bed," she recalls.

"Or, we'd be eating and have to move the table."

After a Saturday cleaning, there was a quick rain and a bucket of mud in her bed, she remembers.

She told her husband, "I'm going to live in a tent—at, least when it rains it would leak water and not mud."

She raised 12 children in that house—six of her own and six others.

Joe Andrews, her oldest boy, lives in Rapid City, S.D., Curtis, who is vice president of Hyatt Houses is in Orlando, Fla., Ted is Postmaster at Columbia Falls Clair is in the dry cleaning business in Denver and

Hollis Beyer, her only daughter, has a doctorate in nursing and lives in Cornelius Ore.

After a lifetime of children — PIANO STUDENTS* Sunday School pupils, boarding teachers and high school students, her love of children has not abated. Holding a neighbor's baby, she teases, "You wouldn't want to get rid of it, would you?"

Across the street from her house is the church that has played a large role in her life. " Everybody needs a job in the church," she says, "If they have a job, they will be there. "

For years she crossed the street to ring the bell and has baled the Communion bread for 30 years.

Her hands are busy in other ways, too. On her bed is her latest quilt, a flower garden. of colro. Two years ago, she gave 8 hand quilted lap robes to the Carbon County Care Center in Red Lodge.

Creative Bertha knows no bounds. She has published one book, "THE Stamp," and has another yet to be published.

On her 92nd birthday she was asked for her secret of longevity, and she said:

"I’ve been taking care of someone since I was seven years old."

Karen De Groote, State Coordinator

Suzanne Andrews, Assistant State Coordinator

Rebecca Maloney, County Coordinator

Contact Information for USGenWeb:

National Coordinator: Linda K. Lewis 

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