Edward S. Hayes diary, 1927

Edward S. Hayes was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, on January 24, 1865, to Mr. Edward Hayes, Sr., and Elizabeth Hayes. His father was born in Tipperary County, Ireland on January 16, 1834, and came to America in 1841. He farmed in Illinois, and married Elizabeth Speaks, who was born in 1837, there in 1865. The couple later had a daughter, Mary, and two more sons, William and Matthew Charles. Although the family’s first home in Montana was at Washington Gulch at the head of the Blackfoot River, north of Garrison, Montana, Edward S. Hayes grew up on their farm in the Bitterroot Valley of Montana.

By the time he was nineteen he was branching out for himself and in 1884 opened a sawmill , which he developed into a lumbering business that he operated for 12 years on the Flathead reservation. His last mill was in Pattee Canyon. He spent most of his life running his lumber mill, processing wood to make lumber for furniture and building material. He spent all but a brief span of his almost 83 years in western Montana.

Edward S. Hayes began education at the Buckhouse School, which was built in 1874. When he was older he joined in the excitement over the Cedar Gulch gold strike in 1883, the year the railroad first came to Missoula. For many years he lived on his father's old farm. He married Maude on July 24, 1890, the nuptials being one of the first functions at the Hotel Florence.

Mr. and Mrs. Hayes had ten children. Those still living in 1948 were Lloyd, Herbert John and Samuel Hayes, all of Missoula: Carl Hayes of Boise, Idaho, and two daughters, Mrs. Ruth Johnson of Missoula, and Mrs. Edna Keneipp of McDonald Lake. There were nineteen grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren in 1948. The elder son, Lloyd, was a veteran of the First World War, and the younger, Carl, served in World War II and was taken prisoner at the fall of Corregidor.

Edward S. Hayes died at his home in Missoula at 503 South Second Street on January 19, 1948 at the age of 82.