Frankie and Perd Merrifield and Family

 Mae Francis” Frankie” Porter married Percy W.“Perd” Merrifield in 1902. He was born at Grand Rapids, Michigan on January 29, 1870 and came to Philipsburg at the age of eighteen. Perd worked for a time as a teamster. Perd’s mother Orphenia Niles died at her home in Philipsburg, on June 23, 1905 at the age of sixty-one years. A native of New York state, she had lived in Philipsburg over seventeen years. Survivors were: a daughter, Mrs. Gus Gleason, of Plains, Montana and a granddaughter, Miss Grace Bradshaw, who had been staying with Orphenia. The obituary indicated Mrs. Niles was living with Perd and Frankie in her home on Duffy Street, at the time death. 

                                                Perd's Barn Courtesy of Pat Heimark 2024

Frankie and Perd built the ranch, on the east side of the highway across from Porter’s Corner after 1905 and was most proud of his barn on the west side of the highway. In 1917 the Mail stated, Frankie collected $21.25 for the War Work Campaign and they paid $166.42 in taxes on the ranch in 1927. Their children were: Percy Forrest “ Buster” born August 11, 1919 and Joe born in 1932, who moved to Portland, Oregon as a young man. Frankie, sixty-eight years of age, died on February 3, 1949 and had lived all of her life in the Philipsburg area. Survivors: her husband Perd; two sons and daughter-in-laws: Joe of Portland, Oregon and Forrest of Philipsburg; two grandchildren: Peggy and Jamie; brother Joe Porter and sister Nova Bairen. Burial was in the Philipsburg cemetery. 

Perd continued living on the ranch with son “Buster’ and his wife until death occurred while sitting in the kitchen, the week of October 25, 1957. Internment was in the Philipsburg cemetery next to Frankie. 

Their son “Buster” served as a PFC in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1942 to 1946, in the South Pacific and Iwo Jima. He married Shirley Heimark, the daughter of Ed Senior and they had a son Jerry before divorcing. Buster then married Clara Ann (Nicolaysen) Ferguson, on August 25, 1947, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. H. Everett Nicolaysen. She brought daughters Jamie and Peggy (Margaret) into the marriage and Buster adopted them.. 

Peggy married James Puyear and after they divorced, she married LeRoy Durand. They had three sons: Bob, Don and Mike. The Durand’s lived in Anaconda, until their deaths. 

Jamie married Curtis Smith and they had three children: Angel, Susie and Jess, before they divorced. Curtis died in 2021. 

Research revealed the following article about Buster: May 17, 1940: ”Forest Merrifield and Harold Hooper of Porter’s Corner chased 2 men who filled up with gas and took off up the Skalkaho. Charles Carrp, working the grader for the State Highway, verified the men’s description when questioned by Merrifield and Hooper and knowing that the road was closed with snow higher up, he blocked the road with his grader. They got a gun at the Carey ranch and apprehended the men when they came back down the highway. The men named Chet Duncan and Gordon West, had stolen the car from M.D. Cahill in Butte. Deputy Sheriff Fred Superneau, took the men in custody when they were returned to Porter’s Corner, by Merrifield and Hooper. Unknown, until taken into custody by the deputy, the men were armed.” 

Buster drove the rural school bus on the Rock Creek route for more than twenty years, then operated Merrifield Arctic Sales until he retired in 1972. He was the school bus driver when I attended school and never drove the bus if it got forty degrees below zero. Thirty-nine was okay but we might freeze if the bus became stuck in the snow drift, that always occurred at the west end of Trail Gulch, if it was forty below. 

Buster died September 29, 1974 and is buried in Philipsburg.