She was born in Amberg, WI on June 4, 1899, and was less fortunate than
the other children of the family as she was born with a club foot. I'll
write of the story of this in the article "My Dad the Blacksmith." She
was a good deal the prettiest of the girls and never had a weight
problem like the rest of us. Her food habits and likes were so different.
She didn't like milk, loved Ice cream, pickles (often mick-named that)
and new stewed cabbage on fresh bread (home-made). I grew up the closest
to Ida of any of my sisters. She was gentle, kind and understanding and
took such loving care of Henry and Ruby's first born. Irvin was their
first child and Ruby had caked or ulcerated breasts and was sick for
about six months. Anyone can understand the love for the baby who grew
to be a man and was killed in a car accident on Father's Day in 1959.
Ida swallowed her pride and went to his funeral in spite of the
misunderstanding that existed between her and Henry and he never spoke
to her. She and Henry had been such close friends when they were
growing up but during thr depression Henry decided to take over her
life like he has for so many others because he couldn't place them on
his farm in Cameron and financial problems came up between them. They had
decided to refinance the farm and stay where they were, Henry disowned her
for it and never spoke to her in 40 years before she died. No matter how
she tried to make him understand that it was best that they never did
go there as Mike and Henry would never had hit it off.

I miss Ida deeply as we used to ecxchange clothes when she was working and
I was in High School. She was the only one in our family who had
finished eighth grade besides me, and I was the only one to finish High
School. After Deores was born, she would come up and get her in the
morning before she went to work and bath the baby and dress her as she
loved her so much and she was always so kind to me.

I worry now about the troubles of her children as she isn't here to
help them. When she came to the doctors on the day with Jim her
youngest, who had swollen glands in the neck after a cold, she said to
the doctor, "speaking of swollen glands, what is this on my breast?"
Dr. Mc. ordered an immediate surgery and sent the results away to be
tested at Madison and the report came back cancer to all the glands.
The docotrs at the state hospital in Madison said that Dr. Mc had
done a very good surgery but for two years she was required to go to
Madison for treatments. They ran an X-ray over her female organs so
there wouldn't be another pregnancy. She became active again and she
died after a long illness of about six months. Her death was in the
fall of 1968. On November 26she had married Wilbur (Mike) Bolander
a brother to Rueben, Anna's husband, in the fall of 1924.

Ida had worked for the Genieses Store in Amberg, then for the Smeesters
who took over after Geneieses left. She had worked for the Archie Studio
when they were in Marinette. I spent one summer there to help when I was
between the 7th and 8th grade in school. They had a very spoiled cat
which required a lot of attention and curled its nose up at the food I
had to give it so one day I lost my patience and shoved its nose into it.
The cat took a dash up the stairs from the basement where I had to feed
it and ran all the way through the house to the upstairs and into the
closet. Everyone who saw it go by wondered what had happened to the cat
but I never told them.

• Married: 26 NOV 1924

1. Living BOLANDER
2. Living BOLANDER
3. Living BOLANDER
4. Leroy BOLANDER