Harold Eugene Lake (1913-1998) | WikiTree FREE Family Tree

Harold Eugene (Gene) Lake

Born 2 Sep 1913 in Hooker County, Nebraska, USA

Ancestors

Son of Frank Martin Lake and Nellie Pauline (Corliss) Lake

Brother of Mirza Joseph Lake and Wallace Wayne Lake

Husband of Irene (Folk) Lake — married 31 May 1934 in Grand Island, Hall county, Nebraska, USA

Descendants

Father of Kenneth Marvin Lake, [private son (1930s - unknown)], [private son (1940s - unknown)], Myrna (Lake) Lemon and [private son (1940s - unknown)]

Died 27 Aug 1998 at age 84 in Hebron, Thayer County, Nebraska, USA

Problems/Questions Profile managers: Steve Lake

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Profile last modified 7 Mar 2024 | Created 19 Jan 2015

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Biography

This profile is part of the The Lake Mansion, Hebron, Nebraska One Place Study.

Harold was born in 1913. He is the son of Frank Lake and Nellie Corliss. ^[1]

My Grandfather^[2] Gene Lake, was born Harold Eugene on 02Sep1913^[3] near Mullen, Hooker county, Nebraska. His father was "Frank," Frances Martin Lake, who was born on 23Dec1885 in Hardin county, Iowa. His mother was "Nell," Nellie Pauline Corliss Lake, who was born on 20Nov1886 in Thayer county, Nebraska.

Gene was born in the Nebraska Sandhills on his father's homestead and remained there until he married. He can be found there in the 1920 US census ^[4] and in the 1930 US census ^[5]. He attended a country one-room school through the eighth grade and could read and write well. His teacher for the last 3 or 4 years was his future wife, Irene Folk. Gene continued his schooling at a boarding school, Shelton Academy, for 3-1/2 years but did not graduate.

When he was 21 years old, he married Irene Folk, daughter of Theodore and Anna Folk, who were also homesteaders near Mullen. Their wedding was on the traditional "Decoration Day" of 30 May 1934 ^[6]. She was born on 28Dec1908 in Cherry county, Nebraska. She had been his grade school teacher several years before. The couple had five children, including Ken, Stan, Martin and Myrna the twins, and Jerry.

Gene and his wife moved to Lincoln, Nebraska a couple of times when it was necessary to earn more and support their children in college. "In the 60's, Gene was elected president of the new (less than 5 years old) United Reserve Insurance Company. In this position, he had a very loyal secretary, who helped him succeed in playing the role of a cunning fox in deadly cloak and dagger games. Soon after taking the position, the loyal secretary revealed why he was elected as president of the company, it was a set-up to be the scape goat when the regulators investigated the company. His office was only a few blocks from the State Capitol and he had many secret meetings with the State Insurance Officer, asking many questions about how to handle the insurance business legally. This included many luncheons and even two fishing trips to Canada. The fishing trips were actually secret business meetings for the purpose of selling the company to a qualified buyer and working out a purchase agreement. Several years before Gene had been hired, United Reserve salesmen had sold policies outside of the company's authorized territory, which was a State and Federal violation.
The new buyer had to be able to operate in the surrounding states, that included the locations where the policies had been illegally sold. With a purchase agreement in hand, and two weeks before closing, he was subpoenaed to appear in Federal Court in Denver, Colorado, in order to be interrogated by the Federal Insurance Commission. He successfully navigated that ordeal and was given time to execute the purchase agreement, otherwise Federal charges would be filed. No one in the company knew all of this was going on, but he and his secretary.
The closing date came and was successful, with moneys and title transfers all completed. Then he called a general staff meeting and informed them of the transaction, took questions, letting them vent their anger for a while, then he silenced them and informed them that he had been subpoenaed and appeared in Federal Court in Denver, had been interrogated by the Federal Insurance Officials over the unauthorized policy sales. Further, he told them, that if the sale of the company had not happened, then the Feds were ready to file charges and upon conviction, they would all serve prison time. Then he outlined how office shutdown was to proceed and by whom. This was extremely difficult for the staff to deal with, being out-foxed by an insurance and legal outsider, and then to be dictated to by a cattleman. He cleared out his desk and never went back." By son, Ken Lake.

Gene owned up to five sections of land, located farther south of Mullen than his father's homestead, and raised horses and beef cattle. His south property line was the Dismal River. This is where he was living at the time of the 1940 US census.^[7] About the time he might have retired, he and Irene moved to his grandparent's house near Hebron in Thayer county, Nebraska. After renovating the house, he took up farming and antique collecting. He also raised some stock on a smaller scale, calves or sheep, and kept a horse or two, because that was what he was used to doing.

During the Depression, Gene was supporting a family by working on his ranch. They were somewhat better off than city folks because they raised, produced and preserved much of their own food. During World War II he lost his eight-year-younger brother, Wallace, and a cousin, Marshall Herrick. His generation and the generation of his children were between the world wars and none were required for military service.

After their 60th Wedding Anniversary, Gene and Irene declined rapidly at about the same time, and moved into a nursing home together. They died in Hebron within five months of each other. Gene's date of death was 27Aug1998^[8]. He and Irene are laid to rest at Rose Hill Cemetery, in Thayer county. His gravestone is inscribed with their names and dates on one side and a scene of the Sandhills on the other, including a windmill, cattle, Gene's brand and a horse with an empty saddle. Other family laid to rest in the same cemetery are Gene's parents, Frank & Nell, Gene's brother Wallace, Gene's grandparents, Joe & Mary Lake and MG & Rebecca Corliss.

Sources

↑ First-hand information as remembered by Robert Hathaway, Monday, January 19, 2015.
↑ First-hand information as remembered by Steve Lake, Wed, 03Mar2016.
↑ FamilySearch.org Social Security Death Index. "Birth Date in SSDI"
↑ FamilySearch.org [1], "1920 US Census" Eugine H Lake in household of Frank M Lake, Hooker, Nebraska.
↑ FamilySearch.org [2], "1930 US census"Harold E Lake in household of Frank M Lake, Mullen, Hooker, Nebraska.
↑ Find-a-Grave.com,[3], "Burial Record," Marriage Date on Inscription.
↑ FamilySearch.org [4], "1940 US census" for Eugene Lake, Valley Election Precinct, Hooker, Nebraska, United States.
↑ Find-a-Grave.com, "Burial Record. "Death Date in Inscription"

See also:

"United States Census, 1920," Eugine H Lake in household of Frank M Lake, , Hooker, Nebraska

"United States Census, 1920," index and images, FamilySearch source for Eugine H Lake in household of Frank M Lake, Hooker, Nebraska.

"United States Census, 1930," Harold E Lake in household of Frank M Lake, Mullen, Hooker, Nebraska

"United States Census, 1930," index and images, FamilySearch source for Harold E Lake in household of Frank M Lake, Mullen, Hooker, Nebraska.

"United States Census, 1940," Eugene Lake, Valley Election Precinct, Hooker, Nebraska, United States

"United States Census, 1940," index and images, FamilySearch source for Eugene Lake, Valley Election Precinct, Hooker, Nebraska, United States.

"United States Social Security Death Index," Eugene Lake, 1998

"United States Social Security Death Index," index, FamilySearch source for Eugene Lake, 1998.

Burial: Rose Hill Cemetery Hebron, Thayer County, Nebraska, USA

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSvcid=546017&GRid=110230334& source on Find-a-Grave.com Plot: Block 330 (with pictures of gravestone) Burial Memorial maintained by: Steven Lake Originally Created by: Becky Martin Record added: May 08, 2013 Find A Grave Memorial# 110230334

Memories: 1

Enter a personal reminiscence or story.

Steve Lake

My personal recollections of my Grandfather Gene was that he was born in the Nebraska Sandhills and he loved living and working on them. He managed to make a living there, when so many gave up and left. That says a lot about his spirit and his energy. Gene had an older brother close to his age. Joe and Gene probably made quite a team, doing chores together, going to school and getting into mischief. It wasn't until Gene was about eight years old when another brother joined the family. I don't recall hearing any stories of Wallace when he was young, but I can imagine that he really got the business from Joe and Gene and Mother Nell and Father Frank had to step in many times to prevent serious injury when they were rough-housing. Now that I think of it, Wallace came along about the time that Gene started school, so at least his days were spent at home with his mother. His older brothers probably saw that as an unfair privilege, forgetting their needs were met by their parents appropriately for their age.

The three brothers had different temperaments and their lives took different courses. Joe went on to finish high school like his father and mother had, and then he went on to college and a career as a teacher. Gene did not go on to high school, but started his career of raising horses and cows. Eventually he married one of his teachers, Irene Folk, who also loved the Sandhills and wanted to be the wife of a rancher. Wallace finished high school and also got his pilot's license and that led to his enlistment and training in the Army Air Corp. His plane crashed in China and all three crewmen died. None of Gene's sons were named after him, but five of his grandsons got the middle name Eugene. I was not proud of it until I had a better appreciation of his character and had started to mature. Now it is a badge of honor for me, I'm not sure my cousins agree. Gene was a mixed bag. Some visits were fun and games, but some showed his moody side. He was quick to show displeasure and didn't worry about anybody's feelings when he need to express his opinions. There was a time when my parents were overwhelmed with work and school and it seemed like a good plan to send my sister and me to visit our grandparents. It was supposed to be about a month and the homesickness was felt on both ends, so it ended up being shorter than intended. Gene and Irene pulled out a lot of tricks to keep us busy and our minds off of missing our parents. We were not yet school age so we required a lot of hands-on attention and Gene and Irene were a good tag team. The morning routine was to get us dressed to go out with Gene to feed the cows. He would try reasoning with us to stay in the cab of the pickup to stay warm, but eventually we would get fidgety and curious, so he had to figure out something for us to do besides get covered with snow that still allowed him to keep pitching hay to the cows. The first hay he pitched would be on the back side of the stack where we couldn't see him momentarily. That would clear a place of snow and he would toss some peppermints into the hay. He'd work his way back to us and let us get out of the truck. He'd say he thought he saw a mouse drop some candy and we should go look for it, which we eagerly did. It took some time to find all the pieces, which worked in his favor. My poor sister had to disbelieve the mouse story, but I thought it was unwise to question a situation that was in my favor to go along with. Irene's parents lived in Mullen, and she had eight siblings, a few of whom lived nearby, so her share of caring for her parents' old age was less than the impact of Gene's parents ended up being. Gene's parents had moved from the Sandhills to Hebron, in southeastern Nebraska back in the Fortie's to be near their parents and ended up staying. The time came when Gene and Irene made the same move, realizing they would end up staying, too. They gave up their Sandhills and made lemonade out of lemons. That move happened at the end of one of my last summer visits. I was twelve years old and deemed ready to learn to drive, so I was the designated chauffeur, but only got to drive the little red jeep for two weeks. Grandma needed to tend her garden out by the east windmill, I got to drive. Grandpa needed to check fences, I got to drive. Grandma need groceries, I got to drive as far as the pavement. When we took a picnic to the river I didn't get to drive at all because the little jeep didn't have enough power to get back up the bluff. All the other times were great and I've always had a jeep thing ever since. Some of the lessons of learning how to shift properly without missing the gears or abusing the clutch were stern, but learning was also a fine reward. Finally it was time to load the old stake-bed farm truck and use it as a moving van and it was a long trip across the state to the big house outside of Hebron. The big house is another story, and a long one, that starts with Gene's Grandmother Mary. But I have one more story about Gene. I'd have to think some to remember how old I was, but it was after I was twelve and there weren't very many of those teen years. I was probably fifteen or sixteen and the family figured out how the big house made a great place for family reunions. It was on one of those occasions that I somehow came up with a wonderful idea that was as much fun for me as it was for my cousins. My father was the oldest child and I was his second oldest. All my cousins were younger and not all of them had arrived yet by then, but there was a dozen or so. I noticed that there wasn't much for the children to do but sit around and listen to the grownups tell stories and eventually I got bored, too. I decided to be a kid again and show my cousins how to have fun on a farm. We went up in the barn and made a fort of hay bales that occupied most of a day. We explored to the far end of a pasture and went wading in the pond. After supper we played hide-and-seek until long after dark. Every now and then I would notice an adult having almost as much fun watching us as we were having. There were bumps and bruises that called for first aid. There were wrestling matches and disagreements that had to be settled, There were breaks for water or meals, but us kids made a lot of memories and slept well. As we were all getting ready to leave, Grandpa took me aside and expressed his appreciation for my looking after the cousins with a hug and a twenty dollar bill. My grandparents called it dirty money, but I was willing to go along with a situation in my favor.

Written by Steve Lake, Gene's oldest grandson.

posted 28 Feb 2016 by Steve Lake [thank Steve]

Is Gene your relative? Please don't go away!