Home of: Edna Wheeler

ST. IGNATIUS — A pioneer, mother, worker, outdoorsman, tough country woman and combater of bears. Edna Wheeler has been a number of things over her 98 plus years of life, 94 of which have been right here in the Mission Valley.

In the dead of winter on Jan. 15, 1915, 4-year-old Edna and her family embarked on a voyage from Alberta, Canada to the St. Ignatius area. A three-day train ride took her family, and a single chest holding all their belongings, from Canada down through Crow’s Nest Pass and onto Sandpoint before getting them as far as Ravalli. From there, they were picked up on a horsedrawn snow sleigh and brought to the Mission Valley.

As the area had been opened up for homesteading in 1910 and her father had heard of available work out west, her family sought a new home under the Big Sky crested by the Mission Mountains. It was here that they would settle down and end up buying a home along the hillside.

When her family first arrived, she remembers the Fathers and Sisters having their own huge gardens for the convents, where she and her siblings could make 10 cents by weeding a long row of  crops.

“It was a lot of money back then,” Wheeler said. “I remember when you could take the whole family to the movies for 10 cents.”

Edna and her sisters were taught to bake bread and milk the cows by hand at a young age, always having a strong tradition of work in the family.

Edna’s father, Jean Baptiste Cote, who was French, fought for the United States in both world wars. Her mother Annie Cote spoke German and Edna was able to speak French, German and English at an early age. When her father returned from the war, she remembers that they were not allowed to speak German in the house from there forth.

Wheeler recalls her first early day school bus was a horsedrawn wagon that would take her and her siblings to school in the morning. In all, Edna had nine siblings — eight of which were born here after the move from Canada.

She has seen 17 presidents in her lifetime, her favorite being Franklin D. Roosevelt for pulling the country out of the Great Depression. When the Depression hit and the banks closed, the only payment from the bank her family received was a single cow.

Edna has always lived remotely in the countryside, exploring the mountains and wilderness around her with family on countless hiking trips and expeditions, renowned as a lover of wildflowers and the world’s fastest huckleberry picker.

Always the pioneer, Edna says that nowadays there is too easy of access to wild areas, adding that there really isn’t any place you can get to that somebody else hasn’t already been there.

“Things are too civilized,” Wheeler said.

Edna married a logger, and had seven children. When their home in town burned down, the Wheelers moved out to the Twin Lakes area and started a family sawmill. Edna worked many years in the sawmill with her husband and the help of daughters Jeannine and June, who were in high school at the time. Later, the family would move to Pablo for a short time to work in another sawmill before landing a job in a doctor’s office in the 1960s.

One thing she’s noticed over time is that St. Ignatius appears to be shrinking. She can remember a town lined with filling stations, grocery stores, a movie house, bakery and even a cheese factory. A single institution of the town she grew up in still stands strong after 90 years — the Foothills Club. Edna has been a member of the social and service club for farm women that formed in 1918 for over 70 years.

She remembers the old opera house that was turned into the equity hall was used for years by the club for dinners and dances, Christmas parties and plays, and the annual Harvest Supper.

“That’s when all the country ladies showed off their cooking,” Wheeler said.

Up until a year ago, Edna would meet twice monthly with the ladies of the Foothills Club for a card game of “500” and some lunch.

There’s one more thing about St. Ignatius that hasn’t changed much though, it’s wild side. Eight years ago Edna stepped out onto her back porch, turned around and found a bear coming up her back steps to the house. Edna grabbed a broom and fended off the beast at the age of 90.

“The only thing I could find was a broom, so I just used that,” she said. “We have had our share of bear problems.”

Her daughters Mary Ann Weingart and Jeannine Wheeler, who are staying with their still independent mother who does everything but cook, even made a shirt for her birthday commemorating the bear encounter.

Edna’s mother Annie lived to be 100, and Mary Ann and Jeannine say that they hope to have the same longevity and memory that their mother and grandmother had.

“She’s got a great memory and mind,” Mary Ann said. “If we can’t remember something we call mom and ask her.”

In her long life this country woman has seen her lot of tragedy and hard times but the daughters say she has always been there for her family and loved ones. Edna has seven children, 34 grandchildren, 72 great grandchildren, and 22 great-great grandchildren.

“My mom is the rock and steadying hand that has pulled us together,” Jeannine said. “She’s always been a hard worker, a very supportive mother, and has raised us great from leading by example.”