Sepia Saturday: A Valentine Love Story

Leota Biggs was the beloved only child

of William A. Biggs and his wife Clara Davidson Biggs.

Leota and my paternal grandfather were first cousins

(her father and my grandfather's mother were siblings).

Leota Biggs and her dog Teddy

Leota was born December 17, 1906 in Missouri
(at least according to the 1910 Census) 

and spent her later childhood and high school years
in a small eastern Oregon town called Baker. 

As you might discern from her elegant coat,

her parents were fairly prosperous. 

Both Willie and Clara attended a college

of chiropractic medicine in Portland, Oregon

in the early 1900s.

Leota graduated from Baker High School

and obviously showed academic promise,

as she went on to college

 at Washburn University in the early 1920s
when not that many girls went to college. 

Washburn, as you might know,
is in Topeka, Kansas, quite a distance
 for a girl from a small town in eastern Oregon.

The problem was that a young man named
Harold Trebbe went to Oregon State University
in Corvallis, Oregon about 2000 km away
from Topeka, Kansas.
Hal was Leota's high school sweetheart.

Willie and Clara thought Hal and Leota's relationship
was only puppy love, but they were wrong.
Leota's puppy love was for her dog Teddy.

She was head over heels, crazy in love with Hal.

So after a year or two,
she transferred from Washburn to University of Oregon.
Apparently her parents thought the 47 miles
between Eugene (University of Oregon)
and Corvallis (Oregon State University)
was a wide enough moat to protect their princess
from that dark prince, Hal,
so they assented.

However, love prevailed.
Leota and Hal eloped.

Willie and Clara were furious.
They ranted and raged
and threatened to have the marriage annulled.
They even tried to get the Baker County Sheriff
to arrest poor Hal (to no avail).

You see, Willie and Clara were sure the marriage
would never last.

And they were right.
Sort of.

Leota and Hal had only been married
about 65 years
when Hal died at age 83.

(Story details provided by Hal and Leota's
son-in-law Perry Youngreen in a phone conversation
in 2003).

To see more of Sepia Saturday photos
and stories,
visit Alan Burnett's blog News from Nowhere.
Alan's the back-from-a-cruise,
big-hearted host of the Sepia Saturday project.

Thanks, Alan!