Notes for Laura Meeker HITT

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Notes for Laura Meeker HITT

Laura Meeker Hitt-Reinhart-Church
The following is from Beverly Lucille Reinhart-Hamby, grand daughter of
Laura Meeker Hitt.
According to family legend David Samuel Hitt went to the California
Gold Rush, his partner's last name was Meeker, that is how Laura got the
middle name Meeker. While David was home for Eliza's birth, Meeker sold
the mine and disappeared. Laura supposedly kept looking for him
(Meeker). In 1907 when my father, Lee Henderson Reinhart, was 10 years
old Laura left him at his oldest brother's home (David Raymond) and took
Susan with her to the state of Washington. She never returned to
Minnesota and family that I know of. She did not find Meeker, but she
did meet Jasper Newt Church and married him. My father never talked much
about his parents so to my knowledge Laura and George were never
divorced. George died in 1919.
Newt worked for Pacific Power and Lights. He transferred from
Washington to Bend, Oregon. When we moved to Oregon in 1935 they were
living in Bend. The only things I remember about Laura is her beautiful
wrinkle free skin and that she played the piano. I remember her as being
a beautiful woman. I do not remember her as appearing to be 70 years
old. In 1935 my father lost his job in Minnesota. Laura was sure he
could get a job in Bend, so in August 1935 Lee with his wife and 8
children, the oldest 20, the youngest 6 weeks, made the trip to Oregon.
Lee and his family stayed with Laura for several months. Lee got a job 3
days a week at the Shevlin-Hixon Lumber Mill. He worked in the steam
power plant. Most of his life he worked with steam equipment or steam
generation - from the time he was a young man working with steam combine
equipment to harvest wheat on Minnesota farms to working with steam power
plants which generated electricity for running lumber mills.
I was 4 years old when we moved to Bend, so I have few memories of
Laura.

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