VINCENT  FAMILY

Frank & Flossie, A Love Story

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They met at a community dance at Sleeping Child School near Hamilton, Montana on Labor Day, September 2, 1918.  Flossie had moved to town over the summer to become the teacher at Sleeping Child School. She was prepared to teach first through eighth grade, but the school year was cancelled in late September, due to the Spanish Flu epidemic. Frank, along with his father, farmed 320 acres on The Vincent Ranch. When Flossie moved to Hamilton from Anaconda, she actually drove right past the Vincent Ranch on Highway 38, also known as the Skalkaho Road.

 

Within a few days of meeting, Flossie and Frank fell in love. Flossie said later in life, “He had such beautiful shoes on and danced heavenly!” She also said, “We fell in love and it was my first love.”  They were married two months later on November 9, 1918 in Missoula, two days before the end of

World War I. Frank was 27 years of age and Flossie 23.

 

Their first home was a tiny, shingled, bungalow on Sleeping Child Road, directly west of The Vincent Ranch. Soon Flossie gave birth to their first child, Marjorie June. Frank and Flossie had five children born over 16-years. Donald, their third child, died at the age of 3, after contracting measles on a family vacation to San Bernardino, California, to visit Flossie’s sister, Inez. The four surviving siblings, Marge, Frank Jr. Herb, and Darryl, all passed away over a 9-month period from September 6, 2013 to June 6, 2014.

 

Frank’s father gave them 160 acres of land, half of The Vincent Ranch, for them to build a house on, and to farm. In 1920, Frank moved a bunkhouse building from a different location on the ranch and converted it to into a home for his family adjacent to his parents’ home. He designed a gravity flow water system for the house. Water was pumped from the well by a gasoline engine powered pump, located in the dirt cellar below the house, to a water tank that was neatly tucked away in the attic. In 1930 electric lines were brought to the property, and Frank wired both his house, and his parents’ house.

 

Frank built a successful mobile threshing business, in which he contracted with farmers to separate their crop’s wheat, from chaff.

 

Life was hard in Montana during the 1930’s. Due to the Great Depression, Frank and Flossie lost their farm, but Frank’s parents were able to hold onto the house that Frank had built, and they rented it out for income to help them to survive the Depression. Flossie and Frank bought a 10-acre farm just outside of Hamilton on Nichol Road. There was a pond on the property that froze in the wintertime. While the children missed the farm on the Skaklaho Road, they enjoyed ice skating on the frozen pond at their new house.

 

Sadly, Frank took ill in the spring of 1936 and passed away at the age of 45. He had emergency surgery performed by Dr. Hayward to repair a burst hernia. He died two days after surgery on May 7, 1935. Frank left Flossie a life insurance policy of $2,000 which seemed like a fortune in those days. Flossie decided to save it for a “rainy day” and though she went through numerous crises in her lifetime, she was never spent the money. 

 

Flossie sold the thrashing machine and business to Ed Easton in the summer of 1939. Frank Jr.  was fascinated with aviation and had been from the time that he paid a dollar to ride in a small barnstorming biplane that had landed on the land above Vincent Ranch. Flossie moved the family to California so that Frank Jr. could attend flight school at the Curtis Wright Technical Institute in Glendale. Frank later became a pilot for Contential Airlines and was a Captain for over 30 years.

 

Flossie went on to have a very successful real estate career in Burbank. She passed away on July 4, 1981 at the age of 86. Flossie always maintained a positive attitude, and while she moved on with her life and married two more times, and had another long-term relationship, she never got over the loss of her first love, Frank, and the 18 years they spent together.