Aaron Bradford Durfee was born on October 8, 1891. Bud was my (Michelle’s) great-grandfather. I never got to meet him, but I did get to spend time with my great-grandmother, Anna Hardy Durfee, in Sundance, Wyoming where they lived since 1944.
It’s not clear from the information I have whether Bud was born in Rock Port, Missouri, where his parents had lived and were married, or in Wyoming on the family’s ranch on Black Tail Creek. According to census records and my grandmother Hazel Kellogg’s recollection, it was Missouri. Some records (such as Find-a-Grave) list Hulett, Wyoming, which was near the family ranch.
Grandma Kellogg told several stories of Bud, including the fact that he rode 160 miles on a horse in 1917 to work on the farm of Charles Hardy in Morristown, South Dakota. It was in Morristown that he married Anna Hardy, Charles’ niece in July of 1916. Bud and Anna had two children, my grandmother Hazel and my great-uncle, Charles Russell Durfee, who was killed in World War II.
Not one but two stores
In 1921, they moved to Reeder, North Dakota, where he bought the Reeder Co-op and ran it until 1943. Bud and Anna then moved to Rapid City, South Dakota, where he worked on the airbase.
In 1944, he bought the store in Sundance, Wyoming, and ran Durfee’s Dry Goods. In October of 1952, Bud and his nephew Jay Russell Durfee moved the store to a larger building.
Bud died on November 11, 1962, so I never got to meet him. When I visited my great-grandmother, everyone in town knew we were their grandkids, and we were treated like royalty. The family still owned the store when I was a kid, and I remember wandering around fascinated by the many things for sale, from clothes to candy, from flour to ropes and barbed wire. It was true county store.
2 Pingbacks