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Elna Tilda Wasden Blood
This document was published online on Thursday, March 29, 2007
Elna Tilda Wasden Blood, 95, died July 14, 2004, at the West Park Long Term Care Center.
She was born Sept. 15, 1908, the third daughter of James and Tilda Christina Wasden in the Penrose community. She was educated there and in Cowley to be a teacher.
Soon after graduation she met and married Oscar W. House, a homesteader from Nebraska, in November 1928. They lived at the Ralston Ditch Camp until they started Ralston Lumber Co. in 1940. She had her hands full by then with five children - Margaret Jean "Peggy," Walter Stanley, Dean, Verne and Neal - but when World War II made labor scarce, she worked alongside Oscar. Sometimes she drove the truck to Billings to get building materials.
The business grew by default. The grocery store burned, so Ralston Lumber added groceries. Mrs. Blood became postmistress, and the small wall of brass-faced postal boxes was moved in. When Ralston Lumber added tools, cement, shoes, paint, stoves and more, they changed the name to Ralston Mercantile. After WWII, they sold out to Bud Steck and Mack Patterson.
They built a house in Ralston and helped WWII veterans who homesteaded nearby. A sixth child, Linda, was born in 1949 but lived only a few weeks. Mr. House built houses for a few friends and kitchen cabinets for homesteaders. She often helped. After he died in 1952, she finished at least one set of cabinets by herself. They were commended in the Billings Gazette for volunteerism.
Mrs. Blood held many jobs - sales clerk and orange roll baker at Ralston Lumber, dispatcher at Cody Police Department and bookkeeper at Hoodoo Ranch. The Hoodoo was her favorite, but she left to marry Russell Blood and move to Tumwater, Wash. Mr. Blood had been married to her sister Minnie, who died several years before. By this happy marriage she gained a great companion. One of her sons joked that his former cousins were now his "blood brothers." She was widowed again in December 1981.
She was a woman of faith and hope. She relished the past but always looked ahead. She suffered from macular degeneration but tried diligently to use a computer for e-mail and to write stories about her family. She went to summer camps for the blind at Casper Mountain and benefited from services for the visually impaired.
Her life included many setbacks, but she adjusted and went on. At 95, she had outlived her six brothers and sisters. She joked that there was no one who could contradict her version of history.
She enjoyed all her children, including the Bloods and their children. She was able to live independently in her home because so many volunteers helped her in so many ways.
She is survived by her children Dean House of Powell, Neal House of Chino, Ariz., Louise Blood of Salt Lake City, Dwight Blood of Orem, Utah, Elizabeth Gage of Preston, Idaho, Judy Peterson of Olympia, Wash., Stephen Blood of Boston, N.Y., and Ann Tanner of Salt Lake.
She also was preceded in death by her parents, first husband Oscar House, second husband Russell Blood, and children Linda, Peggy and Stanley.
Funeral services were Monday at the LDS church in Cody with interment at the cemetery in Powell.
Memorials may be made to Services for the Visually Impaired or a charity of choice.
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