Grandpa Henderson's birthplace

When I was young, before the age of 5, Mom, Dad, Grandpa and I took a trip to Basin, Idaho, where Grandpa was born. I really have no memory of the trip, but I quizzed Mom about it and she said it was interesting for a couple of reasons:

There were two homes he lived in before he turned 17 and the family herded their livestock over the Continental Divide to Burlington, Wyo. The first, a log cabin where Grandpa was born, had long since been reduced to something akin to a barn for the animals of the area. When he saw that it was filled with manure, he said, "Hell, I wish we'd never have come."

Or, he said that when they went looking for the home he lived in after the cabin. It had burned to the ground sometime between 1900, when they moved to Wyoming, and the early 1960s when we made the trip to Idaho.

Mom says they visited a cemetery in Basin, Idaho, and happened to run into its sexton/caretaker. She explains that Grandpa, then at least 80, remembered very well the people who had lived in the community and where they lived. Though he did not know the caretaker, they had known the same townspeople.

Mom adds: "That's funny, because he could remember all them, but he couldn't remember my name."

Have a look at the photos, taken from faded slides, of the home where Grandpa was born by clicking here.

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