Belle Melcher

BELLE MELCHER was born at home to Wallace and Mabel Fleming Trigg in Doon, IA, on October 13, 1909. She was one of seven children being the second oldest. In 1911, she moved with her parents to a farm south of Hatfield, MN where she was raised and attended country school. When she was 16 years of age, she moved with her parents to a farm by Woodstock, MN. She worked for many people around that area before her marriage, at the age of 22, to Albert (Arp) Melcher on August 15, 1932 and they resided in Woodstock before moving to a farm west of Woodstock.

Belle also took in her younger brother, Kenneth to assist in raising him before he entered the Marines in World War II. While the war is now taking place, the family loaded everything in the Model A car in 1943, and moved to Sletz, OR where Belle worked in a saw mill. Kenneth was killed in service and within one year the family moved back to Woodstock. Back in those days many farmers just rented farms and then crop shared with the landlord. This is how the next seventeen years were spent between a farm in Moody County, SD and a farm five miles east of Jasper on the county line.

In 1963, they moved to a home in Pipestone and Belle worked for Pipestone Schools, Winnewasa Dairy, Lange’s Locker, and the Kings Kourt Motel. Albert passed away in 1979. She then sold the house in three days and moved into the Storybrook Apartments here in Pipestone in 1986.

She lived there for twenty some years before being diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in March of 2002. She then underwent a series of four Chemo treatments at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. She became very ill before the fifth treatment thus ending her at the Good Samaritan Communities of Pipestone as a resident. She enjoyed her room as it was facing the road to the College and she enjoyed the many people who brought their dogs out to run in the area and the people who hiked by the window. She was very active, right to the end, with the Resident and Food Council, playing bingo and enjoying the music provided. Oh yes, and going to the Casino with the group every time they went.

She loves to crochet, and has made over 100 afghans. She also enjoys making the crocheted towels to hang on the stove or refrigerator. She loved putting puzzles together as well as fishing, gardening, flowers, making homemade apple pies, chicken noodle soup and chocolate chip cookies…pails of them! Yes, Belle was before people owning cars; electricity (REA); before phones; tractors and before TV or computers.

She is survived by a daughter, Marilyn Flanagan of Pipestone; two sons, David (Mary) Melcher of Topeka, KS, and Dennis Melcher of Balaton, MN; 15 grandchildren; 23 great-grandchildren; and 15 great-great-grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her husband, Albert (Arp); son-in-law, Jack Flanagan; grandson, Steven Flanagan; brothers, Wallace, Howard, Kenneth, and John Trigg; and sisters, Martha Schmidt, Ursula Christians; and Maude Martell