Dotson Seybold & Mary "Polly" (Hardisty) Seybold

This is Mary "Polly" (Hardisty) Seybold, the mother
of my paternal grandfather's (Delbert Saunders)

great-grandmother, Nancy Jane (Seybold) Woodside.

These are six of Polly's seven sons,
William, John, Henderson, Charles, Joseph, Marion and Luther,
brothers of my paternal grandfather's (Delbert Saunders)

great-grandmother, Nancy Jane (Seybold) Woodside.
(Unfortunately, I don't know which brother is missing from the photo
or which names belong to which brothers.)

These photos comes by way of the Glendale, Montana historical website, which has proven to be a veritable treasure-trove of information on my family's Montana pioneers.  The site features a lengthy biography of Dotson, Polly and their offspring, which I repeat below, with gratitude to those in Glendale who went to the effort of compiling it:

Dotson Seybold was born February, 1802 in Washington, Kentucky.  He was the third of four children born to Jesse and Margaret Seybold.  He moved to Macomb, Illinois  possibly as early as 1817.

Mary "Polly" Hardisty was the second of 12 children born to Dr. John Hardisty and his wife Elizabeth Hungate. Polly was born June 6, 1814 in Washington County, Kentucky, and moved with her family to Blandinsville, McDonough County, Illinois, around 1815 or 1816, where the other ten children were born.

Polly and Dotson were married March 23, 1831, in McDonough County, Illinois. Over the next 27 years, they had 12 children, all born in McDonough County; Elizabeth Margaret born November 13, 1832; William Washington born December 18, 1834; Nancy Jayne born October 17, 1836;  John Vinson, born 1839; Rhoda born March 22, 1841; Harriet Emily born September 12, 1843; Henderson Franklin born February 15, 1847; Lucetta born October 15, 1848; Charles Harrison born May 26, 1851; Joseph Lafayette born May 12, 1854; Marion born February 10, 1857; and Luther Bush born October 5, 1859.

Dotson's and Polly's sons, John, Henderson, Charles, Joseph, Marion and Luther, along with their widowed sister, Nancy and her children, moved to Glendale by wagon train along the Old Oregon Trail.   They took the Montana Trail north to the gold fields of Montana Territory, ending up in Glendale working in the Hecla silver mines and smelter for over a decade.

Dotson and Polly soon followed. On the 1880 census, Dotson is listed as working as a laborer  in Glendale's Hecla Mines, at age 78. By 1885, he had quit working at Hecla and moved to Hubbell, Nebraska where he and Polly stayed for a few years until his sons convinced them to return to Montana where they lived on land that five of their sons had homesteaded between Dell and Lima. 

Dotson died February 15, 1888 in Dillon at the age of 86. Polly died November 2, 1895 in Dillon at age 81. They are both buried in the Lima Cemetery in the Seybold family plot.

Nora Belle (Baker) Saunders

Three portraits, at different ages, of my paternal great grandmother,
Nora Belle (Baker) Saunders,
my grandfather Delbert Saunders's mother.

Nora Belle married my father's namesake, George Marion Saunders, on May 6, 1908 in Blackfoot, Bingham County, Idaho, when she was just 17 years old.  Their first son, James "Jimmy" Robert Saunders was born when she was 18.  My grandfather, Delbert "Bud" Marion Saunders, was born in Roundup, Montana, in 1911, when Nora Belle was 19.  Though she loved George Marion very much, he was (in the words of my grandfather), "a failure as a husband and father, " and the marriage ended in divorce. Nora Belle later married George Carston, a native of California and a switchman on the railroads.  With George Carston, she bore another son, Arnold.  She, George, Jimmy, Bud and Arnold eventually moved to California and settled in Tracy, CA, along with the families of Nora's sisters (Ruby, Nellie and Mamie).  Nora remained married to George Carston until her death.

Nora became diabetic and, as my grandfather describes, "had it under control by way of a new drug -- insulin -- and her diet."  Unfortunately, she died quite early in life, on January 1, 1925, at the age of 33 after a friend talked her into joining a fundamentalist church that practiced faith healing and she stopped taking her insulin.  This incident, as well as the death of Nora's sister Ruby, who also fell under the influence of the fundamentalist teachings and died from uremic poisoning after a difficult pregnancy, caused my grandfather to reject all forms of organized religion and live by his own philosophy of "trying not to make too many trespasses or hurt anyone."  Ironically, thought I never saw him attend church, I consider my grandfather to be the most Christian person I have ever had the privilege of knowing.

Nora Belle & Nellie Baker

Nora Belle Baker (standing) and her younger sister, Nellie Baker.
Daughters of Fred Baker and Martha Emily (Woodside) Baker.

Nora Belle is my paternal grandfather's (Delbert "Bud" Saunders) mother and my great grandmother.  She was born May 2, 1892 in Glendale, Beaverhead County, Montana.  The photo was taken in Dillon, Montana, but there is no date on it.  Judging from the age of Nora Belle, it was probably taken around 1907 when she was about 15. I'm lucky enough to have been passed down the locket that Nora Belle is wearing around her neck.  My grandmother, Irma D'Angeli (Delbert's wife), gave it to me the Christmas I was 13 years old.