Ila Myrtle Bloxsom was the fourth child of Henry “Hank” and Birdie Bloxsom. She was always called Myrtle and was cute and petite, as an adult she was only five feet tall. To Myrtle, everyone in the family was “precious”. To her many nieces and nephews, the word that she used so often, described her best “Precious”. Myrtle was undoubtedly the most colorful and gregarious of the Bloxsom children. She had certainly acquired the talent for story-telling, typical of the Bloxsom clan. She loved to make a story interesting and she tended to embroider the stories to the extent that the truth of the matter was often lost in the embellishment.

     Even though she was a middle child of the family, for some reason, perhaps because of her small size, Myrtle adopted the role of the perpetual baby of the family. Through adulthood and even as an elderly woman she continued to speak in a child-like manner and would sometimes lapse into baby-talk. Although her manner sometimes seemed an affectation, in essence she was truly sweet, kind and loving.

     Myrtle grew up on the Bloxsom ranch near Branson, Colorado, a rough and wild way of life. Her mother died when she was around three years old. She is said to have looked upon her older sister, Rosa, as her mother, although Rosa herself was only nine years old at the time their mother died.

The father, Henry “Hank Bloxsom” was a rough, volatile and cruel man. They say that he could cuss and yell up a storm. The Bloxsom children knew no better example and their more genteel maternal aunts were appalled at the language and rough ways of the Bloxsom children.

Myrtle has told of her father “Hank” having his very young daughters ride and break half-wild rode horses constantly, from a very young age. To this, Myrtle attributed her bow-legged stance and the fact that she could never learn to ride a bicycle.

At some point in her childhood, Myrtle suffered a fairly serious accident. She was dragged under a buggy. Apparently, she was badly hurt and took awhile to recover. It has been speculated that is was due to this period of being bed-ridden that Myrtle became her father’s favorite child, and that it was also at this time that she adopted her childishly engaging manner which was to be a permanent aspect of her personality.

Myrtle also always saw the world and most people through rose-colored glasses. She usually saw the best in everyone. In fact, she was the only child of Hank Bloxsom who saw any good in him. After his death, she frequently visited his grave, probably the only person who did so. There were exceptions to her rosy view of the world. If she took a dislike to someone, her dislike was close to hatred, and that person might find themselves the victim of her colorful storytelling.

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