Dan and Grace (Betters) McQuarrie – Pioneers
DAN M’QUARRIE TAKEN BY DEATH; PROMINENT HERE
Lumberman, Who Had Many Times Served People, Crosses Divide.
Daniel L. McQuarrie, aged 51 years, one of the best known and most respected men of western Montana, died at his home, 802 South Sixth street, west, shortly before 11 o’clock last night. Mr. McQuarrie had been ill for some time, never having fully recovered from an illness of pneumonia, which was contracted more than two months ago. Complications set in after this sickness and his heart was affected.
Mr. McQuarrie came to Montana in 1891 and has lived in the western part of the state continuously since that time. He was prominent in mining and lumbering circles and had served many terms of office in the courthouse. He was many times a member of the state legislature from Missoula county and here gained a state-wide acquaintance.
In business, operating lumber camps, doing logging for his own and other mills, Mr. McQuarrie was highly regarded. He had a reputation of being “square,” both to his employes and to the men with whom he had business dealings. Western Montana mourns his passing.
A Worthy Self-Made.
Sanders’ history of Montana, regarding Mr. McQuarrie, says: “It would be impossible to point to a worthier and more striking example of the self-made man than Daniel L. McQuarrie. From an orphan boy, utterly without advantages and early thrown upon his own resources, he has come to be one of the representative men of western Montana, a well known and highly honored citizen and distinctively one of the builders of the city of Missoula. Mr. McQuarrie was one of those valiant souls who had triumphed over adverse conditions and pressed forward to the goal of a large and worthy success. He was in the most significant sense, a self-made man, and integrity and honor characterized him in the relations of life.
Born in Nova Scotia.
“Mr. McQuarrie was born at Lower Caledonia, in Guysboro county, N. S., February 16, 1872. Both parents died when he was very young, his mother passing when he had reached the age of two years and his father when Daniel was seven years of age. The homeless lad was taken into the home of John McQuarrie, who, though of the same name, was not related. Here he remained until he was 20 years of age. He attended school until he was 14 years old. Believing that greater opportunity existed in the west, he came to Montana in 1891 and located in Granite county, where he secured work in the silver mines and remained there for two years. The slump in the price of silver closed the mines and he sought employment in the lumber camps near Bearmouth. He remained there until 1894, when he quit to make a visit to his former home. He returned to Bearmouth as camp foreman, in which capacity he served until 1898, when he went to Clinton and engaged in farming. In that place he remained but a year and then returned to the lumber camps at Bearmouth as foreman and overseer of the work in the woods. He also bought a farm and followed farming and stockraising until 1904, when he was elected to the office of county assessor of Missoula county on the Republican ticket, and so well did his services recommend him that he was re-elected, thus serving two terms in that important office. In 1908, the termination of his services in the office of assessor, he engaged independently in the lumber business in Missoula and in 1910 was elected to the office of county commissioner, where he served one term. He has served the interest of the people in the most whole-hearted fashion.
“Mr. McQuarrie was identified with many good causes and was a valued member of the Presbyterian church and was prominent in fraternal orders. He was a member of the Odd Fellows, the Elks, the Eagles, the Modern Woodmen of America and the Masonic orders, being a Shriner. In politics, he was always Republican.”
Mr. McQuarrie’s Family.
Mr. McQuarrie was married in June, 1898. His wife was Grace Betters of Clinton. They had six children, Irene, Herbert, Flora, Jane, Verna, Clinton and Daniel, who, with Mrs. McQuarrie, survive.
The funeral will be held on Friday afternoon. The body is at the Marsh undertaking place.
The above obituary appeared in The Daily Missoulian on May 16, 1923.
Grace Betters McQuarrie
Mrs. Daniel L. (Grace) McQuarrie, 92, who spent most of her life in Missoula, died Tuesday in Tacoma, Wash., where she had resided the past two months.
Mrs. McQuarrie was born April 5, 1879, in New Salem, Vt., and came west to Clinton with her family as a child. She attended school there and was married in 1898. She and her husband, who was a lumberman, miner and rancher in the western Montana area moved to Missoula in 1910. Mr. McQuarrie, who died in 1923, served two terms as county assessor, one term as county commissioner and three terms in the state legislature.
Mrs. McQuarrie was a long-time member of Electa Chapter 7, OES, recently receiving her 50-year pin. She was a member of the Presbyterian Church.
Surviving are three sons, Herbert D., Vaughn, Wash.; Clinton E., Heppner, Ore., and Daniel L., Tacoma, Wash.; two daughters, Mrs. Flora Stewart, Tacoma, and Mrs. Verno Huson, San Diego, Calif.; a brother, Phillip Betters, Ft. Dodge, Iowa, two sisters, Mrs. Estella Arwood, Longmont, Colo., and Mrs. Bertha Cole, Mill Valley, Calif., five grandchildren, nine great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild.
Funeral arrangements are pending at Squire-Simmons-Carr Rose Chapel.
The above obituary appeared in The Missoulian on July 29, 1971.
Mrs. McQuarrie was the daughter of Austin and Jane (Stanley) Betters. Austin was a civil war veteran who came to Montana in 1881. He mined and prospected in the Wallace mining district near Clinton, and was a farmer. In 1900 he sold his ranch to his son-in-law and left Clinton to prospect in Nome Alaska. He died at Hot Springs, South Dakota in 1921.
Mrs. Austin (Jane Stanley) Betters was a school trustee in the Clinton district for a time. She died at Clinton, Montana in a tragic accident involving a runaway horse in 1899.
A relative of the Betters family has researched their family and the Clinton, Montana area. He maintains a Blog which can be accessed at the following link: