ENDSLEY--LOUISE FRENCH

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Mike Endsley:
Here is installment one of LOUISE.  Others will follow. 
Marion Fretwell

.PM .5"
	MARY LOUISE FRETWELL
	Mary Louise Fretwell was born at Parma, Idaho on February 18, 1905
	She was the third child in what was to eventually be 12 children.
	She was married to Kenneth Wright French in Ustick, Idaho on February 12,
1926, in the home of a former Pastor Rev. Nicely.
	Carmena Fern was born July 27, 1930 at LaGrande, Oregon.
	Audrey Irene was born at Parma, Idaho June 11, 1932.
	Rodney Arnold, whom they adopted, was born in Sitka, Alaska October 13, 1943
	Ramona Kay was born in Sitka June 5, 1946.
	We never called her Mary.  She was Louise.
	Louise was what I call a Peace Maker.  No, she didn't go around breaking up
fights or patching up quarrels, though she could do those things.  Louise had
an "AURA" of peacefulness that went with her everywhere she went.  People
were immediately disarmed when they came into her presence.  She sought good
for everybody.  She wished ill for nobody.  If there was a bright side of a
situation, Louise would find it and help others to focus on it.
	Louise was as pure as purity itself, but she was certainly not a stuffed
shirt.  To illustrate: she once asked us boys, the four younger of us, if we
knew how to raise a rumpus.  Of course, we did not know.  So she laid down on
the ground out in the back yard, and putting her weight on her shoulders and
heels, raised her rump off the ground a few times, until we caught on and
began to laugh.  She got up, and laughed with us.
	Once, she put her two hands together and named the fingers.  Thumbs were
husband and wife-- little fingers were brother and sister-- pointer fingers
were friends.  Third fingers were lovers, or sweethearts, and the index
fingers represented the devil.  No one likes the devil, so we fold down the
two index fingers, and get him out of the way.  Now, husband and wife can be
separated easily, as can brother and sister, and friends.  But you can't get
sweethearts apart without raising the devil!
	She could often come up with a short saying from literature, long forgotten
by most others, that would ft right into what we were doing.  One such saying
was when she and I were going to the Alice Island TB Sanitarium on the island
across from Sitka, to visit.  We boarded an old bus, which was badly in need
of maintenance, as well as a good driver.  She quoted from an old cartoon,
"Vot do ve care, ve don'd own it?"  Rather than being scared, she saw a funny
side to it.
	One other occasion where wit came to the front was when we teenage boys were
asking people why men liked blondes better than brunettes.  Quick as a flash,
she retorted, "Because the light colors get dirty quicker."
	On my ninth birthday, we boys stopped at the Abbott place where Louise and
Kenneth were staying-- riding herd on the Abbott kids while Guernsey and Rita
were gone somewhere.  Louise came to the door, grabbed me and gave me a great
big hug, and made over me like I had been lost for a couple of months.  I
came away walking at least ten feet tall.  She had made a huge celebration of
my nine years-- in about a minute of time.  She was like that.
	My first remembrance of Louise was the day Star, the big old cow that I
don't remember, tried to pin her against one of the poplar trees in the front
yard.  She had been helping Papa with the chores, because there were no boys
he could call on to help.  If I heard correctly, she had volunteered to help
with the milking, etc..  We young ones were still in bed on the canvassed
porch which was our sleeping quarters, and heard a commotion outside the
porch.  We couldn't tell what was happening, but later were told that Star
had showed a mean side of her nature.
	When Louise learned the facts of life, she began to help Mama with
everything she could do to lighten her load.
	Louise learned to drive an automobile at age 13, and thus was the means of
Lena meeting Cecil Leigh, whom she later married.  Louise would drive the
other Fretwell girls to Church doings around the area.  That was in the
Baptist Church.