Her father, Andrew Duff: his ancestors came Scotland and used to be called MacDuff. They originally settled in the Carolinas. Her grandfather moved the family to Illonois.
Andrew Duff was a millwright, worked in the logging industry, was “jack of all trades”, carpenter (built beam structures in mines).
Her mother, Marie, was a school teacher, very intelligent and “ahead of her time.” Leah also says her mother had a sharp tongue and her parents fought often. Her father, who was a small man, beat Marie when he was angry, worse when he was drunk. The family lived in Boise most of Leah’s childhood and she attendied Lowell school.
Her parents split when she was still in school and her father moved to Nevada to work in a mine.
Leah’s family: Rachel, a nurse who was widowed young; Alan, her only brother who married twice; Jean, the “smartest sister” who married a very intelligent man, Pete, who was in the Navy when they married. Sheila, the youngest, and Jean -- Leah picked on Jean when they were young but later Leah was closest to Jean.
When Leah was young she was engaged to a young man, Cyp Wyatt. Her father asked her to come visit in Nevada, which she did, and when she returned her sister Sheila had fallen in love with her fiance. (It’s obvious Grandma Leah forgave but never forgot, she went to the wedding and was a good sister and aunt all her life). Ironically, Cyp and Sheila drove Jean and Leah to visit their father.
Leah met Bill (Maurice) Hole through Cyp, they were cousins. Bill’s mother was Grace Wyatt, his father was Wilfred Hole. They were married in 1940. Both families said it would never work because both Leah and Bill “were spoiled.” Bill was the only boy, with three sisters; Eva, Helen, Edna. Bill grew up moving between Holly, Wash., and the Methow (winter/summer).
Wilfred Hole was killed when Bill was about 13, when a suitor for his sister, Eva?, that the father had turned away, shot him while Wilford was rising his dining room table. According to Leah, when young Bill ran for help he tripped over the body of the suitor, who had shot himself. The family moved away from the Methow then.
Leah and Bill lived in Burian, Wash., for about seven years. Grandpa worked as a machinist at Boeing. Later they moved to Redmond, Wash., and Bill worked in a mill. Merrilyn, Keith, and Diane were born during those years. None of the family wanted Bill and Leah to move, including her, but Bill had dreams of working for himself. He thought about being chicken farmer, like his father, but changed his mind. Leah was very happy because she didn’t want to live on a chicken farm. She said she was very happy in Redmond and would rather have stayed but since Bill was not happy, it wouldn’t have worked out.
When they bought the orchard there were only 10 acres of trees, young and three years away from a harvest. Bill went to work in a garage in Twisp to make ends meet and Leah, liking the stability, wished he would’ve stayed there instead of investing full time in the orchard. They borrowed from the “shed” to improve the orchard. For several years the orchard just got by, paying its mortgage until one year only they had the only crop in the valley because of a frost, and the orchard made good money.
Leah worked in the local packing shed sporadically through the years, in the winters.
Bill was mostly known by his middle name, Maurice (which the family pronounces “Morris”) when he was young but began using 'Bill' because a relative named Maurice Hole who lived in the Methow area caused too much confusion for the two men.
("editor's" note: Just found this note we made after a visit to Grandma Hole in 2004. It expands on some of the things in her 'official' biography)
