Shaffner Family Ancestors

John F. Shaffner, 103 years old

John Shaffner celebrates his 103rd birthday with style, is the headline in the Dillon Tribune's 26 September 1990 interview with Grandpa Shaffner.

The interview is great with lots of information....

Born in 1887 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, he's been a printer, a telegrapher, a railroad station agent, and a long time rancher and homesteader in Beaverhead County.  The fourth of six children, he was raised by his older sisters after his mother died when he was 12.  He finished the seventh grade and then went to work as a printer's apprentice for the sum of $3 a week.  He moved to Washington, D.C. where he worked for an Oregon Congressman and became a member of a motorcycle club in the early years of the vehicle.  He worked in the Postal Telegraph office for a year, learning Morse telegraphy.  He started work for the Northern Pacific Railroad at Glendale, serving at the station in Simms, North Dakota.  He later went to work for the Union Pacific Railroad and in 1913 he married Della Kurtz in Dillon.  In 1915 he filed on a homestead west of Dillon, and while working on the railroad, he proved upon the homesteaded and added other ground over the years.  Mr. Shaffner continued as a telegrapher and station agent for the Union Pacific until 1944, when he requested a 60 day leave of absence to take care of the ranch because three of his sons were in the military.  He and his wife, Della, made their home on the Rattlesnake until they sold the ranch and moved to Dillon in 1958.  She died in 1960 and he married Frances Brady Harper in 1967.  She died in 1971.  One of Shaffner's sons, Walter, died during World War II, and another, George, whom he ranched with on the Rattlesnake, died in 1979.  A third son, Dean, owned a book bindery in Missoula for many years, and died in 1990.  His son, Don continues as a local rancher.  He has voted in every presidential election since he turned 21 and has voted for only one Republican.  ""I always regretted that," he joked.

In the family scrapbook, Donnee wrote that he celebrated his birthday with a family dinner at Bannack.  At the celebration were Don & Helen, Stella & Jack, Gail & Rick Kuntz, Bob & Rene and family, Les Kurtz, Fred and Donnee Stibal.  Donnee added that on day of his birthday I went to town to take him to lunch, with Stella, Helen, Gail, Rene & Megan.  After that he came to the Centennial with me for a visit.  All his idea and was packed and ready when I got there.  He even had some new stories to tell me which I  hadn't heard before.