Strutt Family Tree

Ella's mother died in childbirth and her father brought her by train from South Dakota to Dodgeville, Wi. so that his mother and step-father could raise her. When her father died her husband Richard went to Montana to pick up her two half-sisters for her to raise. Alice and Mamie were 10 and 9 years old. Their classmates in Dodgeville called them indians because they were so tan from the Montana sun and were barefoot. Ella's half-brothers George and Wilbert decided to stay at their dad's Montana homestead. These orphand brothers and sisters feared they would be split up, by adoptions if the four attempted to live on the rural Montana homestead without any parent or guardian, so the girls came to Wisconsin to live with Ella and her husband Richard Perkins. Her husband died in 1925 and in 1930 Ella married Stan Reese. Her six children have always been a close knit family. Ella was a charter member of Rebekah Lodge and a member of the United Methodist Church. She worked in a meat market, at grocery stores and owned a restaurant. In her home everyone felt welcome. Family was the basis of Ella's life. She died in the nursing home at Dodgeville, Wisconsin at the age of 94