Kramer letter to Margaret

     The following letter was sent to Margaret Seaton Taschereau (my mother) by Lillie Lael (Mrs. Boyd) Kramer from Walla Walla, dated March 3, 1989.


Dear Margaret;

     First, let me introduce myself.  I am an old neighbor from the Coulee Dam and Dora Lael's daughter Lillie.  I enjoyed your family's story so much in the Star, and decided to write to you.
     I remember how good you were to me when you were a senior in high school in Almira and I was a second grader at Almira school.  You taught me to tat that year, and to make beaded flowers.  I can still make beaded flowers but I've forgotten how to tat.  I think it is very unusual for a high school girl to give that much attention to a little second grader.
     How is your health now?  I remember Clair and Eleanor too, but have very few memories of Patty, she was so much younger.  I hope you still see them sometimes and that they are all right.
     Our family is O.K., my brothers and sisters, I mean.  Brother jack and his wife live on a farm near Northport, Wash.  He raises quarter horses and is retired from working in the sawmill near there.  Our second brother Grady Gene (Skip) works as a maintenance supervisor for the National Park Service, now in New Mexico.  Last fall he married Edith (Scott) Alling and they will be retiring and moving back to Grand Coulee.  Will be glad to have Laels in the Coulee again.  Our sister Wenna and her husband live in Spokane.  He is the representative of a beer company and they travel a lot.  She is a retired practical nurse.  Our brother Wes and his wife live in Minnesota.  His career was in the Air Force, then he has a second retirement from J.C. Penny.  He still works as a maintenance supervisor on the local golf course during the summer.  I became a school teacher, my husband is a civil engineer.  We are both retired.  We had two more born to our family after we left the Coulee -- Larry, who is a liaison between the Community Colleges of the state and the Legislature, and Donna, who runs her own drapery business in Colville, Wash.  Donna's husband is a retired state patrolman.
     Our parents are both dead.  Mama was killed in a car accident in 1945, and Dad died in 1978 when he was 84 years old.
     I hope to come to the Grand Coulee area to visit sometime this spring.  I have no idea when, maybe may or June.  If I could, I would love to come to visit you.  Would that be all right?  I will let you know when I'll be there.
     Looking forward to seeing you again.  Write to me.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Lillie Lael Kramer
(Mrs. Boyd Kramer)

(P.S.)
     I hope to write up the Purtee-Lael story for the Star one of these days but don't have much information about their early years.  I believe they came to the Coulee to homestead in 1910.