Chrystal Harper’s life is a time capsule of living in the West
By Dana DuGan
The year 1905 serves as a touchstone for a period of time that was swiftly changing.
Teddy Roosevelt was President; Norway officially became an independent country; the abortive 1905 Russian Revolution brewed; mutiny broke out on the Russian battleship Potemkin; the title ‘prime minister’ was officially recognized by King Edward VII of the United Kingdom; and Alfred Einstein published four important papers, including one on the theory of special relativity –1905 is regarded as his “miracle year.”
On June 28, Chrystal Leola Uhrig Harper was born at Stanton Crossing, roughly 10 miles south of Bellevue. There is no longer a community there, though there is a rest stop at the blinking light and a campground a short distance to the west. If one drives through the campground up the hill, the house where Will and Lizzy Fowler Uhrig lived and raised their six children still stands. The three girls and three boys – Fred, Hazel, Benton, Delsie, Chrystal and Bill – rode their horses across the Big Wood River to the schoolhouse at Stanton Crossing. They ventured north to Bellevue about twice a year for supplies in a horse-drawn wagon.
Chrystal’s father, to whom she was very close, was born in Illinois, while her mother was from Indiana.
Now living at Bell Mountain Village & Care Center in Bellevue, Chrystal Harper, 111, is the 14th oldest person in the United States. Along with three inflated 1s hanging in her room, there is a card from the New England Centenarian Study congratulating her on living this long without ever suffering from a serious age-related illness.
Despite her happy childhood on the ranch, Harper’s father moved his brood (their mother died in 1910) to Boise, where Chrystal met and married Missourian Ed Harper when she was 19. Shortly thereafter, they moved to Long Beach, Calif., looking for work. They eventually opened a dry-cleaning business.
But in 1943, with the onslaught of World War II and the Zoot Suit Riots in Los Angeles between American servicemen and Mexican-American youths, the Harpers returned to the Wood River Valley of Idaho. One of the places they farmed was a pasture in the northeast corner of Bellevue, then considered “out of town.” Harper’s view from her room in the Hemingway House at Bell Mountain Village looks right onto that pasture today.
In 1946, Chrystal and Ed permanently settled in Bellevue in a log cabin that still stands. Along with the cabin’s lot, Chrystal also owns a second house next door, and another open lot next to that.
In 1945, she became a member of Mayflower Rebekah Lodge. Sadly, in 1959, her husband Ed died after suffering a heart attack. They had no children. Chrystal never remarried and always carried a torch for Eddie. Until she retired at the age of 88, she worked first as a maid, and then in the laundry at the now-defunct Christiania hotel on Sun Valley Road, in Ketchum.
Sharon and Bruce Schrock, of Bellevue, met Chrystal in 1974 after moving to Bellevue from Pocatello. Bruce built on a lot next to Chrystal’s cabin on Main Street, and in the evenings after work she’d sit on a bench and watch the goings-on next door.
Finally they connected, and have remained not just friends, but extended family, ever since.
Chrystal, though tiny at 5-foot-1, was fierce and independent. But she rolled her car at age 93, breaking her back, “but totally recovered,” Sharon said. “Then she wrecked another car driving into the police station in Hailey when she was there to get her license renewed. She was indignant that there were cops there!”
“She decided enough was enough,” Bruce said.
“She said, ‘God’s trying to tell me something,’” Sharon said. “She has a strong personality, and is an advocate for animals. She called the cops on the rodeo (run for a long time by her nephew, Ted Uhrig) because they didn’t give the cows enough water. One time, on her way to work in Ketchum, she saw horse tied in a pasture, not moving. She approached a woman in the house, who turned out to be a very large woman. Chrystal said, ‘I know you can whoop me if you want to, but why is that horse tied up and not moving?’ The woman said it was ‘being punished.’ ‘Well,’ Chrystal said. ‘If I see that horse there on my way back, I’m going straight to the police!’”
When Harper was 102, she slipped on the ice in Bellevue and the next year fell and broke her hip in her house.
In 2015, Sharon Schrock, who has power of attorney for Chrystal, agreed, due to finances and health, that Chrystal shouldn’t live alone in her house any longer. Though Chrystal is no longer talkative, Sharon is convinced she’s still “mad at her” for moving her to Bell Mountain Village.
“Medicaid pays for her stay there,” Sharon said. “She saved money but not enough for this care. She didn’t expect to live this long, but all the Uhrigs lived a long time. ’Course, it might be because she mowed the grass on all three of her lots, and kept working all those years!”
Many times Chrystal asked Sharon why she just couldn’t go. Sharon told her once, “Maybe God doesn’t know what to do with you.” Chrystal frowned, and then laughed, saying, “I think you’re right!”
Harper spent Halloweens at the Schrock house, and the neighborhood children would come year after year to show Chrystal their costumes. She also spent Christmas with the Schrock family every year. She was a wicked jigsaw-puzzle player and until recently read voraciously, and crocheted.
“She wished she’d been a boy – she liked all that stuff,” said Bruce, who owned the Mr. Garage Door Co. in Bellevue. “She’d order shelves from Sears and put them together. But I’d have to put them up for her. She’s a neat gal. Tough little thing.”
His wife said their families were very close. “She’d always say about Bruce’s dad, who was five years younger than her, ‘I just love that little old man.’ She’s just part of our family.”
The Schrocks began holding annual open-house birthday parties for Chrystal when she turned 88, and commemorative scrapbooks filled with cards and photos.
One note reads: “Every single thing about you is special. I well remember you and Eddie together in those good days; I remember your sweet smile and your always helping hands; I remember your strong faithfulness… but most of all, I just like to see you in your little car, in the store, at lodge, and at home – just because you are a dear and special friend and sister. My fondest love, Bert.” (aka Roberta McKercher, longtime reporter with the former Wood River Journal).
For several years Harper was a case study by Boston University’s New England Centenarian Study. In fact, hanging on her wall in her room at Bell Mountain is a happy birthday note from the organization, which studied people who have aged without signs of heart disease, dementia, stroke or Alzheimer’s.
A decade ago, at age 101, Chrystal was asked to represent Bellevue in the annual Blaine County Heritage Court. The court is made up of local women who have participated in their communities for 50 years or longer. No one deserved the honor more or enjoyed her time riding in parades in a horse-drawn carriage more. After all, Chrystal began life with horses and buggies.