My grandmother Letha Belle Keller
Letha Belle Keller
b. 8 Aug. 1889
d. 12 May 1980
Letha Keller was born hardy pioneer stock. Letha's grandfather Aaron's family, had lived in the Sweet Valley area of Luzerne County, west of Wilkes-Barre since at least the 1840 census. Letha's parents were Justin Fuller Keller and Clara "Almeda" Davenport. Letha was the 2nd child, the oldest daughter of 8 children!
Aaron was a farmer, and Sweet Valley had good farmland. Though, I'm sure the work was hard, there was plenty of food and everyone was well taken care of. Letha attended school up through 7th grade, but she had a practical and adventurous intelligence beyond those years of schooling. In her long lifetime she travelled often and often drove to Maine and back alone. This was pretty brave for a women who settled barely 10 miles from her childhood home.
We often visited her in her home at 123 Center St. in Shavertown, Pa. It was an old farmhouse, settled, with worn stairs, surrounded by a large apple orchard. She and Robert purchased this land in the 40's from Robert's sister Margaret and her husband Sydney Wright. It had been used to raise produce for a truck farm. I'm not actually sure when they moved there, but believe it was in the 40's. For awhile they used it as a weekend home and kept their home in Kingston as Robert worked at the lace mill in Wilkes-Barre.
Letha was plucky, opinionated and always offering words of wisdom and advice.
One of the tragedies in Letha's life was the death of her oldest child Robert at age 15 in 1931. My father remembers this event well. They were living in Kingston at 727 Market St. Robert had a new driver's license and was returning home, driving several friends. He lost control and hit a telephone pole and died instantly. This happened quite near their home and a policeman came to the door bearing the bad news. This kind of teenage tragedy was happening in 1931! How could a mother bear this!?
The Depression
The Mitchell's seem to have survived the depression fairly well, having the farm for produce, and probably not having much savings in the first place, not losing it in the stock market during the crash of 1929. My father and his brothers always worked odd jobs, either at the Lace Mill, or in a soda factory down in Kingston.
The War
No sooner had the depression been conquered than the demands of World War I began to intrude on the family's pastoral life. Letha had been raised a resourceful, hard-working farm woman, and out in the country she was able to garden, can, and cook using the fresh produce. Even in her later years I remember her always having a well-stocked pantry, good home-cooked meals on the table, and generally finding her outside gardening when we came to visit. Her two remaining sons, Donald and Justin both enlisted in the war effort. Her comment in her diary on the day her youngest son left for basic training was "Donald left on the train today". No emotional expression, though her heart must have been breaking.
The Widow
The War was over in June 1945, and miraculously both of her sons returned from overseas. Robert, her husband, however, succumbed to lymphatic cancer (according to Don), first discovered thru nodes in his throat. Always a smoker, this no doubt was a contributing factor. Robert died on December 29, 1945 in their Shavertown farm house. Letha became a widow at age 56.
Remarriage
On a trip to Florida with friends, Letha met her future second husband, William Spaulding. Of hardy New England stock, Bill was a retired newspaper man from Dover-Foxcroft, Maine. Bill always maintained his rustic cabin on Lake Sebec, and spent as much of the moderate months there as he good. Letha would go up for some of the summer, and sometimes we'd go for a week or two. I have some great memories of those days on the lake, where we'd swim and boat, hike and have wonderful lobster feasts and clam chowder. Bill died in 1965 at age 82, and Letha found herself once more a widow.
Always Active and Independent
Letha was a staunch Methodist, a mainstay of Shavertown Methodist Church, and was never afraid to go off on a trip, flying to California and Arizona to visit her children and grandchildren, flying to Germany when we were living there and travelling with our family while there. She was living only a few miles from her childhood home in Sweet Valley, and would often want to take us on outings to Ricketts Glen when we'd visit.
The Beginning of the End
She was continuing her life very actively until a serious automobile accident occurred in 1978 which took a toll on her physically, and after a long hospitalization for a broken pelvis she was no longer able to stay at home without help, and soon the house was for sale and Letha began a life of living with her children. She died on May 12, 1980 in Corona, California at age 90 where she'd been living with her daughter Lois Doran. She's buried in Memorial Shrine Cemetery in Trucksville.
Miscellaneous Notes about Letha
I was told that Letha had once suffered from tuberculosis and been hospitalized, but I don't know when this was. Letha was a nurse at some point in her life, not sure when. My Dad once told me that she only finished 7th grade, but she always had the most remarkable memory for dates and people.
