Annabelle Biggleman, matriarch of one of Page’s first families, celebrated her 100th birthday on November 17 surrounded by five generations of her lineage. Annabelle and her family journeyed to the Casa Blanca resort in Mesquite, a midpoint distance for the 48 family members who were able to attend the reunion.

“My daughter Marilynn asked me what’s something that I always wanted to do and I said, `I’ve always wanted to go to Hawaii.’ So she said, ‘Well, let’s bring Hawaii to you.’ So they did.”

They held a luau themed party.

Spending the weekend with family, and meeting the most recent additions to the family, was the best part of the day for Annabelle.

“Oh the baby, baby,”,she said laughing as she recalls meeting her newest great-grandson. “Yes, I would say family is the most important thing [in life].”

As Annabelle celebrates a great milestone, her family grows more interested regarding the history and changes she’s witnessed over the last 100 years living in the Grand Circle area.

Annabelle was born in 1918 to the Sprague family of German ancestry. She is the second of 10 children. She lived the first years of her life in her birthplace, Kaolin, Clark County, Nevada, an old Mormon settlement.

The town now sits under Lake Mead with little to no documentation of its existence except for the small population that relocated for the lake project. Annabelle’s parents moved them to Las Vegas where she grew up.

When she was in her early twenties she met the love of her life, Ronald Biggleman just as World War II was getting started in Europe. They married in March 1941 and nine months to the day their first child Marilyn was born during a city black out on the same night Pearl Harbor was hit by Japanese bombs.

“Marilyn was born in total darkness that was the night they hit Pearl Harbor,” remembers Annabelle.

Her husband Ron enlisted into the Army and went to Europe to fight in WWII.

“Back then if you didn’t do something to help with the war you were considered unpatriotic,” she recalled in a whisper, that reminds people that being unpatriotic is not something to be proud of.

After his service, her husband Ron returned to the states and their family grew to include two sons, Ronald A. and Richard Andrews.

After the kids had grown and started lives of their own, Ron was offered a job at the Navajo Generating Station in 1973, just before the first commission date.

The Glen Canyon Dam had begun installing the turbines just three yeas prior and in 1975 it was functional. The Glen Canyon Recreation area was also barely a year old and tollbooths weren’t yet necessary. Page was still a fledgling town with former BLM employee housing for sale, which was mostly a row of vacant lots at the Lake Powell Mobile homes.

Annabelle fell in love with the area at first sight, she said.

“We first came in through Kanab and we got on top of that hill [before the bridge] and I got a look at the horizon. I thought I was seeing paradise and I said, ‘That’s it, plant me here and leave me alone’ and we have been here ever since.”

Of all the things to love about Page, it was living close to Lake Powell that convinced the Biggleman’s to make Page their home and retire here 10 years later.
They invested in boats and joined the Boating Club and the Yacht Club. Her daughter, Marilynn brought her family as well and they made outings to the lake a regular weekly activity. Opa and Oma (grandpa and grandma) were their new titles, which they cherished for 68 long years together until Opa Ron passed away in January 2009. Opa Ron was buried in Page alongside Richard Andrew who died in a mobile home fire in 1983.

“My dad was the glue that held the family together when we went to the lake,” said their daughter Marilynn. “Mom would even put out a line off the boat. She loved to fish. That was when they still had trout in the lake.”

Her great grandchildren make up the five generations that are now a part of Page’s history.  She had three children, eight grandchildren, 18 great grandchildren, 16 great-great grandchildren.

“Opa said if the grandkids came to visit, then we will stay,” said granddaughter Shelly Miller. Miller in turn raised her own family here. Some of Miller’s fondest memories were made on the lake with the entire family. She laughs as she remembered the lantern trick that her Opa taught them to fool the trout into thinking it was daylight, which many people though was a made up old wives tale. “We went to the lake maybe five times a week when we were small,” said Miller, “but now, not so much. It’s expensive now.”
Oma Annabelle also helped members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saint’s piece together their own genealogy for 30 years in Page.

Those who have met Oma Annabelle say she is a sweet lady and is still very lucid and sharp-minded. She especially loves telling stories about the pictures of the thoroughbred horses her son Ronald raises and races.

“Now, I could keep my day busy with just a good book or going to church.” says Oma Annabelle. “I don’t go to the lake too much anymore because everybody owns their own boat now.”

One only hopes to have a life of love and family that surrounds Oma Annabelle which was made into an epic story that was witnessed by 100 years of a rich, historical journey to paradise on earth.

Oma Annabelle still lives in Page and says she’s looking forward to many more days with family at many more birthday celebrations.