Lily Bell Holcomb Dutton

William Russell Hinckley tells the following about Lily Bell Holcomb Dutton who was a sister to his Mother Alice Myrtle and his aunt. The kids from Pocatello came up or (we) went down when mom was in Pocatello. Once we went to a dance in Pocatello, a fight breaks out, WRH tangles with the police and is taken to jail. His aunt Lily Bell pleads with the sheriff that his father has died etc. and they let him go in her care.

Lily Bell was born in 1900 in Kansas and was my grandmother Myrtle’s older sister. She was young when the family moved to St. Anthony Idaho to homestead newly opened government land. She met her husband, Calvin Dutton in 1917 when she was 16 when he was drilling a well for her parents. She married him January 9, 1918 in St. Anthony. Her first child was born in October 1918. Like most young marrieds in farming country, she worked alongside her husband.

In 1920 she and Calvin worked for the future governor of Idaho, Charles Moore, Calvin as foreman and she was the cook on a large ranch and farm. In 1924 Cal went to work for the railroad on bridge gangs. As such they frequently moved and stayed in rental housing or in railroad tent houses set up for families for longer construction/repair projects. Since Lily Bell had always wanted for herself to work as an engineer on the railroad, this was an exciting time for her. They lived in American Falls, Glenn’s Ferry, Ogden and Pocatello during these early years.

Calvin had kidney stones from the first day of marriage and they continued to bother him his whole life and he eventually died because of them. They settled in Pocatello in 1928 as the children needed to be in a school. Then the great depression hit and in Lily’s words:

“Of course, it was during this time that Cal’s health failed entirely and he was let out of work. We managed to survive the depression by always raising a good garden. Lots of fruit was given to us by the Ashley’s who trucked fruit from Utah to Ashton. This produce, along with commodities distributed by the government, helped us set a good table”. As the railroad business increased, Cal could not pass the physical to return to work. Their fourth son Albert was born on Christmas Eve 1933 but only lived a short time. Calvin died in 1935.

Lily worked in Pocatello as a housekeeper for the next 11 years. (it was during this time that my dad would visit her and his cousins and her bailing him out of jail story took place.) In 1946 she met Bert Knowles and they married and moved to California. Lily had two children at home at that time and Bert four. Along with raising all the children Lily also worked as a streetcar operator, (closest thing to being a train engineer). Later she worked in a sheet metal fabrication plant (Ryan’s Defense Plant).

This marriage lasted 6 &1/2 years. A short marriage next occurred to Bill Luther and they worked as caretakers on a horse ranch. She returned to Pocatello and became the house mother at the YWCA. She retired in 1962 and started traveling by bus across the country to visit her children and other relatives and her mom’s hometown of Bath, Illinois. While in Bend, Oregon with her son Lew she attended a Golden Age Club where she met Ed Ochlerking and they married in September 1964. Ed and Lily Bell spent most of their years together traveling and visiting family. She passed away in 1988.

(This is a recap of a lengthy story put together by her grandson Gene and through letters etc. and some stories William Russell Hinckley told me, his son Scott)