May (Cook) Grant (1893 - 1969)

Born 14 Feb 1893 in South Dakota, United States

Ancestors

Died 30 Oct 1969 at age 76 in Redmond, Deschutes, OR USA

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Biography

May was born in South Dakota and came to Elk City, Lincoln, Oregon with her parents and siblings before 1909. She had two short marriages ^[1][2] and a daughter before her marriage to R.E. "Lige" Grant on 23 Sept 1918. Her sister Grace was teaching school in Rose Lodge OR in 1909, married Will Dodson Jan. 2, 1910 and gave birth to a son, Sherrill, in Oct. the same year. May stepped in and substituted for Grace while Grace was pregnant. May was a rancher's wife, school teacher, community leader, a mother to her daughter and adopted son, raised her two nephews for ten years, and raised four of her 6 grand-children for 20 years.^[3] May prepared a biographical statement of her involvement with CONSUMER ELECTRIC, formerly known as Benton-Lincoln Electrical Cooperative, which is given here: "I am Mrs. May Grant, President of the board of Directors of the Benton-Lincoln Electric Cooperative, located in Corvallis, Oregon. My home is in the Big Elk Valley --- (Harlan) 150 miles miles from Portland, 36 miles from Corvallis. I live on a stock ranch in the foothills where we raise beef cattle and sheep. My husband was born and raised there; it has ben my home for more than 50 years. "I was elected to the Board of Directors of Benton-Lincoln Electric Cooperative in 1946 and have served as President for 5 years. The cooperative serves six counties --- Benton, Lincoln, Marion, Polk, Linn and Lane. We have approximately 20,000 people. Our cooperative has grown from a very small beginning into (a) real Big Business. It was formed, like so many others, by a group of farmers seeking a better way of life. Mr. Faye Barclay, still serving on the Board, called a meeting of a few neighbors in his home down in the Alsea Valley back in 1938 and from this meeting, many other meetings followed. Finally in 1940, the Cooperative was incorporated and the first few miles of line were energized." ^[4] May is buried in the Harlan OR Cemetery along with her husband, R.E. "Lige" Grant. ^[5]

Sources

1. ↑ marriage to Edward Fuller on 7 Feb 1911: Marriages: Lincoln County Oregon 1893-1926, Book II p 2-8
2. ↑ and a marriage to Henry Donald Shea on 17 Feb 1917: in Vancouver, Clarke, WA USA [1]
3. ↑ Notes from an interview done in 1988 with Sherrill Dodson, her nephew who lived in her home ten years. Dodson-3592
4. ↑ M. Constance Hodges, LORDS OF THEMSELVES :A HISTORY OF EASTERN LINCOLN COUNTY, OREGON, VOL. I p148 1977
5. ↑ Harlan Cemetery Plat, Harlan, OR in the custody of Grant "Buzz" Spriggs

• U S Federal Census 1900, database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M93F-9TS : accessed 1 April 2017), Frank C Cook, Election District 7 St. Paul city Ward 5, Ramsey, Minnesota, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 98, sheet 3B, family 46, NARA microfilm publication T623 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1972.); FHL microfilm 1,240,784.

• May's nephew was my father so I was apprised to lots of Cook family history from him. Dodson-3592