Jesse L. Hall

Jesse Hall Dies 6 Days Short of his 98th Birthday

Jesse L. Hall died December 6 in Reno, Nev., eight days short of celebrating his 98th birthday. Funeral service was held December 11 in Whittier, Calif.

Officiating at the service were Dr. Alister Sinclair and San Gabriel Masonic Board with entombment in the Rose Hills Mausoleum.

Mr. Hall was born Dec. 14, 1876, on a farm at Lehigh, Ia., the third son of Samuel W. and Eliza Coleman Hall. The family migrated to Sioux County in 1885.

As a young man Hall was interested in railroading and through a close friend obtained employment in that field. In 1905 he married Anna Deffebach and the couple moved to Lusk where he had purchased a lumber yard. His first lumber yard location was on First Street, behind the old Northwestern Hotel. Later the yard was expanded and relocated on the corner where the present Frontier Lumber yard is situated. The office and lumber sheds burned in a fire about 1919.

While in Lusk Mr. Hall also worked for a few years in the old Bank of Lusk and he and Jurgen Lorenzen were retail coal suppliers for a time also.

Mr. Hall was very active in Lusk business, civic and church life in the years 1905-1920. He was instrumental in organizing Harmony Lodge No. 24 A.F. & A. M. serving as its second worshipful master and retained his membership here until his death. He also served two terms in the Wyoming Legislature.

In 1921 the Hall purchased a walnut acreage near Whittier, Calif. He was an active member of the California Walnut Growers Association and served as a member of the board of directors of the Omaha Water Co., the firm which furnished irrigation water to walnut and citrus growers of the area. He was a director of the Pasadena Savings Bank.

During the early 1950"s the Hall sold a portion of their walnut grove to West Covina School District. The City of West Covina purchased the remaining property for what is now a park.

Mr. and Mrs. Hall celebrated their 68th wedding anniversary Aug. 16, 1973, and she died in April 1974. At the time of his death Mr. Hall was living in Reno with a niece Mrs. J. McLaren (Sara Belle) Forbes, who the Halls had raised as a daughter from the time she was one week old.

A recent Washington Merry-Go-Round column by syndicated columnist Jack Anderson said, "We received a Bicentennial slogan from an authentic American pioneer, 97 year old Jesse L. Hall, who was born in the centennial year of 1876. He spent his long life pushing westward. He lived through the blizzard of 1887 in a home-made muslin tent on the Nebraska prairie. In Wyoming he was elected to the state legislature. He now resides in Reno, Nev. He summed up his view of American life in a simple three word slogan: "The Republic Stands",

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