Thomas blev gift med Minnie LARSON, datter af Niels LAURSEN og Kristine Kristensen MAINZ, den 25.07.1913 i Eagle Bend, Todd County, Minnesota, USA. (Minnie LARSON blev født den 08.07.1892 i Minneapolis, Hennepin, Minnesota, USA, døde den 26.09.1974 i Mount Vernon, Skagit, Washington, USA og blev begravet i Anderson Cemetery, Stanwood, Snohomish, Washington, USA.)

  Om Thomas og Minnie:

• Billede, 1965.
2021, Kristy McCumby-Hyland.
Tom and Minnie Hendershot.

  Parnotater:

2021, Kristy McCumby-Hyland.

"I don't know all the circumstances of Minnie Larson and Thomas Hendershot's courtship. They were married in 1913 in Todd County, Minnesota, where Minnie's family lived. I do know that Minnie's brother William (Willie or Bill) Larson (1890-1918) was a good friend of my great-grandfather, Tom Hendershot. There is a letter that Willie (Bill) sent home from his deployment in France during WWI where he said he was looking forward to getting together with Tom and buying a pool (billiard) parlor when he got home from the war. Unfortunately, Willie (Bill) died 29 Sept. 1918, at Bellicourt, Picardie, France, less than two months before the end of the war. The letter arrived home weeks after they were notified of Willie's death."

"Tom and Minnie had three daughters, Irene (1913-1999), Lenore (1914-2004) and Ferne (1919-2017). Tom and Minnie tried homesteading on land in Northern Minnesota about 1915. Minnie stayed on the homestead with her two daughters (Ferne was not yet born) and Tom went to work in a town about 20 miles away to make some money to keep them going through the winter. They had no vehicle or other transportation. Minnie worked the homestead, growing vegetables and picking berries to be preserved for food during winter months. Unfortunately, a disaster struck and their cabin burned to the ground, including all the preserves that Minnie had worked so hard to put together for their food for winter. They lost everything. They moved to Duluth, Minnesota where Ferne was born in 1919. In the 1920's they moved to Minot, North Dakota, where Tom started an autobody and car repair shop with one of his brothers. They left Minot in the early 1930's during the Great Depression and moved west to Stanwood, Washington where they lived the remainder of their lives."

"I asked my grandmother, Ferne, why they moved to Stanwood. Apparently one of Thomas's brothers had already moved to the area and wrote back to tell them that things were better climate-wise and there were more job opportunities in Washington state. Also, my grandmother said that they could not afford to send her and her sisters to school in Minot, as the schools there required the students to purchase their own textbooks. Her family was so poor, they could not afford books for all their daughters. The relatives in Washington State said the schools there paid for students' textbooks. This was one of the reasons the Hendershot family moved west - so that their daughters could have an education."