Thomas Melvin Lee was born March 3, 1885 in Norman Township, Barnes County, son of Thorwald J. and Mathilda Hanson Lee, pioneers; his father having come from Norway and his mother from Sweden. Melvin Lee attended the rural school and a business college. He was a clerk and bookkeeper in the Royal Hotel, Huron, South Dakota; clerk at the Rudolf Hotel in Valley City; bookkeeper at the Sheyenne Valley Bank of Kathryn, North Dakota. In 1913, he became associated with former Governor Frank White in the insurance business and the Middlewest Trust Company. Col. White was called into service and Melvin Lee became president in 1922. The bank was sold in 1929, and he formed his own insurance and Farm Loan business.

T. Melvin was active in Kiwanis, Masons, K.Pa and the Congregational Church. He died as the result of an automobile accident on October 28, 1940.

On June 16, 1915, T. Melvin Lee and Ruth Wilkins were married at Tabor, Iowa. Ruth Wilkins was born June 12, 1887, one of seven children and grew up on a farm in Tabor, Iowa, in a home where love and music predominated. She attended Tabor College and The American Conservatory of Music in Chicago, Illinois. She graduated with the highest award in her work in the training of a public school music teacher. She taught music and art for three years in the Valley City Public Schools. She was a devoted mother and homemaker. She was active in the Congregational Church, D.A.R., Eastern Star and P.E.O.

Five daughters were born to this couple: Virginia (Mrs. Helmich) Wapate, Washington; Eleanor (Mrs. Paulin) Ontario, California; Doris (Mrs. Bashere) Claremont, California; Nancy (Mrs. French) Manhattan Beach, California; Marilyn (Mrs. Yancy) Huntington Beach, California. Ruth Wilkins Lee died March 2, 1971 at Redlands, California.

Source: Barnes County History 1976 Page 139