Granger Tombstone Story

By Donna Potter Phillips,  July 2016

Having a nice summer walk in my favorite place, Fairmount Cemetery (west end of Wellesley in Spokane) I happened to park right next to this grave marker.

Father, Charles W. Granger, 1854-1935  //  Mother, Edith C. Granger, 1868-1962.

Right next to this was a marker for their son:

Louis (named after his paternal grandfather) was born in 1893 in Washington and died on 21 Jun 1919 at the family home in Nine Mile Falls.

According to the history etched upon his tombstone, Louis served as a member of the Allied Expeditionary Forces. The 91^st Division was constituted in 1917 at Camp Lewis, Washington and departed for England in the summer of 1918. Louis was with his unit in Sept 1918 when they fought in France at the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. In 1919 the 91^st Division was inactivated at the Presidio in San Francisco.

Louis died on 21 Jun 1919 and I wonder if it was from wounds of war??

As my interest was piqued, and I did some research on this Granger family, I was full of questions. Why did the move from Michigan to Washington Territory? Charles’ father, Louis B., was born about 1833 in Canada West and was also a farmer. Charles was not needed on the home farm (the norm for the times)? Was there a family connection or pull to Washington Territory? Michigan is green; Douglas and Lincoln counties are dry and brown. Did Edith suffer? Edith was 50 years old when her oldest son went off to Camp Lewis to sign up for WWI. (This shows that even in 1916 in a rural and remote corner of America the folks still were up on the news of the world.) The move, between 1910 and 1920, to the Nine Mile Falls area (the town itself was drowned by the 1908 Nine Mile Falls dam) was a return to trees for Edith, albeit Ponderosa Pines. Was she happy? She lived as a widow for 27 years. What is the rest of the story??

Charles William Granger, born in October 1854 in Michigan, was the son of Louis B. Granger and Mary A. Rix. He died at age 80 on 24 Aug 1935 at the family home in Nine Mile Falls. He married Edith Clarissa Mason, also a Michigander on 4 Sep 1890 in Richland, Kalamazoo County, Michigan.

Using the Ancestry research resources, I found the family in the 1892 Washington Territorial Census as living in Douglas County; in 1900 they were still in Pierpont, Douglas County. In 1900 Charles and Edith had Louis, age 5, Cornelius, age 4 and Edward/Edwin, age 1.  In the 1910 census, they are in Miles City, Lincoln County. Charles was a farmer, most likely a wheat farmer.

In the 1920 and 1930 censuses, the family home is in Nine Mile Falls. Charles died there; don’t know where Edith died.

Charles and Edith had 8 children and (according to the 1910 census, all 8 lived to adulthood). These children were Mary, Louis, Cornelius, Edwin/Edward, William, Grace, Lela and Guy W…all the children were born in Washington.

I wonder if there are any Granger descendants still in the Pacific Northwest area? Maybe they would have and would share the rest of the story.