LEONA STOURAL HARRSCH
Leona Stoural was born on a farm five miles east of Verdigre where
she spent the first ten years of her life. Her parents were Emon and
Lillie Stoural and she had one brother, Raymond, who passed away at
the age of fifteen.
Their neighbors were the Albert Vakoces, Joe Ondraceks, George
Stourals, Albert Masats, and her grandparents, the Thomas Stourals,
lived a bit father south. It was a friendly neighborhood. They
visited back and forth and helped each other, such as during
threshing time.
[pg 258 PHOTO Front row, from Left: Clayton Mueller, Helen
Stoural, Duane Oberle, Marguerite Block, Marcella Stoural, Howard
Mueller, Lavonna Block. Middle row: Ronald Block, James Mueller,
Adolph Vakoc, Raymond Oberle, Ben Larson. Back row: Alfred Stoural,
----Oberle, Teacher Leona Stoural, Walter Larson, Blanche Vakoc,
Peter Larson. [Picture taken in 1934.]
The youngsters followed the threshing machine as the women helped
each other with the preparation of meals for the men. They loved to
watch the threshers pitch the bundles of grain and then see the
grain and straw spewing out as the steam engine puffed right along.
When Leona was five years old, she started in a rural school which
was only a city block away. How nice! The first day she came home
from school she informed her parents that she would be a teacher.
She couldn’t speak a work of English, having been raised in a Czech
community. The school building was a wooden structure already
showing its age. Her father, his brothers, and sisters attended
school there, as well as Leona’s brother and cousins. Her first
teacher was Mamie Holan Vondracek (Mrs. George Vondracek, Sr.).
Leona’s ambition, teaching, brought her back to the little school
for two years in 1932-1934. The picture shown here was taken in
1934. Later Marcella Stoural Peyton taught at the school; Mrs. Don
Stoural and Blanche Vakoc (later Mrs. Rudy Julis) were also teachers
there. The schoolhouse has been moved to the Verdigre ball park.
Leona’s marriage to George Harrsch of Troy, Montana, took her to
live in Missoula, Montana. They have two daughters, Marjean (Mrs.
Larry Burke) and Rayma (Mrs. Ronald Peterson). Marjean and Larry
have three children: Jody, Margo, and Alan, and live in Sedro Wooley,
Washington. Rayma and Ronald have four children: Tammara, Stacey,
Samuel, and Clark, and they live in Lewistown, Montana.
-Submitted by Leona Stoural Harrsch
Page 258
