#1 Mar. Cord Heinrich "Henry" William Tiedeman, 25 Apr 1883, Pierce, WA, Widowed Aug 1887
#2 Mar. to Daniel Emerson in May of 1888, Divorced April of 1890, both Pierce County
#3 Mar. John Wright, 2 May 1890, Pierce, Washington, Divorced Feb 13, 1892, Seattle, WA
#4 Mar. Isaac Franklin Crawford bef. 1893, Divorced
#5 Remarried Isaac Franklin Crawford, 19 Apr 1893, Whatcom, Washington, Div. Dec 1895
#6 - Poss married George Edward Butts prior to 1900 (listed as Butts in 1900 census)
#7 Mar. George Edward Butts, Dec 3 1903, divorced Mar 30, 1904
#8 Remarried George Edward Butts, Apr 18, 1904, Everett, WA, Unknown disposition
#9 Mar. George Kenneth Mead Jul 28, 1904, possibly widowed by 1906
#10 Married Ashton W. Thomas, Aug 1911, Vancouver BC, Divorced Petersburg, AK 1925
#11 Married Gabriel Larsen Sather (1871 - 1932), March 1926, Petersburg, Alaska
#12 Married Henry Stiles Reed, Jan 1932, Olympia, WA
#13 Married Carl August Kelm, July 1936, Lewis Co, WA

Per family stories Ida was said to have been married 13 times and that she had divorced and remarried two of them, suggesting there might be 11 different husbands. It is likely that some of these marriages were common-law and not officially sanctioned by the government. Even so, with Crawford likely being one of the men she married twice, and Butts being the other, a total of 12 marriages to 10 different men in the list above have at least some form of evidence to verify that they actually occurred. If she married Butts three times, that makes 13.

Ida first married at 15-years-old to a son of a well-known Key Peninsula family, the Tiedemans. He went by either Henry William, Henry C. based upon an actual birth name of Cord Heinrich Wilhelm Tiedeman. There is record of the marriage that has been found, but not of his death which apparently came as a result of a logging accident. Henry and Ida had two children; Henry and Lorraine. It isn't clear why, but Henry was taken to Klickitat County where Ida's grandmother Elizabeth Gilmer lived and was raised for some unknown period by Ida's uncle George Gilmer. Lorraine, it appears, was raised in part by Ida's parents William and Sarah Creviston. In the group photo of the Creviston sisters, one of the sisters (Virginia) is actually missing, and Lorraine is one of the six women pictured, top row center with her mother Ida facing her.

Ida was just 19 when her first husband died in 1887. She next married a man named Daniel Emerson in 1888 and she is listed as a witness to her sister's marriage by the name Ida A. Emmerson (with two M's) in 1889. Although no marriage license or other documentation has been found, the Tacoma Daily Ledger reports the license being issued in May of 1888, and there is a two line report of a divorce not quite two years later being granted to Ida in April of 1890.

Ida was next married to John H. Wright in May of 1890 according to a Washington State marriage license, however this is quite likely either an error where the middle initial is concerned, or John Wright possibly had two middle initials that were used interchangeably. No other official record matching a John H. Wright can be found, however there is a John Andrew Wright that lived in both Lakebay and Longbranch is buried at the latter place. It is clear that someone other than Ida or John filled out the marriage license, including the signatures for each of them, as it is the same handwriting throughout the document (same handwriting found on other marriage document for other family members as well). John A. Wright was from a prominent pioneer family in the area that traveled with the Longmire wagon train over Naches Pass in the early 1850s. This John Wright's sister Julia was married to Diedrich "Richard" Tiedeman, the brother of Ida's late husband.

John and Ida divorced in February of 1892 in Seattle according to a news brief. Ida married again in 1892 and John lived a long life and is buried in Longbranch. They had no children.

Per news articles, in 1892 Ida was apparently engaged to be married to a man who worked as a waiter in a Tacoma restaurant, but the wedding was called off due to a rather epic scandal going on involving one of her sisters. Although it cannot be confirmed, these news accounts claim that Ida went off to Portland soon afterward and was married to another man. This alleged marriage has not been confirmed but it is suspected that this was the first marriage to Isaac Frank Crawford.

Ida's next marriage is documented to have occurred in 1893 to Isaac Frank Crawford, who was a prominent Seattle businessman. This was a tumultuous marriage or set of marriages, and an 1893 news account said that after marrying, Ida ran off with another man to Victoria B.C. and when she returned Mr. Crawford had already cleaned the place out. Apparently things didn't end there, however, because the marriage did result in Ida's third child being born, Ivan Jacob Crawford, in 1894.

A rather public divorce came next in 1895, with "Frank" Crawford suing for divorce on the grounds of cruelty. A couple of months later, with the divorce nearing finality, apparently the two had reconciled, at least according to Mr. Crawford, because it was reported in the news that the divorce at that point could not be stopped, but the two intended to remarry after the amount of time required by law passed. Again, this was according to Mr. Crawford. There is no public record found so far for another marriage between the two, and Ida was quoted in the newspaper the following week that she had no intention of marrying Frank Crawford again. Since there has not been any documentation found concerning another marriage or another divorce after this point, it may be the case that if they reconciled again, they did not remarry.

Frank Crawford married a woman named Gertrude Boll in 1901 indicating that whatever may have happened prior, whether legal or common-law, their companionship was over for good by this point. Recent research has uncovered information that shows Ida began using an alias of Beulah by the time the 1900 census was taken, when she was recorded as Beulah Butts.

The next information found shows that a Beulah Butts was married to a George Edward Butts on December 3, 1903 in Tacoma. That the two people getting married had the same last name suggests that this was a remarriage, not a first marriage. Coupled with the 1900 census information, it makes it likely that this 1903 marriage was not the first between these two. Per a March 1904 news article, "Beulah" sued for divorce on the grounds of cruelty and non-support, and another article stated that Mr. Butts had demanded that she not introduce herself as his wife and that she use the surname Crawford. This article also said that she was requesting the restoration of her "maiden name" of Crawford when the divorce was finalized.

Despite all of that, Beulah and George were married yet again the following month, in April of 1904. No record of a subsequent divorce has been found.

Beulah I. Crawford next married George Kenneth Meade in Portland, Oregon in July of 1904. Apart from official documentation and recording of the marriage license, no further information about where they lived or how the marriage ended has been found. What is known is that beginning in 1905 the Seattle directory began showing Ida as Beulah I. or B.I. Meade or Mead, with a parenthetical showing (widow George K). She is living at 322 Howard Avenue (no longer exists, was South Lake Union near Stewart and Denny) with her younger sister Nettie Creviston. This listing of her as the widow of George K. Mead continued for the next few years, but in 1906, Ida is counted as Beulah I Mead living at 118 Queen Anne Avenue. Interestingly, George E. Butts is listed at the same address on Queen Anne Avenue in the 1906 Seattle directory. The 1906 directory also had her listed in a separate section as a nurse, with the name B.I. Mead.

In 1907 she is listed as B. Ida Mead and as the "principal" or head matron of St. Luke's Private Hospital, with the address of 124 Queen Anne Avenue. Ida's eldest son Henry Tiedeman appears in this directory, living at 618 Bellevue Avenue N with other Creviston family members. This address also no longer exists, but would be very close to where the Interstate 5 freeway cuts through just east of Lake Union.

1910 was a transition year, and Ida is actually listed twice, both under the name Mead. First as Ida E, the matron of Good Samaritan Hospital at 618 Bellevue Avenue, and as T.A. Mead, principal of St. Luke's at 124 Queen Anne. The T is certainly just a typo. Ida's son Ivan Crawford can also be found in this 1910 directory at the 124 Queen Anne Avenue address. St. Luke's and Good Samaritan may have been the same location, or two locations right next to one another. These small hospitals had ads in the newspaper advertising affordable beds for the infirmed, as well as employment and training opportunities for nurses. Essentially, they were likely nursing home establishments that Ida owned and operated. St. Luke's later showed a new Matron, and Good Samaritan had a separate listing with Ida as Matron, indicating they were separate entities but right next door to one another. These addresses are near the intersection of Queen Anne and Western Avenues.

This, in addition to other convincing information, firmly established that Beulah I is the same person as Ida Alice Creviston.

Her connection to Good Samaritan Hospital where she was a nurse and held the title as "Matron" is doubly confirmed in a death notice for her sister Catherine in 1909 when she is listed by the name Ida Mead and with the same title. It is not clear how this marriage to Mr. Mead ended, and very little convincing information has been found on anyone named George Kenneth Mead living prior to this marriage, or subsequently dying. The 1911 license for her next marriage to Ashton Thomas lists also Ida's name as Ida Mead, and that she is a widow. Both Good Samaritan and St. Luke's Private Hospital cease to be listed after 1911 in the Seattle directory.

Ashton W. Thomas was a very successful man in Alaska, having started multiple fish canneries, salting and packing plants in Ketchikan, Prince William Sound, Kodiak and on what was then known as Hoodoo Island (now Evans Island) at a place named for him, Port Ashton. The plant there was called the Franklin Packing Company, named for his son from his first marriage. In the late 1910s and early 1920s, several of Ida's family members made their way to work in some capacity at this and other locations owned by Thomas, including her son Ivan and his wife.

By the mid 1920s Ashton Thomas was suffering from some form of severe mental illness. He was committed and eventually sent back to Washington to a mental hospital in Sedro Woolley. Ida secured a divorce from him, and Thomas would eventually die in this hospital in 1927. This had been Ida's longest marriage, lasting about 15 years.

Ida married another Alaska man, Gabriel Sather, in 1926, a well-known ship captain. It would seem the two would remain married for some time and were well-known and respected residents in Petersburg until his death in 1932 from diabetes. It is possible they divorced prior to his death, but I've found no official record. It is known that she went to Hollywood, California after the death of her sister Virginia in 1927 and remained there for some time before returning to Seattle and Alaska.

Ida next married in 1933 to her former brother-in-law, Henry Stiles Reed. Reed had been married to Ida's sister Flora who died in 1919 during the Spanish Flu Pandemic. The marriage ended in divorce in 1936.

Ida married for the final time in 1936 at the age of 68 to Carl Kelm. This marriage appears to have ended with Ida's death in 1941 at the age of 73.

Oh, but that's not the half of Ida's actual story. In fact, all of these marriages, while interesting, are not even close to the most interesting aspects of her life. It wasn't all good history, and she might not have made the right decisions on more than one occasion, but she certainly did lead an interesting life. It is very likely that she knew Donald Trump's grandfather Fred Trump, and it is more than just possible that she met Wyatt Earp when he came to Seattle in 1899. She was described as very beautiful, but she managed to swim in oceans full of sharks and charlatans, and it's likely that she spent a good deal of time as one of those charlatans.

She read fortunes, she concocted criminal schemes, and ultimately, after moving to Alaska, she taught her step-daughter Margaret everything she needed to know about how to camp, make a fire, drive a boat, catch a fish, hunt big game, how to skin out a deer or a bear. Margaret Thomas, who was the daughter of Ashton Thomas from his prior marriage, went on to be known as "Mardy" Murie after she married, and became known as the "Grandmother of the Conservation Movement" and was awarded the prestigious Audubon Medal and even received the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Bill Clinton in 1998.

When Mardy Murie wrote her book, Two in the Far North, she skipped over the time that she spent with Ida on Hoodoo (Evans) Island learning all of these outdoor skills which she would use to make herself a career and earn worldwide recognition. In an article in an Alaska magazine this time period is covered though, and she speaks of those times with her unnamed stepmother. Other correspondence from people who worked on the island makes it clear that Ida, while talented and fascinating, was not the most well-liked person on the island. It paints an interesting picture if Mardy Murie couldn't even mention her name decades later, even if she did learn so much from her.

Ida didn't always live a good life, but it was amazing.