Edith "May" (Gossett) Thompson (Variable Spelling - May)

Birth: She was born in Montana in 1919.  

Family Information: Daughter of Frank and Alvira "Mae" Gossett.

She married Cecil Thompson while living in the colony.  

Description:  

Pre-Colony History: In 1920 and 1930 she lived in Montana with her parents and some of her siblings.  

Home in Colony: In 1937 the Gossett family occupied an apartment in the so-called "old tourist camp." 

Job in Colony: In 1933, she was among six girls who were assigned to work in the kitchen all summer -- Jane Lentz, Mae and Ruth Wooley would work one shift while Frances Roe, Hulda Mahler and Albertine Lennon worked the other, with each shift taking turns working mornings and afternoons, week by week. They would take care of the dishes, wash the tables and sweep the floors. Also, helping her mother peeling potatoes in the hotel kitchen.

In June 1934 she was preparing vegetables and serving food at the hotel dining room, along with Mrs. Mahler and her daughter, Hulda, Miss Linderman, Mrs. Murray, Arlene Watson, Mary Harlow-Fay, Doris Layer and Erma Hayes.

That same month Mrs. Hardy washed dishes for all three meals at the hotel dining room, while May dried at dinner and supper, ably assisted by Kenneth Dean, Sylvester Watson and Loleta Murray.

Later that year she was among a group of high school girls including Iris Busick, Margaret Brough, Nona Crotts, Vivian Crossland, Erma Hayes, Afton Lewis, Irene and Myrtle Maki, Crystal Schutz, Jeannette Woolley and Rhea Mae Baldwin who reported to the orchard to help with berry picking.

In 1935 she was part of a volunteer crew who put in a couple hours into harvesting pears from the orchard before they went to their regular jobs. In November of that year she was helping with the dinner at the hotel.

In 1937 she and Irene Hewitt Nelson helped Mrs. Yost oil the coffee shop floor, and what a smell of kerosene they raised for awhile. 

Other Info: In 1932 Walter Groth drove a group of colonists including Ann and Lenin Tabb, Mrs. Gossett and her daughter to the Rice Ranch; they returned by way of Alexandria.

In 1935, a race on the smooth highway -- Billy Busick on a bicycle and May and Helen Lawrence on roller skates, going "like the wind."

In May 1936 some of the frequent visitors at the colony pool were May Gossett, Joanne and Ruth Wooley, Isabel Page, Ione, Genevieve, Violet and Joy Quippp.

Post-Colony History: In 1940 she and Cecil were living in Vernon Parish, Louisiana with their two children.  

Death: She died in 2003.  

Sources: Montana Birth Records; US Census: 1920, 1930, 1940; "Llano Colonist": July 9, 1932, May 27, 1933, August 19, 1933, April 7, 1934, May 12, 1934, May 27, 1934, June 30, 1934, August 17, 1935, November 2, 1935, November 23, 1935, May 16, 1936, February 13, 1937; US SSDI