Aunt Lizzie

Elizabeth was a trickster and joker. She loved to have fun and had a fantastic sense of humor. Elizabeth loved to travel and explore, which may be why she chose to live in the Pacific Northwest. She reportedly gave cookies to the local children while in Bonnots Mill with her family and was an avid crocheter. My mom remembers Aunt Lizzie and Aunt Annie as very loving and welcoming people. She enjoyed spending time at their house and remembers them answering her questions as a child, which was unusual for the time. Aunt Lizzie also had a good sense of humor about aging. She reportedly told the family often with a laugh and a smile, “Folks, don’t ever get old.” She was a strong, independent, intelligent, and determined woman, just as she appeared in the photograph that captured my attention.

Elizabeth moved back to Bonnots Mill in the early 1950s and lived with her younger sister, Annie. Both sisters reportedly survived primarily on coffee during this time. Unfortunately, twice Elizabeth suffered burns: once when saving some boys from a fire at the school she worked at in St. Louis and another time when rendering fat in her sister’s basement. In retrospect, these incidents foreshadowed her tragic death.

She died along with her younger sister, Annie, in a house fire on February 7, 1954, at 79. Lizzie had broken her hip sometime before the fire and wasn’t very mobile. Her sister returned to the house after telling a neighbor to call the fire department. Annie was determined to get her sister out of the house; however, Annie was a petite person and struggled to assist Elizabeth. The remains of both sisters were found in the front room of the house. They succumbed to smoke inhalation while trying to escape the burning building. While the exact cause of the fire is unknown, the family suspects it originated with the coal oil stove in the kitchen.