Tone Helena Staley

Tone was the 12th of 15 children and the third daughter to be named Tone and survive beyond childhood. Her father was a farmer in Eden Township, Minnesota who also broke horses for farm work. Both of her parents died when she was a child. After her mother's death, she and her younger brother and sister lived with her oldest brother Ole who had five children of his own. Tone and her younger siblings lived with various older siblings as they grew up. She attended a Norwegian school in Minnesota until she was about 14 but was able to learn English in her spare time. By the age of 15, she was a governess and was respected as a midwife by the age of 16. She once delivered a baby so tiny that it was not expected survive. But, she wrapped it up and placed it in a shoe box on the open oven door to get the precious heat of the wood stove. The tiny infant survived. Tone also worked as a telephone switchboard operator before she married.

Tone married Arthur Brenna on July 17, 1923. They lived in Gully, Minnesota where their first son, Kenneth was born in 1924. Tone and Arthur left Gully and moved to Oakville, Washington. Within the year, they moved to San Francisco where Arthur worked on the construction of the Sir Francis Drake hotel. When the Great Depression hit, they returned to Oakville where thier daughter Doris was born in 1931 and son Robert was born in 1935. They moved to Rochester in 1942. While in Rochester, Tone was a cook at the Grand Mound Correctional Facility for Girls. In 1949 the family moved to Centralia where she worked for Perry Brothers Poutrry Company in nearby Chehalis.

Tone and Arthur were married for 33 years. After his death in 1956, she met Pete Staley. They were married on December 6, 1956. They moved to Pe Ell, Washington in 1968 where she lived until she passed away.

[https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/48531863/toni-helena-staley]