Barton Lee Robinson
A memorial service for Barton Lee Robinson will be held 11 a.m. Saturday, April 18, at the United Methodist Church in Bonners Ferry.
Lee passed away Oct. 21, 2008, at Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane, Wash., from liver cancer.
He was born Sept. 17, 1932, to Harry Barton and Violet Yockey Robinson in Hawk Springs, Wyo.
Lee attended the first two grades of school in LaGrange, Wyo.
Due to the Depression, drought, grasshoppers and crop failures, Harry Barton moved his family to Idaho. In May 1940, Harry and Violet left Wyoming in a Model A Ford, pulling a four-wheeled trailer with all their belongings and six of their children, Lee being next to the youngest.
When they went over the Continental Divide, the Model A was not adequate for the load, and Violet and the kids had to get out and walk. It took five days to get to Sandpoint with the best road via Helena, Mont.
Harry found 160 acres in Highland Flats near Naples and bought it for $1,000. It included a house, barn and outbuildings. The family thought they had found Heaven. Later that year, Lee's married sister and her husband and another brother joined them.
Lee attended school at Highland Flats School through seventh grade, at which time the school was closed. He went to eighth grade in Naples and then on to Bonners Ferry High School where he graduated in 1950. Lee was an outstanding boxer in high school.
After graduation, he worked in the woods and sawmill for Jeff McAvoy and then at Kootenai Valley Creamery.
His high school sweetheart was Donna Lannigan, Class of 1951. When she graduated, her parents moved to Caldwell. Lee and Donna were engaged and Lee soon followed. They married in her parents’ home on July 21, 1951.
Lee worked various jobs, but they missed the mountains and trees. So they put their belongings their 1946 Hudson and returned to Boundary County.
Lee went back to work for McAvoy until winter shut them out of the woods. In February 1952, he took a job at Safeway, which was where the Larson’s store is now.
Within a few weeks, they asked if he would like to learn to cut meat and he said he would try it and it became his trade for 43 years. There was no boxed beef then. Beef came in full quarters, hogs in halves and the turkeys at Thanksgiving had to be cleaned.
On Lee's 20th birthday in 1952, Lee and Donna welcomed a daughter, LeAnne. They had daughter Sandra in April 1954 and Leslie in September 1958.
On Oct. 1, 1958, Lee quit Safeway and went to work for Don Beatty, who had purchased the Kootenai Valley Grocery, where the Panhandle Restaurant is now. Lee managed the store and cut meat. After two years Don closed the grocery and moved to Dan's Cafe next door.
Lee then got a job as meat market manager in Soap Lake, Wash., where he moved his family on Nov. 1, 1960. The store was called Jack's Bargain Barn and was later bought by John Asker, who named it John's Thrift.
Lee again missed Idaho, and when his youngest daughter graduated from high school in 1976, he came back to Highland Flats, where he had purchased from his brother 10 acres of the original property bought in 1940.
Lee lived in a tent during one of the wettest summers and started building a home for him and Donna. Though not finished, they moved in Sept. 1, 1976.
Later that month, the M and M grocery store owned by Les Rogers offered Lee the job of meat market manager. Lee took the job and later the store name was changed to Excel Foods. In 1982 Safeway bought it and shortly closed it.
Lee did not want to move and leave his home in the woods so he and Donna leased a space at the rear of the Panhandle Restaurant and opened Lee's Market on Sept. 13, 1982. Lee did most of the remodeling, even building the walk-in freezer-cooler.
In the fall 1991, Lee became ill and in June 1992, was diagnosed with Lupus. He kept working until he sold it to Hans and Vera Fuchs in April 1995. After that, Lee worked a little for Boundary Trading when they first opened and then part time at Coast to Coast True Value until Jim Chubb closed it.
Lee hunted in his younger years and always liked to creek fish. He did woodworking, crossword puzzles and read most anything non-fiction,
Lee was instrumental in starting Jaycees in Bonners Ferry in the mid 1950s. He also belonged to Jaycees in Soap Lake.
During his daughters’ school years, Lee was active in PTA, Band Boosters and their Camp Fire activities.
He was on the board for the annual Suds and Sun Celebration in Soap Lake and chairman of the library board when a new library was built. Lee was president of the Highland Flats Water Association at the time of his passing.
He is survived by his wife of 57 years, Donna, daughters LeAnne (Brad) Hunter and Leslie (Ric) Carlson, all of Spokane, and Sandy (Chuck) Hays of Des Moines, Wash; grandchildren Erik (Sarah) White and Kristin (Nathan) Masinter of Spokane; step-grandchildren Emily (Jon) Rappe of St. Louis Park, Minn., Tyler (Kimber) Hunter and Hillary Hunter, Matthew Hays and Joe Carlson, all of Spokane, Chris (Arika) Hays of Monroe, Wis., and Ann (Joe) Smith of Snoqualmie, Wis.; great-grandchildren Adam, Declan, Brady, Lydia and Samuel; step great-grandchildren Kyla, Makenna, Dante, Izabela and Tyler; sister Ginny (Dell) Whetsler of Bakersfield Calif.; and many nieces, nephews and special cousins.
Lee was preceded in death by his parents, sisters Lois Mahler and Harriet Voss; an infant sister, and brothers Gene, Alvin, Pete and Wayne.
The family suggests memorials go to Shriner’s Hospital for Children, 911 W. 5th Ave., Spokane, Wash., 99204 or a charity of one’s choice.
Private internment was in Grandview Cemetery.