Arthur Day Girton
Arthur Day Girton passed away suddenly at his home on June 7, 2014.
Art was born at Great Falls Mt. On May 24, 1928, to Mr. and Mrs. Emery Girton. He was the youngest of 11 children.
Art was seven years old when the family moved to Bonners Ferry Idaho. The family resided in the paradise valley area for many years where Art attended all the schools in the area.
In 1944 Art joined the U.S. Army. He spent most of his service years in Stuttgart Germany. Upon his return in 1948 he found employment at the International Implement Company for a short time.
In the summer of 1949 Art met Phyllis Lineback whom had come to Bonners Ferry from Nebraska to visit her brother and family. The couple fell in love, and was married later that same year, July 24, 1949, on the Lineback Ranch in Ellsworth, Neb., then traveled back to northern Idaho to start their family. Art and Phyllis remained in Bonners Ferry where Art was employed with a jippo crew in the woods for several years.
In 1956 he moved his family to Durango, Colo. Where the family remained for the next seven years with Art being employed as woods boss to road construction.
In 1963 the family moved back to Bonners Ferry where Art was employed as a cat skinner for the Moyie Lumber Co. until a friend, Philip Knowles and Art started a tree thinning co. called “Girton and Knowles.”
Art was always wondering what was on the “other side of the fence,” until one day while browsing thru a newspaper he came across an ad where there was homestead land for sale in northern Canada. He immediately bought it, packed up his family and off we went to Hudson Hope, British Columbia, that was November 1973 and we’ve remained in the general area since.
Art leaves to mourn, his loving wife of 65 years, Phyllis; three daughters, Teresa McLeod, Conda (Bob) Kalb, Kelli (Doug) Hiebert, all from Ft. St. John; two sons, Robert (Cathy) from Sunset Ut., and Keith Girton from Tumbler Ridge B.C., 12 grand children and 12 great grandchildren.
Art was preceded in death by one son-in-law Marvin Mcleod in 2002.