Elfred Dee Billington (6/3/1923-8/17/1973)

 

Many thanks to ElDee's three children, Kathy (Billie),Chris and Les, for writing the following  biographical sketch to share with all Billington families that love and remember him dearly. 

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To write up something about LD Billington is like trying to write about Superman.                That’s how we all feel about him.

 Early on dad and Uncle Bill were sent to live with the Heilean’s during the depression. They were sent there to work for the family and that’s where dad got his love of Swedish pancakes.

 Grandpa was working for the forest service up in Clyde Park. He had gotten a phone call to go look for a lost car that was from out of the area. It was very cold and bad weather had come in. Uncle Bill and grandpa went out to look for the family. LD was upset he couldn’t go along, so he strapped on his skis and took off looking for them himself. He ended up climbing a tree to survey the area and found the family at the base of the tree he had climbed, dead and frozen. They had tried to start a fire but to no avail. Unfortunately, it was determined that the tree had a lot of pitch on it and if they had just started it on fire it would have kept them warm. He raced home, worried he was going to be in trouble and let uncle Bill know about the family.

 LD loved sports, and played football, basketball and ran track. In fact, he still holds the record for the 400-yard dash. (this could be because the 400 is now the 440 in meters. 

Between his junior and senior year, grandpa was bitten by a snake while haying and LD had to lance the bite and suck the venom out.

 

LD had to quit school his senior year to take care of his mom and younger siblings after his father had died.

Through his friendship with Les Sanders he met Dorothy Sanders. And it was love! They got married on November 22, 1945, on Thanksgiving Day. Al Walker and Mary Sanders stood up with them.

 

 On their first anniversary LD was running heal boom on a logging crew out of Perma. He loaded the last truck of the day, and the driver wouldn’t take the truck out, worried about the brakes. LD was wanting to get home, so he jumped in the truck and on the way out, the truck brakes did fail. He jumped out of the truck, away from the load, but unfortunately the binder cables broke, and the logs rolled over on him. Every bone in his body was broken except his neck and one arm. When Dorothy got to the hospital, she was told he had 15 minutes to live. She was 19 years old at the time. It totally crushed his left ankle. The local doctor wanted to amputate his left leg. LD told them he didn’t want that, saying “I’d rather die.” Charlie Sanders, his father-in-law, stepped in and found a new orthopedic surgeon out of Missoula named Dr. Honeycutt. Unfortunately, the day he was to arrive in Mission for the surgery, the roads were closed due to weather. The local doctor was moving forward with the amputation since Dr. Honeycutt was not there, however, Dorothy, being 19 and scared, called her dad. Charlie Sanders came to the hospital and blocked the doors to the OR until Dr. Honeycutt could get there. Ultimately the surgery was successful, but the ankle was fused. He spent almost a year in the hospital recovering from all his injuries. (LD also received his draft notice on the day of the accident. Needless to say, he didn’t end up serving.)

 

After his recovery, they bought 80 acres from grandpa Sanders and started a dairy. 

Later, LD went to work on the Yellowstone pipeline. The crew was all southern individuals and LD was the only Yankee, which they liked to remind him of. They liked to give him grief about being a Yankee, and he would remind them of their national history and that at the time of the Civil War, Montana was a territory. The family moved to Plains and later to Hot Springs. He quit when they asked him to move to Wallace, so they came back to the ranch in Mission. 

A short time later, LD ended up back in the woods on a logging crew. The family would visit him in Swan Lake and he would come back on the weekends to Mission to continue working on the ranch. In the winter, the logging company had the logging crew plow the roads, so LD ran the snow plow in Swan Lake, to keep the roads open. He did this until one day he went into the office to speak to his boss, Lyman Claridge. As the family was sitting in the pickup watching the door, the door flew open and out flew Lyman. LD came stomping to the truck and explained that he had quit his job. “Can’t work for no SOB that makes me that mad”.

 

That action started his career as a farm machinery salesman out of Missoula, selling Massey Ferguson equipment. He sold all over Western Montana. 

A few years later, he started driving truck. He continued to work on the ranch on the weekends, keeping him always busy. In fact, he purchased property in Helena from Dorothy’s Uncle George. He went back and forth between Mission and Helena to work the property, while also still driving truck. He continued to drive long haul until he had his last accident in the fall of 1970. He had slipped off the truck when he was trying to take his tarps off his truck. He had again shattered his left ankle, which had been injured years earlier in a logging accident. He was brought to St. Pats in Missoula but ended up in Ennis Montana to see Dr. Losee, a renowned surgeon that had worked on many famous athletes. After surgery, he returned home for the next two years, focused on the ranch. He leased Gordon Lackner’s mountain pasture up 9-mile, out of Missoula, supplementing summer pasture for grazing.

 

He passed away suddenly in his sleep on August 17, 1973. He only got the opportunity to meet 

one of his 6 grandchildren.

The night before he passed, out of the blue, Grandma Eva, Aunt Carol, Aunt Donna and others stopped by and had a great visit with ice cream and laughs.  

 Suffice it to say, he was our Superman.

To show just what kind of man LD Billington was, when Kathleen Billington was in Highschool, her English class was given an assignment to write about someone that had impacted their life, someone they held in high esteem. When the day came to read them aloud in class, Mike Emery stood up and had written about LD Billington. He talked about how his car had broken down, and LD stopped and helped him, bringing Mike and his car to LD’s own home and working on Mike’s car until he got it going. Kathleen had no idea this had happened. This was just who LD Billington was. 

***********************************************************************************Favorite photos:

At Eva's house

Thanksgiving 1945

Billy, Stella Blondie, ElDee

Stella, ElDee,Blondie

age 18

NOTES: 

*We owe ElDee a lot of  gratitude for our family history information most of which has been shared on this blog.  It was during ElDee's long haul trips to California that he met Aunt Estelle in Watsonville.  She shared the stories of her father Demetrious (Dee) and ElDee shared them with me.  He encouraged me to write to her and Aunt Cecil which I did and began a relationship with them through the mail. I had no idea at the time, that I would move to California only about 3  hours from Watsonville. When I visited her, I asked her to record the stories on my cassette tape recorder and I then typed them out and send the typed edition back to her for approval to make corrections, additions, and permission to publish them.  Thank you ElDee for making family history and family connections!!

 *The name Dee has been passed down, not only to El Dee, but to his daughter Christie Dee and nephew Jay Dee.  

*Affectionally known as LD by his immediate family members or ElDee by his cousins, he was a superman of a guy and oh so likeable, or even loveable, to all who knew him. With his winning smile and his jolly whit, he could make us all laugh every time we were near him. His "never to be forgotten" greeting with huge hugs brought warmth and joy just to be around him. His jovial teasin' just made him more endearing. His "So long, we'll see ya, Ya Betchya" good-byes always brought on one more lingering hug...we're missing you, Uncle ElDee and think of you often with love and admiration.

 

*Anyone wanting to add notes, comments, pictures, or corrections to this blogpost, please email me at lana.rankin@yahoo.com and I will include them in the next blogpost.