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Seth and Ruby Bradshaw 1974
The following article is edited from the life story graciously shared with me by Dan Bradshaw. Verlin, the first born, attended the old New Chicago school just east of the railroad tracks on the old Mullan Road. He skipped the second grade, and went directly from the 1st Grade to the 3rd grade. The New Chicago closed down after third grade and he went to Drummond on the school bus to finish grade school and high school. After graduation he worked at a saw mill down near Bearmouth. Later. attended Montana State College in Bozeman for one quarter. Next he met Viola Mae Bierman and they were married August 6, 1949. They bought an old trailer house and located it on the ranch. Verlin went into construction and built, or remodeled, several homes in Drummond and in Helena. He also received his private pilot’s license; bought an airplane and did a lot of flying around Montana.
They have four children, all born in Deer Lodge, Montana. 1. Verlyn Coleen (born: 6 July 1950; died 5 December 2010) 2. Robin Stuart (born 9 March 1952) 3. Andrew Mitchell (born 7 May 1954) 4. Thomas Matthew (born 15 February 1958).
Verlin decided to go on to College, so they moved to Provo, Utah and he attended BYU where he graduated in Civil Engineering and moved to Seattle; purchased a home and began working for The Boeing Company on the 747 airplane project for Boeing. He continued to fly his airplane. Boeing also sent him to California to work with a supplier for some of the 747 structural parts of the airplane, for about two years He continued flying his plane over California, Arizona and Mexico. Boeing took a down turn and Verlin lost his job, so went into business for himself running a nursery and landscape business which he sold after receiving his Engineer’s license from the State of Washington.
The State of Washington required an engineer’s signature on architect drawings before the builder could proceed and inspect the homes during construction to verify they were building correctly. He was paid quite well for his expertise. While inspecting a home he tripped, He tripped, striking his head on the concrete foundation and was knocked unconscious. The incident caused him periodic seizures which needed long-term medication.
Viola worked for the telephone company and her income helped them survive during the down times. In his later years, Verlin struggled with COPD, having to use oxygen and passed away at his home on September 30, 2009.
Seth Daniel Bradshaw (always known as Dan) was the second child and born in the old Elmore Maternity Hospital in Missoula, Montana September 5, 1929 while the family lived in the old Bunker House. Dan attended the old New Chicago grade school for two years and then took the school bus to Drummond from third grade through High School and graduated in 1947.
He worked on the ranch all of his young life After the family hay was harvested in 1947 he went to work for Mac Enman to help with his hay then went with Mac and another man to bring Mac’s cattle from their summer grazing area high up in the surrounding mountains. Next Dan went to work for Ora Carrocci, driving an old 1935 dump truck with mechanical brakes (which often did not work too well), hauling limestone from a quarry up the rattlesnake gulch. The next job was for Clifford Spencer cutting Christmas trees and then he went to Butte and enlisted in the Army Air Force which changed one year later to the United States Air Force.
He was sent to Lackland Field, in San Antonio, Texas, for basic training; next to Scott Field, near Belleville, Illinois, for training in Radio Maintenance. After completing the Radio Maintenance training came Camp Kilmer in New Jersey to receive some shots and orders to go to Germany to serve with the occupation forces and shipped out in January of 1949, He disembarked in Bremen, Germany; then to Marburg to receive orders and was sent to Tulln Air Force Base near Vienna, Austria. Next was transferred to Celle, Germany, to support the Berlin Air Lift.
After the Berlin Air Lift, Dan was sent to Fassberg Air Base for a couple of weeks to work with a group trying to find any information on the base relating to the V-2 rockets that Hitler dropped on England. Fassberg Air Base was highly classified during World War II because it was at that base that the V-2 rockets were developed. Next he was sent to Tempelhof Air Base in Berlin, Germany, for only a short time, then sent to a detachment in Braunschweig, Germany, to continue the support of the Berlin Air Lift, as it was still going on, even though it had officially ended a little earlier. T
The Korean War started in June of 1950 and all military personnel were frozen in the service, so that they could not get out of the service for an undetermined time. Dan re-enlisted in December of 1950 and remained in Braunschweig until his three year tour of duty was over in Germany. He was sent back to Bremen, and boarded a troop ship in January 1952, to go back to the United States. After 11 rough days on the Atlantic Ocean, Dan arrived in New York and traveled to Fort Dix in New Jersey to receive his new assignment. His assignment was McChord Air Force Base near Tacoma, Washington. After a few weeks he was sent TDY (Temporary Duty) to re-open Paine Field (now Paine Air Force Base) because the Air Force wanted to use it for training fighter pilots. The field had been closed after World War II. When that task was completed he was sent on TDY to Eniwetok in the South Pacific to support the Atomic Energy Commission in detonating the first Hydrogen Bomb, then re-assigned to McChord Air Force Base to complete his final years in the Air Force.
Before being discharged he met Joyce Alene Haight in Drummond and they were married on 25 May 1953. After discharge Dan enrolled in Electrical Engineering at Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana; graduated in 1957 and accepted a position with the Boeing Company in Seattle, Washington and engaged in graduate work in Electrical and Nuclear Engineering at the University of Washington.
After acceptance to the Business School at the University of Washington, Dan changed his mind and took the Law School Admission Test and was accepted into the Law School at the University of Washington. During school Dan tool a leave of absence from Boeing and after receiving his Juris Doctorate returned to work for Boeing. They had four children, Suzanne Lynn who married Darcy Self, Carol Jean who married Blair Suddarth; Rodney Daniel and Robert Lloyd who married Joanne. They all have active lives at this time.
Dan retired from Boeing in July of 1993. During retirement, Joyce and Dan served a Mission in the New Jersey Cherry Hill Mission with a major assignment to establish an Institute Program at Rutgers University. Some years later Joyce became quite ill and struggled for a couple of years and then passed away on March 25, 2018 with burial in the Tahoma Veterans Cemetery near Tacoma, Washington.
Dan later re-met a girl he dated in High School in 1946-1947: Patricia Ann Wickberg from the lower valley. Pat had married Cart Hamilton and was widowed in 2009. Dan and Pat were married in Seattle on July 9, 2018 and are now living in Pat’s home in Missoula,
