Hello Stacy,
Here is a bit more. Your family with Arthur Spencer has two more children in it. Besides son William, and Lee, there was another son named Clarence who lived to be about 90 years old in Polson, Mt. He had many children, and they are/were living in Polson, St. Ignatias, Seattle, Misoula, and more. Besides Clarence, there was the youngest sister named, I believe?, Gracie. She eventually became a Yahn living in California, and later she is found in Orange Co., as Gracie Weisman(sp?). She would have been born about 1900.
Our Spencer family surname came from a small town in Bedfordshire, England named Edworth, that has church records of our folks back to about 1570. Part of the church was built in the 1200s. This is not the silly stuff of looking for royalty, it is certifiably our group who married people with the names Radcliff, Merrill, and Whitbread.
My gr.gr.grandpa, and your Arthur`s father, was Rensselaer H. Spencer who was born in Herkimer, NY in 1840. Nobody spelled his name right, so his census records are a mix of errors, but he too lived in the ``black swamp`` of NW Ohio, on his dad`s farm. He was the only one left behind after his father`s death, and according to a bible record recorded by one of his kids, he died in 1891, but I know not where. His last record is in 1886 at the court house in Wauseon, Ohio. Have you ever heard of an old bible belonging to David F. Spencer?
I would very much like to see the photos you have. I have about 4000 photos that are not well organized so it may take me a while to find Lee. But I will asap. Just tonight I am looking at the court house records for the homestead farm of Arthur in Fromberg, Mt. It must be 60 or 70 pages in length. Just across the road from the place (the log house burned just a few years ago due to a grass fire), there is lush valley soil. The mountain wasn`t quite so generous. I am trying to figure out how to leave you my email in a way so I do not get spammed. Best Wishes, Wendell Spencer