Valley County, IDGenWeb Project | |
We lost Ruth Zell Carroll, our mother, grandmother, and guide, on May 10, 2012, as she reunited with her husband, Michael Harold Carroll, in another world we hope to someday share.
Burial for Zell will be at Dry Creek on Saturday, May 19, 2012 at 11 a.m. The family would like to invite those who knew either Mike or Zell as this will be a combined memorial for both of them.
We would like to celebrate the lives of two wonderful people with family and friends in a way that would reflect their lives, which would be, gathering for stories, laughter, and food.
In lieu of flowers, just bring memories and give someone you know a hug and an “I love you.”
Ruth Zell Carroll was born a Cantrall in Montour in 1919 to Earl and Lola (Montgomery) Cantrall where she joined an older brother, Lloyd.
As she was growing up, she spent time in Round Valley on the family farm, on Packer John at the mine, and in Montour with her grandparents.
Zell talked about the days when she and her brother would be free to wander the countryside with their horses, the trips to the turnip patch with the salt shaker, and riding to a one-room school house in the middle of Round Valley in the winter when the snow was so deep you couldn’t even see the fence posts.
While growing up and spending time on Packer John mining with her father, she would hike down the mountain to Swinging Bridge where the train would stop to take her up to the valley or down to Montour.
She was one of the privileged few that was allowed to ride in the engine going up or down canyon and the engineers always had their eyes out for her to pop out of the timber wanting a ride.
In 1940, she married Michael H. Carroll who came to the Round Valley area from Nebraska. They lived in Round Valley farming and logging, with Zell feeding the huge logging crews in the log camps of Van Wyck in the Long Valley area near Sugar Loaf.
She spent time making a home for her husband Mike, sons, Larry and Garry and father Earl Cantrall on Packer John in a one-room log cabin where she was so close to nature that the bears would stand on their hind legs peeking into the windows while the family was eating.
While the men were mining silver, she would be busy minding the home front trying to keep track of active and adventurous twins and shooting porcupines out of trees.
During the war years she worked alongside her husband running a dairy farm in Emmett. After the war years, they moved to Garden Valley where her husband worked in the logging camps and in the sawmill.
In 1952 they moved to the Boise area where Mike started a career with the State Department of Lands. In 1956, she had her third son, K. Earl. F
rom Thanksgiving until Christmas for 30 years they could be found running Carroll’s Christmas Tree business in the Boise valley where if you wanted the freshest cut trees or wanted one flocked, this is where you came.
Zell has always been the ultimate homemaker in every sense of the word. She kept thing immaculate and always found time to bake pies every day. She loved to sew and do hand-work, cook, read, and just loved watching her family of boys and her husband thrive under her care.
Zell always enjoyed reading and loved to find out about what was going on with her sons and their families. She was always interested in any information about families from the upcountry area where she spent a good deal of her early life.
She continued to be a doting mother and grandmother to her family, and was an inspiration to us all in how to treat those we share our lives with even briefly.
Special thanks to Tabitha, Cindy, and Lisa for making it possible for Mike and Zell to live at home as long as they did.
We would like to give our thanks to her wonderful care-givers and companions at Paramount Parks in Eagle where she lived in pampered style the last year of her life. You helped to bring her world back into focus after losing Mike, to whom she was married for 71 years.
Thanks as well to Sharon from Hearts for Hospice for your comfort and guidance in Zell’s last few hours.
Zell is survived by her sons, Larry and his wife Susan Laxson Carroll of Boise and their children Lindsey (Andrew Crisp) and Kelly (Steven Helms) Garry Carroll of Eagle, and Earl and his wife, Janine Blake Carroll of Boise, and their children, Brandi and Michael Carroll.
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