This picture appears to be taken around 1915-1916 in Prairie, Skagit Co. at the home of Annie & Joe Hoyt. The boys on the ground are Alex's grandsons; Bob, Earl & Ray Hoyt, standing behind the boys is Jim Conlin, behind Alex is Norm, Llewelyn, unknown, and Maggie. Alex is getting more gaunt here, he had been crippled in the hips for years and using a cane as his daughter Mabel would years later.
Sisters Mabel and Maud would spend the winter of 1917-1918 helping Alex and their stepmother any way they could, he had become bedridden and would pass away Febuary 13, 1918. I found his death notice in the Seattle P-I dated Feb. 25, 1918 pg.14 aged 72 (this is off by five years) 3217 3rd Ave. W.; 32nd Ave.W. is on a hill off W. Nickerson St. from Queen Anne hill. According to Norman Johnson, 93 year old grandson of Alex, sometime in 1917, Alex was walking up the hill to get home and some folks in a truck offered him a ride, he gladly accepted, but on the way up they hit a hole and Alex went falling off the tail end of the truck, this is probably what had made Alex bedridden, as Norm said it wasn't too long after this incident that Grandpa Boyd passed away. Norm, like Gladys remembers a huge presence of a man that made them nervous as children. This would be the first funeral Norm remembers attending.
I found no obituary, either in the P-I or Times; he is probably buried at Mt. Pleasant Cemetary on Queen Anne, but I need to get up there to verify this.
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