I am sorry to not have a picture of Rex and his wife Sylvia and their two sons Hardy and Scott Haight.

Hardy having passed away.

Not having one this above picture is the best I can do.

Rex was very outstanding in everything he undertook.  His life work was school work and he accomplished much.  He was active in missionary and church work all through life.

The following "Rex Haight" history was written by his wife Sylvia Haight.  She married Ernest Haight after Rex died.  Ernest being the older brother of Rex Haight.  Sylvia and Ernest Haight live in Missoula, Montana, where they live on their ranch in the summer and in town in the winter.

Above was written by Dwight L. Haight May 29, 1959.


Our family Bible, a big book like the ones ministers use in church has a place for family records.  My sister Vie copied some of the dates from it, and I find that for me, at least, they tie the history of this country into a surprisingly compact package. My great-grandfather, John Ufford, was born in 1795.  My grandfather, Daniel Ufford, was born in 1821.  Daniel married Sylvia J. Higley in 1848, and their three children were my Uncle Will, my Aunt Vie, and my father, Benjamin Franklin Ufford, all born in the town of Lee, Oneida, New York.

My dad married my mother, Eudora Janet Robertson, in 1881.  My brother Curtis, was born in 1882, Vie in 1888, Lois in 1892, and I on December 16, 1896, on a farm near Zearing, Iowa.  About 1903, my dad got an itching foot, sold our farm, and went to the state of Washington to take up a timber claim near Chelan.  I suspect my mother had something to say about our not going to Washington for we moved to Cedar Falls instead.  That was in 1906 or 1907.  We lived at 2513 Walnut Street, where Vie still lives.  There we contracted typhoid through a "carrier" from whom we bought milk and it was then that my sister Lois died.

I think the Fred Haight family moved to Cedar Falls with some of their boys at about the same time.  I remember that Trevor was in our room at school, and I suppose we were in the fourth grade then.

Quite a number of the college faculty boarded with the woman from whom we bought the Walnut Street house, and Mother agreed to keep them.  Later she had some student boarders, about 30 much of the time.  The Haight parents must have gone back to Peterson by this time for Rex and Trevor came to work for their board.  Ivy boarded there, too, but whether Trevor brought her or came because of her, I do not remember.  Later Dwight also came there to board.  I think he was attending the down town high school then.  It is funny what things stick in one's memory, as I believe Ray has said also.  I remember where Dwight sat at the table, and how I put the bread plate with several crusts on it near his place.  He spied them the first thing, very politely passed the plate to the persons on each side of him, neither of whom took the crusts, and then helped himself to them.  Since then I have learned that the whole family likes crusty bread.  Is it Burl or Herbert who likes it next to burned?

At Cedar Falls I knew Burly by sight and met Maude and Ernest on one of their visits there.  While Rex was in school at Cedar Falls, he was into everything, wrestling, tumbling, debate, Y. M. C. A., plays , etc.  It was probably in 1916 that he was Duncan, the murdered king in Macbeth.  Maude and Ernest were back on a visit then, and I recall that Rex could hardly wait to be murdered, so he could leave and play with Lyle, who was not yet two years old.

Rex finished school in 1916 and went to Dumont as superintendent of schools.  I do not recall just when he left to enter Y. M. work with the services.  He was in New York in that work and later enlisted in the navy at Pelham Bay.  He was a petty officer when the Armistice was signed.  I think he met Burl at one of the eastern ports when Burl embarked for overseas.

Rex taught for part of the a year at Crafton, Iowa, probably while he was waiting to enter Y. M. work or the navy.  After he was released from the navy, he went to Sutherland to finish the school year.  Hawley Whitacre was superintendent there.  Apparently this was in the spring of 1919 for on July 30, 1919, Rex and I were married at Cedar Falls, by the Presbyterian minister, who started off his day by officiating at our 7:30 a.m. wedding.  We left right afterward for Cherokee to visit Father and Mother Haight in the apartment they had while Father Haight was taking treatments.

Rex and I came on out to Montana in 1919 on the Milwaukee.  There was racial trouble in Chicago at the time, and there was one Negro family on the train, or maybe more.  They had a red-headed daughter, and they were going to Seattle.  We lived on Ray's ranch near Suffolk while his family was in Seattle for Gertrude's health.  That was a very dry year, and in the big garden that Ray's had planted, we had three ears of corn, some carrots, some citron, and some dwarf watermelons.  I especially remember how good Mable's tomatoes tasted when she cooked them with bread.  I used to wonder if she noticed how many helpings I took, but they were something we did not have often.  Verniece had left some delicious ham put down in lard, and also some liver in lard.  It was in some bottled that he had the necks taken off.  I think someone said that a heated harness - ring was dropped over the neck of the bottle and it broke off with a clean break.  Is that right?

I think that Father Haight died that fall, and all the brothers except Rex went back to Iowa.  Ray walked out from Suffolk in below - zero weather on his return from the funeral.  That convinced me that Montanians would brave anything.  Burl spent a short time with us that fall.  I recall riding over to Ernest's for Thanksgiving Dinner, bundled in a bearskin coat on Burl's pony Zeke, who fortunately was not as skittish then as he became later.  Seems to me Zeke got to be a bucking horse later on.  Rex and Burl walked.

During the dry period, farming didn't look too promising, and in 1920 Rex and I finished the school year in Forest Grove, and then went to Denton for two years.  Like a lot of others, we then decided to quit teaching, and in 1923 we drove to Spokane over the Yellowstone Trail, which was marked then with yellow stones set at strategic intervals.  When I think of that Model T, the tent we set up every night, the rain on Sullivan Hill outside Great Falls where we had to unload everything from the car - including some potatoes - in order to get up the gumbo hill, and of the dangerous switchbacks over the Bitterroots, I think we really traveled in pioneer days.

Rex got a job in Spokane as a salesman of the Apex washing machine and the Eureka vacuum cleaner, and we lived off his commissions, which were only occasional.  The money we had earned teaching, we had sunk into the ranch that we later let go.  In Spokane I got a job at the old Culbertson's department store, second only to the Crescent.  I was at the jewelry counter and was once reported for being insolent to the some lady(?).  I'm sure she wasn't one, and I can't remember of being saucy.  Indians used to come in and had to be watched for shoplifting.

We spent the summer of 1924 in Eugene, Oregon, where Rex was transferred. Vie and Mother drove her new Buick out from Iowa, without knowing how to back the car, and then went on to Victor, Montana, where Rex was to be superintendent of schools.  Hardy was born in October that fall.

Again we decided to give up teaching and went from Victor to the Black Hills.  In Rapid city we ran into Harry Heald, and we agreed to run their teachers agency while they were on vacation.  Vie visited us fortunately for she was the only one who could type. We didn't enrich the Healds much, but they found us a job in return for out work, and we taught in a little town just outside Rapid City.  I taught half days, and had a baby sitter for Hardy.  In case anyone knew the Lyon family at Cedar Falls, the sitter was the daughter of one of the Lyon brothers.  He was a good loud singer and really opened up in church.

The next fall we went to Grass Range and stayed ten years until 1937.  Rex built up an outstanding school, got the country children to come to high school, used native timber to fix up the basement of the school building, a really good thing to do, as this was at the time of the depression, and people needed work in the timber and in building the basement.  He also had a successful basketball team, added some courses to the school through correspondence study, and really made a name for himself in school circles.  He received about a $600 bonus from the services while we were there and used it to pay his campaign expenses when he ran for state superintendent.  He lost in the primaries to Ruth Reardon, who asked him to be state high school Supervisor beginning with her term in 1937.  He went in January, and I finished the year teaching at Grass Range, as the two boys were in school.  In June we moved to Helena and lived on the Ross ranch out by Alhambra, someone gave us two lambs before we left Grass Range, and we left there with Rex, myself, the two boys, two lambs, Buster the dog, and Boots the cat, all packed in the car.  We had not got on the main highway, a distance of about half a block, when the lambs climbed out of their box.  From then on, it was a three-handed job to keep everybody in place!

I have neglected to say that Rex received his Master's Degree from Stanford by attending three summers, and also attended the University of Washington, where he got interested in Canada's program of correspondence study for high and grade school.  He saw the possibilities for Montana, the Correspondence School bill passed the 1937 legislature, but Governor Ayers Vetoed it.  It went through in 1939 just before we went East, I stayed with my folks at Cedar Falls while Rex went to an NEA convention in Cleveland.  He was on the program, and it was probably tension that caused a severe heart attack there.  He was hospitalized for three months there and then recuperated in Helena for another three months.

Miss Reardon moved the Correspondence School to Missoula in August, 1939, and we followed, as the school was Rex's chief interest.  Things were a bit rough at the school for a time, and I often wonder how he stood it in his condition.  He had two heart attacks in Missoula, and died on December 22, 1943.

I have always blessed Miss Ireland for letting me continue with the school.  I had put in a great deal of time there when Rex was ill.  And that training helped a lot.  Scott was still in high school in 1943, but Hardy had finished one year in the University and had enlisted in the Navy.  I stayed with the Correspondence School for 14 years.

Seems as if I must backtrack a bit now.  Hardy took his basic training in San Diego and was sent for officer training to Warrensburg, Missouri, where he was hospitalized with a case of hay fever, since officers can't have such a malady, he was taken out of the program and was sent to New Jersey, from which point we supposed he would be assigned to sea duty. Instead he was put in the weather arm of the naval air service.  He was in Florida, Virginia, California, and later on a ship in South America waters.  He was in Recife, Brazil, just before he was separated from the service.  He was married in 1944 while he was in the service, but the marriage did not last.

To continue with Hardy, he was in the weather bureau in Missoula for two or three years and then was transferred to Boise, Idaho. He and Dorothy Boyd were married in Wallace, Idaho, in January 1952. Their son Michael William, was born in December 1952. Dorothy and Hardy bought a house in Boise, and Hardy went in for a lot of improvements to the house and yard, doing most of the work himself.  Dorothy especially mentions the roses they had, and I remember that their neighbors were wonderful to them.

In the fall of 1953, their small family and Dorothy's mother and brother went to the east coast on vacation and to visit Dorothy's sister in Washington, D.C.  Hardy died in an Iowa City hospital on their way home of something akin to the 1918 flu.  His daughter, Ann Marie, was born the following March 1954.

Dorothy is now working at the Forest Service in Missoula where she trains the girls in the stenographic pool. She has had quite a bit of experience as she worked in the Reclamation division of the Department of Interior in Washington until she was called home in 1942 because of her father's last illness.  After that she worked in the Army's Recruiting and Induction office at Butte and Missoula and in an office of the Air Transport Command at Great Falls when planes were being ferried during the war.

Just a word about Scott and his family.  He and Betty Johnson, whom he knew in high school, were married at El Paso, Texas, while he was in the Army, and Betty worked for the telephone company while they were there.  Before he was separated from the Army, some aircraft companies sent men to investigate possible recruits for their plants, and Scott was taken on at The Howard Hughes Aircraft plant in California and lived in Culver City, where he and Betty met Bruce and Mildred, who lived at Downey, both suburbs of Los Angeles.  Eventually Scott and Betty were transferred to Spokane for two years, went back to L. A. for a six-month training period, and will be in Spokane for two more years from now, 1959.  In their family, in order of birth, are Lonnie, Debra, Scotty, and Cindy, all very nice kids!  For daughters-in-law, Dorothy and Betty are lovely, wonderful gals.

This about completes the Rex Haight family history.  The rest belongs in the Ernest Haight history.  After Maude died, Ernest stayed alone on the ranch at Suffolk, spending some winter with Beryl and Everett, and once in a while getting as far as Missoula.  He and I were married in June, 1949, and after spending a few days at Yellowstone Park, had a month and a half together at his Suffolk, ranch.  I was still at the Correspondence School then and had to go back to work in August.  It was a wonderful summer, but we did not have that much time together again until he came to Missoula for the winters and finally for the summers too.



FOLLOWING TAKEN FROM THE GREAT FALLS, MONTANA, LIBRARY BOOK "MONTANA" VOL. 8 PAGE 664 OF BOOK BY ROBERT GEORGE RAYMER, M. A. (COPYRIGHT -1930)

Rex C. Haight

Among the men who are giving their lives and the best of the abilities to the cause of education is Rex C. Haight, superintendent of the public school of Grass Range, Montana, and none has worked harder or with more singleness of purpose, and the results show what can be accomplished by earnest, faithful endeavor for advancement along cultural lines.  The public school system cannot be greater than those who make it possible, and it is therefore only right and proper that due credit be given in a public manner to the ones who deserve a fair mead of praise.

Superintendent Haight was born at Buena Vista county, Iowa January 24, 1892, the son of Fredrick Francis Haight the latter of whom was born at Sandusky, Ohio, in 1850-the son of William Haight.  The last named was born in Orange county, New York state, and in young manhood moved first to Ohio and thence to Iowa, dying at Alta, Iowa, where he is buried in the Elk cemetery six miles north of Alta.  William's son, Fred F. Haight died in 1919 and is also buried in the same Elk cemetery north of Alta, Iowa.  Fred had married Laura Cassiday who had been brought from Eastern, Iowa, to N. W. Iowa in 1869 as a child.  She was liberally educated and became a teacher, and it is from her that Supt. Haight undoubtedly inherits his ability, and his success is certainly due to her encouragement and wise counsel.  His mother, Mrs. Haight survives her husband and is now living at Peterson, Iowa.

They had ten sons eight of whom reached maturity, namely: Herbert, who is a rancher and resides at Suffolk, Montana; Ernest who also ranches and also lives at Suffolk, Montana; Ray B. who resides in Lewistown, Montana; Burl J., who lives in Palo Alto, California and is with Leland Stanford University; Elgar Z., who farms at Clear Lake, Iowa; Trevor T., who is a resident of Peterson, Iowa and Dwight L. Haight who is a resident of Suffolk, Montana.  Of these sons Burl J. Haight saw active service overseas in the WW (1917-1918) in the Aragonne and other sectors and was wounded in action.  Trevor T. Haight was also a veteran of the WW but did not get beyond the officers training schools in Kentucky and South Carolina.  Supt. Haight's service records is spoken of elsewhere.

The first fifteen years of his life was spent in Buena Vista county in N. W. Iowa.  Supt. Haight left there a grade school graduate, taking his high school and his teachers course at Cedar Falls, Iowa, known as the Iowa State Teachers College, graduating form there in 1916 with the degree of Bachelor of Arts.  He took his Masters degree in the University of Wisconsin the following year.

(Latter he took Post graduate work at Stanford University, Columbia University in New York, Seattle University and others).

Following his return from Wisconsin he entered the Bank of Dumont, Iowa, as cashier, and was proving his worth to the bank when the U. S. declared war on the Central Powers.  One of the first in his section to enlist, he chose the naval branch of the service and received his training at Brooklyn, Pelham Bay, New York, and was assigned to the Officers Train Camp., where he was stationed when the armistice was declared and where he was honorable discharged in Dec., 1918.

Returning to N. W. Iowa following his discharge from the navy, Supt. Haight did some substitute work in the schools and subsequently was married.  He then came to Montana and established himself on a ranch near Suffolk, Montana, where for three years he carried on diversified farming.  Unfortunately for him those three years were the worst for Agriculture in the history of Montana.  Therefore, he left his ranch temporarily and returned to the schoolroom and it was here he found his life work.  It was at Dumont, Iowa, he had taught his first school just before entering the banking business as related above. His next teaching was at Denton, Montana, from which town he came to Grass Range, Montana.  He is a Blue Lodge Mason and belongs to Delta Sigma Rho, an honorary college fraternity.  In his childhood and youth he attended the services of the Methodist Episcopal Church, to which his parents belonged.  (He did much work in churches and very nearly became a Missionary to foreign lands)

On July 31, 1919, Mr. Haight was married at Cedar Falls, Iowa, to Miss Sylvia Ufford who was born at Deering, Iowa, but she was reared and educated in Cedar Falls, Iowa, being a graduate of the high school of that city.  She is the daughter of Benjamin F. Ufford and Dora (Robertson) Ufford early settlers in Iowa.  There were four children in the "Ufford" family, namely:  Curtis, who is a resident of Marietta, Minn; Vie who is the wife of Lewis Crouter of Cedar Falls Iowa; Lois who died in childhood; and Mrs. Sylvia Haight.

Mrs. Sylvia Haight taught school at Denton, Montana, and is a very well educated, cultured lady.  She and her husband Rex, children-Hardie and Scott.

THE FORGOING TAKEN A BOOK IN THE GREAT FALLS PUBLIC LIBRARY. COPYRIGHTED IN 1930 BY GEORGE RAYMER

I, Dwight L. Haight made this copy April 4, 1959 (his brother)

Rex died of a heart attack. I should say as the result of a heart attack for he lived almost four years a semi invalid after the attack.  He died in a Missoula, Montana, hospital.

His son Hardie died while on a trip to Iowa.

Hardie left two children-Mike and Ann Haight who live with their mother in Missoula, Montana.

Rex's wife (Sylvia) married a brother of Rex's (and mine), Ernest in Missoula where they now live. Sylvia, still in school work and just getting her Masters Degree this last spring with all straight A's. (Her husband as of this date, farms)
April 4, 1959---By- Dwight L. Haight



Rex Cassiday Haight 1-24-1892 at Brook Twp., Glenn Alphine Home, Peterson, Iowa.  Married 7-30-1919 to Sylvia Ufford at Cedar Falls, Iowa.  Born 4-16-1896.  Rex died 12-22-1943 in Deaconess Hospital, Missoula, Montana.

Hardie Herschel 10-13-1924 Lewistown, Montana, married Lois Horsewood they divorced in 1953 (no children) he married second 1-12-1952 to Dorothy Boyd; Hardie died 10-19-1953 at Iowa City, Iowa.  Buried at St. Mary's Cemetery, Missoula, Montana.

Michael William 12-13-1952 at Boise, Idaho.

Anna Marie 3-10-1954 at Missoula, Montana.

(Note:  Michael and Anna are living with mother, Dorothy Haight, grandmother and Uncle William Boyd at 341 S. Ave. West, Missoula, Montana 1958.)

Scott Burrill Haight 5-23-1928 Lewistown, Montana, married 2-26-1952 at Missoula, Montana, to Betty Lou Johnson.  (1958 address Spokane, Washington).

Lonnie Sue 4-4-1953 El Paso, Texas.

Debbie Lynn 7-25-1955 Los Angles, California.

Scott Hardie 12-8-1956 Los Angles, California.

Cindy Carroll 12-18-1957 Spokane, Washington.

Haight Family Photo Album