Gribbin Family History

Obituary

Frank Gribbin 

April 1, 1876 – Oct 2, 1964

Buried at Hillcrest Cemetery

Frank was born April 1, 1876 in What Cheer, Iowa. In 1900 he moved to Weiser where he lived along with his sister Josephine, who was 2 years older, and worked as a telegram operator. He must have brought some family money with him because he bought a house on First Street that was, according to the 1900 Census, unencumbered (free and clear of mortgage).

On February 27, 1901 Frank married Miss Lulu Orrell from Payette. Apparently Grandpa Frank met my future Grandma Lulu when he made a land deal with her 2 brothers from Payette. I’m wondering if that was the land he owned near Chandler’s Junction and Fairview Cemetery on the Snake?

In 1903, the year my father Harold was born, Frank homesteaded 160 acres, about 2 1/2 miles South of Weiser, the property that I was raised on, and in 1906 filed an application to receive a Land Patent – that was like today’s Property Deed, but issued by the Federal Government, which gave him the same legal rights to the property.

The couple would have their first daughter, Fern, about 1905 and another son, Orrell, in Jan 1909.

Just before her birthday in 1909, Lulu caught typhoid fever and was sent to the LDS Hospital in Salt Lake City. On June 1, 1909, after about 10 days in the hospital, Lulu passed away from intestinal hemorrhaging. She was only 31 years old and left three young children, one only five months old. My father Harold was 6 years old and sent to Iowa to live with his Aunt Lyde, although I don’t know when he returned to Weiser. He told me that he got in trouble with the teachers because they wanted him to pronounce Weiser as Wizer and he wouldn’t do it.

On February 15, 1918, Frank married Edna Pearl Stringer of Weiser and they settled on his property across the Snake River in Oregon. She also was a mother with three young children, single by virtue of divorce from Charles A  Brawn, a Weiser Jeweler and Optometrist. They would have a daughter, Frankie, born in 1921.

During the 1930s and 1940s, he became a Weiser Merchant and served on the Weiser City Council. In 1933 he partnered with Charles Stamper and they took over an existing Service Station & Market located on Idaho & 1st Streets – I’m not sure which 1st Street – East or West – or which corner, and renamed it Gribbin & Stamper – Service Station and Market.

Their business flourished but in 1942, Charles passed away from complications after having surgery and left Frank as the sole owner. Grandpa was a farmer, not a merchant, so I’m not sure what he did after that and no mention of the business from that point on. 

In 1936 my father Harold Gribbin returned to Weiser and actively began farming the homestead.

On April 29, 1939, Edna lost her life in the Snake River. The coroner ruled it was suicide by drowning.

Again, Frank found himself a widower, this time at the age of 64 with an eighteen year old daughter at home.

By 1950, we find Frank is again married, at age 74 and this time listing Marian M. (Ward) as his wife. She was a North Dakota native, twenty years his junior. She passed in 19?? as the result of an automobile accident.

On Oct 2, 1964 Frank passed away. He is buried in the Hillcrest Cemetery in Weiser, along with all three of his wives – Lulu Orrell, Edna Stringer and Marian Ward. Grandpa wasn’t a womanizer or a collector of wives, the first 2 died on him – Grandmother Lulu had gotten sick and they took the train to the LDS Hospital in Salt Lake City where she passed away in 1909 from internal hemorrhaging – poor gramps. I feel sad because he had to take the train back to Weiser without her sitting next to him. And then years later, Edna walked down to the Snake River one day and never came back – cornier ruled it suicide.

Frank was instrumental in the development of the Snake River Bridge, getting the first irrigation system started on the Oregon slope and was the first to have a telephone in the area. He organized the Oregon Bench Telephone Company in 1905, and was director of the company for a number of years.

Frank was a member of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Masonic Lodge No. 23, AF&AM, the El Korah Temple at Boise, the Oregon Farm Bureau, Weiser Chamber of Commerce, and was a past president of the Knife and Fork Club.

From Michael Gribbin – July 15, 2023