Epilogue

Annie’s mother, Mercy K. Graves, lingered in a mostly comatose state until her death in Sumol, California, on October 12, 1927.

William E. Taylor carried on after Annie’s passing, running the mill at the Queen of the Hills mine. Ed Callahan joined him, renting a home in Salmon for Nora and their four children. The Callahans moved to Butte for a time but by the early 1930s had returned to Lemhi County. They lived in Gibbonsville before settling into the old boarding house near the Monolith mine where they wrestled a living from the rock through the long years of the Great Depression.

Billy Taylor Sr. took a room at Alta’s boarding house in Shoup. His son, Billy Jr., worked as foreman on CCC camp construction—the entire family together during difficult economic times.

Loss followed, as it always does. After a short stay at Salmon Hospital, William E. Taylor died on February 8, 1934. Alta Hawthorne (Callahan) Barton left the river in 1939, moving to Butte when her health failed; she died of ovarian cancer on December 31, 1940. Edward Graves Callahan succumbed to silicosis in Butte on May 30, 1942.

William Roy Taylor and Madge divorced, and after World War II, Billy Jr. worked in Honolulu, Hawaii rebuilding the port. When he came home, he lived on the river at Elk Bend working as a carpenter. He would live to old age, passing away on July 17, 1974, in Salmon—closing the chapter on Annie’s immediate family, though not on the story she set in motion.