Jennie Margaret Beckwith

Sweetwater Community Church

5305 Sweetwater Road

Bonita, CA 91902

(619) 479-8208

JENNIE MARGARET BECKWITH

December 13, 1918 - January 18, 2016

Jennie Margaret Beckwith was born on December 13, 1918. Her birth was in the families sod house near Victoria Springs, Nebraska. Her farther Fred Ross was a cattleman and butcher. Her mother Bonnie Burris Ross kept the house and home working. Not long after her birth and not far from the sod house the family moved onto the Burris ranch that her father managed. The two story house with the walk around porch provided a place to grow up. Three years after Margaret's birth she was joined by sister Twilla. This was a start of sister, sister friendship that reached a lifetime. A lifetime that produced two families connected forever.

Margaret started school in the one room school house at Victoria Springs. She spent her next 8 years going to school. While living near Victoria Springs Margaret could walk to school. When they moved to the Ranch it was a long walk. If weather wasn't good then the parents drove here to school. Horse and buggy were used when roads were impassible with a vehicle.

Margaret's attendance was almost perfect.

Valentines was one of her favorite school events.

Valentines cards were made, not bought. The home project completed she couldn't wait to gift the cards to their classmates. Nebraska's mid February weather can be nasty. The snow before Valentine's Day was so heavy getting to school wasn't possible. It was a sad Valentines for Margaret.

When Margaret graduated from 8th grade she had to move to town during the week. Anselmo was the closest high school. A daily commute not feasible, Margaret joined three other girls at one of the local homes that provided a room. They car pooled. A friend's Father would pick the girls up and her Dad would drive them back to the boarding house on Sunday afternoon. This was a routine that lasted for three years. The girls did their own cooking. Margaret's weekly allowance for food was maybe $3.00 a week. Mom talked about 50 cents going along ways. She recalled her father sending meat to add to weekly fair.

Ranch life was intense. Growing grain required crews to come for to help harvest. Her father butchered the beef that fed the men that came to work. She recalled huge flat pans stacked high with steaks being given to her mother to prepare. The harvest kitchen was a busy place preparing a breakfast and noon time dinner for a number of hungry hands. Work and eating was serious business. When not at school Margaret help run the house. She remembered lots of time spent cleaning the house, doing undone chores.

First the great depression settled in and then the dust began to fly 1934. Margaret remembers the time when ranching became almost impossible. Neighbors and friends began to move. Her father decided it was time to move to Idaho. He rounded up the cattle, took them to Kansas for sale. With profits he bought a new Chevy and drove back to Nebraska. In 1935 with trailer in tow the family moved to Idaho. Idaho was reported being a good spot to raise a family. Fred and Bonnie with Ross sisters landed in Idaho. Margaret completed her senior year at Payette high school graduating in 1936.

The depression still had its grip on the country. They found seasonal work in the local packing houses. Working 18 hour days they could make some money. Margaret, her mother and sister worked for Beckwith's Packing Shed. There she met the Packing Shed's foreman, Emery Beckwith. Falling in love led them to marriage on a September day in 1940.

The wedding day was a trip to the Payette County Court house. Her parents made it clear that getting married was fine with them, but once married, coming home again wasn't an option.

World War II was starting. Better jobs and a brighter future were in southern California. They loaded Emery's car moved in with Margaret's sister and new brother in-law, Eldon and Twilla Dressen in Los Angeles. The home had one bedroom. One week one couple had the bedroom and next week the other couple got the bedroom. Emery was trained to help build ships. The position made him exempt from the draft. Margaret recalled that when Pearl Harbor was bombed they were at a beach picnic in Long Beach. Margaret gave birth to their first child Carol while living there.

Emery's father contacted the couple and asked them to return to Idaho to work in the packing houses again. Again the pair packed up belonging moved back to Idaho. They decided to build a home in Fruitland on a lot with fruit trees and a big garden. The garage was built first and the couple moved in with their daughter. While living in the garage a son Bob was born.

Life in Fruitland was spent packing and putting up food at work and home. Margaret's pride was her garden and her flowers. Eating well meant canning and preserving the food to be consumed. The new home had a basement food storage area. Filling it was a summer task. At here peak Margaret would can 1,000 quarts for fruit and vegetables harvested from the garden and brought from the packing plant.

Hosting family events was something that Margaret and Emery seemed to enjoy. Backyard picnics and Sunday dinners, and Holidays were remembered as events of joy and celebration with plenty of food for all. Bob recollects this was the time he first observed separation of labor. He recalled that his Mother always mixed the makings for homemade ice cream. Men not allowed. His father always received the mixings to be churned into ice cream, women not allowed. That's the way it worked. And the ice cream was always so cold and so rich and busting with flavor. The ice cream was made with loving hands.

It was a cold winter of 1953. The packing house was full of Onions. The Onions froze and the packing house went out of of Business. Again the family was moved to southern California. They borrowed $300.00 from Margaret's mom to allow them to move. The house they moved to was a just off of Obisbo and 7th in Long Beach. Ralph and Bernice Turner had their home at 660 Obisbo Way. Emery worked for his cousin Ralph at Coast Equipment Exchange- it was a job that put food on the table and roof over our head- The home was a little cottage. It had 4 rooms: living/dining room, bedroom, a kitchen wide enough for maybe one person, and a bathroom that had a toilet with chain pull. The living/dinning room turned into Carol's bedroom when the wall bed was pulled down.

There were parties and events. Church groups would come for game night, The Dressens and Helfrechts would come for Christmas and other holidays. How mother could make a big party out of small space remains a mystery.

One of the best jobs for a housewife at the time was selling Avon. Margaret signed up for a walking territory and began calling for Avon. Carol was starting Junior High and Bob was a 4th grader.

After living three years in Long Beach Emery secured a job with Atlantic Richfield in San Diego. Margaret packed up the family and moved to Chula Vista. Margaret moved her Avon business with her. After a short stay at First and I street the family made one more move to 461 Vista Way. The house was made into a home. The rock hard soil turned to fertile soil with fruit trees. The tangerine tree produced abundance Christmas fruit. Figs were turned to jam. No one counted the number of Lemon Meringue pies produced from the Lemon trees. For 48 years Margaret and family grew up and had families while they lived at 461.

Margaret never seemed to sit still. There were always celebrations, dinners, and holidays. Special occasions called for home made rolls. The dough was made and allowed to rise. Kneading to just right constituency, circles were cut and folded into perfect dinner rolls. The hot steaming morsels filled the air with fresh bread aroma. Their oven fresh warmth melted butter and jam.

Christmas didn't go by without fudge and peanut brittle. The brittle made to a sweet crunchy perfection. Rich chocolate fudge resulted from hard stirring at the start. Good fudge was made by perfect timing of heat and stirring. Stirring the hot liquid into cold ingredients required strength and stamina. Good fudge is the result of a long laborious stir. The blend had to get stiffer and stiffer before transferring to a flat pan. When the hot chocolate looks like thick hot lava the poor was made. Having only one piece of Margaret's fudge required discipline few could master.

The back patio provided a spot for bar-b-cues. And hot summers days were cooled by brain freezing homemade vanilla ice cream.

If not in the kitchen Margaret was on the phone selling Avon or out the door Avon Calling. She spent over 5 decades selling Avon. More than an Avon Lady, Margaret was friend and a counselor to her customers. She made a difference in the lives of the people she was next too.

Margaret was preceded in death by her husband Emery. Her Daughter, Carol and Husband Ritch Live in the EastLake area of Chula Vista. Carol and Ritch's son, Steve, lives with his wife and children Owen and Shannon in Rancho San Diego. Their son Robert and wife Karen with son Riley live on the Washington Family Ranch in central Oregon. Margaret's son Bob and wife Marcia life in Eagle, Idaho. Their daughter Kate and her daughter Holly live in Eagle. Their son Jesse and Ashley with son Kace, Olivia and Emma Irene live in Boise. Her sister Twilla lives in Payette.

Margaret was a Christian. She believed in God and heaven. She always said she didn't want to live to be a hundred. And she looked forward to joining her Husband of 60 years, Emery.

We will miss her joy for life, her optimistic outlook. Producing the same fudge might not be possible. The family is working hard to match the homemade ice cream. Margaret, one half of the Ross sisters, the mother, the grandmother, and the great grandmother will be missed by all. The hope is to pass along the joys that makes life a rich experience.

You know the truth is that we only have our faith to help us believe in heaven. Our Mother, our grandmother and great grandmother lived her life with that belief. Whether heaven is after death or in our hearts, this woman, Jennie Margaret Ross Beckwith lived in heaven just by the way she lived her life.

Written and Edited:

Robert E. Beckwith

January 18, 2016