HONOR AN ELDER PROGRAM ALIVE AND WELL IN MOSSYROCK

On Tuesday, July 19, 2011, a group of volunteers from Mossyrock descended on Beulah McMurry’s home in Mossyrock to give her a helping hand and to honor her as an elder in the Mossyrock area. The Mossyrock Area Action League (MAAL) began the program last year and its purpose is to pick a deserving elder in the community and lend them a helping hand by providing materials and labor for a needed project around their home. MAAL works with other community organizations or businesses to provide a strong spirit of good will throughout the Mossyrock area. . Beulah McMurry was chosen as this year’s recipient for all the years she has given to this community. For this project, Project Coordinator Wilma Solfranko enlisted the support of the Road Rebels Car Club and MAAL`s Mossyrock Youth Leadership to repair severe dry rot, scrape, prime and completely paint the exterior of Beulah McMurry’s home. Mr. and Mrs. Apple, owners of the True Value Hardware Store, contributed all of the needed paint and primer after Beulah selected the new paint color for her home. An additional donation provided funds to purchase gutter material to add gutters to the house and each of the volunteers brought a little something needed to help give the home a new look.

After a couple of hours of scraping, nailing new boards in place and offering each other bits of wisdom, the volunteers sat down to pizza and soft drinks provided by MAAL and homemade clam chowder and cookies provided by Mrs. McMurry and listened to stories about her years in Mossyrock. Shortly after graduating from Mossyrock in 1941, she married and her in-laws gave her husband and her two lots and they bought an old mill house from the recently closed Carlisle Mill in Onalaska for $300. The house was cut in half and transported to the current site on two trucks. After sitting the house down, there was a gap between the two halves of approximately 15 feet. She and her husband “filled in the gap” and later added additional rooms and porches and it still sits on the property acquired so many years ago.

Beulah worked as a “Field Boss” for Anderson Blueberry Farm for many years (now Pan American Berry Farm) and retired at the age of 70. Since that time, you see her driving her blue pickup truck to various sites including local bazaars where she sells homemade pies, cookies, jams, jellies and embroidered dish towels and quilts to supplement her income.

Once lunch was finished the “crew” comprised of MAAL members, young and old, and Road Rebels Car Club members worked until 5:30 to make sure the house was ready to receive a fresh coat of charcoal blue paint within the next week.