The West Old & New February Edition 2014

THE

F e b r u a r y 2 0 1 4

Vo l u m e I I I I s s u e I I Photograph by Bryana Glasgow

The West Old & New Online magazine

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V o l u m e I I I I s s u e I I

The West Old & New

Published by Susan Faye Roberts P.O. Box 10 Hot Springs, Montana 59845

[email protected]

In this Issue of The West Old & New ________________________

Elouise Pepion Cobell was a Niitsítapi elder and activist, banker, rancher, a Native American leader,

and lead plaintiff in the groundbreaking litigation Cobell v. Salazar. Pg.4

“Stagecoach” Mary Fields was the first African American mail carrier (male or female) in the United States who worked and lived near Great Falls. Pg. 5

Jeanette Pickering Rankin - first woman in the United States Congress, elected in Montana in 1916

and again in 1940. Pg. 6

Jo Sykes - Author, Horsewoman, Artist Pg. 8

Julie Cajune Native American Educator & Visionary - Pg. 9

Bernice Ende - Long Lady Rider gives a glimpse into the root of her passion for the long journey across the western landscape on horse back. Pg. 10

Edna B. Gannaway - School Teacher/Homesteader/Newspaper Publisher Pg. 11

Mary MacLane - The Wild Woman of Butte Pg. 18

Susie Walking Bear Yellowtail - First Native American Registered Nurse Pg. 20

Aunt Bun - Midwife Pg. 23

Women’s Stories of Survival During the Homesteading Days Pg. 12-13 Who was the First White Woman to Step into Montana? Pg. 15

Early Schooling Pg. 15

This edition of the magazine is dedicated to the memory and honoring of Montana women. Some of them have passed on leaving a legacy to the women of this state and beyond, while the contempo-rary women of the state move it forward through politics and art. This is only a few of the many

women in our state who have or are contributing to who the women of the world are becoming. When women came west following husbands, parents or grandparents as they sought a new life,

they found a resiliency that possibly assisted in the equalization of women. When Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton came west in the 1870s, they found new kind

of American woman. In the book, 'A History of Women in America', by Carol Hymowitz and Michaele

Weissman, Chapter 11 - The Maverick West they state: Women drove wagons, fought prairie fires, forded streams in icy water, and walked day after day across the country in burning heat, in rain storms, and in early freezes. They did "women's work" as well, tending campsites and preparing three meals a day. They faced births and deaths and illness along the route. Sometimes the men died, leaving women and children to continue on alone."

The hardships were not over when the journey ended but begun again in earnest. Women settling in the west listened to coyotes howling all night long. They lived in tents, milked cows, broke horses, raised chickens and carved garden spaces out of virgin ground. Gladys Spies told how on the Flathead Indian Reservation during the homesteading days, "The clay was baked so hard that my mother had to dig out the white carrots with a crowbar.” The Spies carried domestic water from a spring a quarter of

a mile away, and discovered that hawks and coyotes also liked chicken for dinner. Mrs. Spies killed a big rattlesnake on the east side of the house with nine rattles and two buttons by running a clothes line pole down its mouth.

Isolation, never ending work and freedom from the customary cultural role of women in society, honed a new kind of woman, and created the legend of the rough-and-ready frontier female. According to Agnes Moreley Cleaveland who grew up on a ranch in New Mexico, "There was no double standard

on the ranch." In their book the authors stated, "The west had women bronco busters, women sheriffs, women

gamblers, women who drank and smoked, and women outlaws. While it was quite common for women to do men's work, occasionally the role reversal went the other way." Nannie Alderson learned to cook from the cowboys who worked on her Montana ranch.

Like their male counterparts women on the new western landscape discovered no one was inter-ested in your past, your name or who you wanted to be. Over time the west became settled but this in-delible spirit has persisted. Read on about just a few of the women who made the west old and new.

Watercolor detail by S.F. Roberts

The West Old & New

Elouise Cobell was a Niitsítapi (Blackfoot Confederacy) elder and activist, banker, rancher, a Native American leader, and lead plaintiff in the groundbreaking litigation Cobell v. Salazar, which challenged the United States' mismanagement of trust funds

belonging to more than 500,000 individual Native Americans. In 2010 the government approved a $3.4 billion settlement for the trust case, including funds to partially compensate individual account holders, buy back lands and restore them to the Native American tribes, as well as a 60 million dollar scholarship fund. The settlement is the largest ever in a class action against the fed-

eral government. Elouise Pepion was born in 1945, the middle of nine children, and a great-granddaughter of Mountain Chief, one of the legen-

dary leaders of the Blackfeet Nation. She grew up on her parents' cattle ranch on the Blackfeet Reservation. Like many reservation families, they did not have electricity or running water. Cobell attended a one room schoolhouse until high school. She graduated

from Great Falls Business College and attended Montana State University, but had to leave before graduation to care for her mother, who was dying of cancer.

After her mother's death, Elouise moved to Seattle, where she met and married Alvin Cobell, another Blackfeet living in

Washington at the time. They had one son, Turk Cobell. After returning to the reservation to help her father with the ranch, she became treasurer for the Blackfeet Nation, and founded the Blackfeet National Bank, the first national bank located on an Indian reservation and owned by a Native American tribe. In 1997, Cobell won a MacArthur genius award for her work on the bank and

Native financial literacy. After twenty other tribes joined the bank to form the Native American Bank, Cobell became Executive Director of the Native American Community Development Corporation, the non-profit affiliate of the bank. She also served as Chairperson for the BlaHer professional, civic experience and expertise includes serving as Co-Chair of Native American Bank, NA.; a Board Member for First Interstate Bank; a Trustee of the National Museum of the American Indian; as well as a member of

other boards. Throughout her life, Cobell also helped her husband to operate their ranch. The ranch is for cattle and crops. Cobell was active

in local agriculture and environmental issues. She founded the first land trust in Indian Country and served as a Trustee for the Na-

ture Conservancy of Montana. While Treasurer of the Blackfeet Tribe for more than a decade, Cobell discovered many irregularities in the management of

funds held in trust by the United States for the tribe and for individual Indians. These funds were derived from fees collected by

the government for Indian trust lands leased for lumber, oil production, grazing, gas and minerals, etc., from which the govern-ment was supposed to pay royalties to Indian owners. Along with the Intertribal Monitoring Association (on which she served as President), Cobell attempted to seek reform in Washington, DC from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s without success. At that point she asked Dennis Gingold (renowned banking lawyer), Thaddeus Holt, and the Native American Rights Fund (including

John Echohawk and Keith Harper) to bring a class-action suit forcing reform and an accounting of the trust funds belonging to in-dividual Indians.

Filed in June 1996, the case is known as Cobell v. Salazar. In 2010 Congress passed a bill to appropriate money for the Obama

administration's negotiated settlement of $3.4 billion of the longstanding class action suit. As of July 2011, notices are going out to the hundreds of thousands of individual Native Americans affected. Most will receive settlements of about $1800, but some may receive more.

In 2009 when settlement was reached with the government, Cobell said:

"Although we have reached a settlement totaling more than $3.4 billion, there is little doubt this is significantly less than the full accounting to which individual Indians are entitled. Yes, we could prolong our struggle and fight longer, and perhaps one day we would know, down to the penny, how much individual Indians are owed. Perhaps we could even litigate long enough to in-

crease the settlement amount. But we are compelled to settle now by the sobering realization that our class grows smaller each year, each month and every day, as our elders die and are forever prevented

Yellow Bird

Woman

Elouise Pepion Cobell

The West Old & New

from receiving their just compensation." Cobell died at the age of 65 on October 16, 2011, in Great

Falls, Montana after a brief battle with cancer. To honor the former president of Montana’s Elvis Presley fan

club, whose activities she had to quit in order to focus on her land-

mark lawsuit, all car radios during her funeral procession were tuned to Elvis songs in her honor. At the viewing, a pair of life-size Elvis cutouts were put up against the rear wall and a photo of Co-bell and her family at Graceland flashed occasionally in the rotating

display on a big screen overhead. The buffet featured a giant cake, decorated with the words, “In Loving Memory of Elouise Cobell” — and a picture of Elvis.

“Stagecoach”

Mary Fields (1832-1914)

She was the first African American mail carrier (male or female) in the United States Mary Fields began her life as a slave in Tennessee in 1832, the exact date is unknown. Mary’s mother Susanna was

the personal servant to the plantation owner’s wife, Mrs. Dunnes. The plantation wife also had a daughter who was born within two weeks of Mary, and named Dolly. Mrs. Dunnes allowed the children to play together. Over the years Mary was taught to read and write and the two girls became best friends. At sixteen, Dolly was sent to boarding school in Ohio and Mary was left all alone.

Mary’s father worked in the fields on the Dunnes’ farm. He was sold after Mary was born. Mary’s mother wanted her daughter to have a last name, so since her father Buck worked in the fields, her mother decided her last name should be Fields. So thus Mary Fields came to be. After Mary’s mother passed away, Mary became the head of the household at the young age of fourteen. After Dolly went away to boarding school, The Civil War began. The slaves were left to fend for themselves. It was during this time that

she learned many life survival skills. She learned how to garden, raise chickens and practice medicine with natural herbs. Around the age of 30 Mary heard from her dear friend Dolly. Dolly was now a nun and was renamed Sister Amadaus. The Sister asked Mary to join her at a convent in Ohio. Mary immediately began her twenty-day trip from Tennessee to Ohio. Mary remained with

the Ursuline Sisters for many years – even when Dolly relocated to the St. Peter’s Mission in Montana. Mary never married and she had no children. The nuns were her family. She protected the nuns. Mary wanted to follow her friend to Montana, but was told it was too remote and rustic. However, that all changed when Mother Amadaus became ill with pneumonia and wrote to Mary ask-

ing for her support and healing. Mary wasted no time and departed for Montana by stagecoach in 1885. At 53 years old Mary started her new life in Montana. Mary helped nurse Mother Amadaus back to health. The sisters were all in amazement of this tough black woman. Mary was no stranger to rolling a cigar, shooting guns and drinking whiskey. She grew fresh vegetables that were enjoyed by the Sisters and the surrounding community. Mary was forced to leave her beloved mission and the Sisters after a

shooting incident. Mary shot in self-defense, and was found innocent, but had to find a new home. Wells Fargo had the mail con-tract during that time and was looking for someone for the Great Falls to Fort Benton route to deliver

The West Old & New

the U.S. Mail. It was a rough and rugged route and would require a person of strong will and great survival skills to maneuver the snowy roads and high winds. Mary immediately applied at the ripe age of 60 years old. It was rumored that she could hitch a team

of horses faster than the boys half her age and due to her toughness, she was hired! Mary became the first African American mail carrier in the United States and the second woman. Mary was proud of the fact that her stage was never held up. Mary and her mule Moses, never missed a day and it was during this time that she earned the nickname of “Stagecoach,” for her unfailing reli-

ability. The townspeople adopted Mary as one of their own. They celebrated her birthday twice a year since she didn’t know the exact date of her real birthday. Mary Fields was known as Black Mary and Stagecoach Mary. She was considered an eccentric even in these modern times. She was six feet tall and over 200 pounds. By the time she was well known in Central Montana, she had a pet eagle, a penchant for whiskey, baseball (which was a new sport at the time) and a heart as big as the gun she was famous

for carrying. Mary wore a buffalo skin dress that she made herself – you might say she drew attention wherever she went – even in a small western pioneer town. Mary was a local celebrity and her legend and tales of her adventures were known by surrounding communities and neighboring states. Gary Cooper (the actor) had his mail delivered by Mary as a young boy in Cascade County.

As an adult, he wrote about her for Ebony Magazine in 1955. Her wrote of her kindness and his admiration for her. The famous western artists Charlie Russell drew a sketch of her. It was a pen and ink sketch of a mule kicking over a basket of eggs with Mary looking none to happy. Mary retired her post in 1901 and passed away in 1914. She is buried at Highland Cemetery at St. Peter’s

Mission. Her grave is marked with a simple cross.

Jeannette Pickering RankinJeannette Pickering RankinJeannette Pickering RankinJeannette Pickering Rankin (June 11, 1880 – May 18, 1973)

Rankin was the first woman in the United States Congress, elected in Montana in 1916 and again in 1940. After being elected in 1916 she said, "I may be the first woman member of Congress but I won’t be the last."

A lifelong pacifist, she was one of fifty members of Congress who voted against entry into World War I in 1917, and the only member of Congress who voted against declaring war on Japan after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

Rankin was born on June 11, 1880 near Missoula, Montana, to schoolteacher Olive Pickering Rankin and Canadian immi-

grant, carpenter, and rancher John Rankin. She was the oldest of six children including five girls, one of whom died in childhood. As a child, Rankin gained a reputation for doing things most other girls didn't. She often helped ranch hands with machinery, and once single-handedly built a sidewalk to help her father rent a building.

She graduated from high school in 1898, and in 1902 graduated from the University of Montana with a Bachelor of Science

degree in Biology. Undecided about what to do next, Rankin tried dressmaking and furniture design but neither suited her. She also turned down several marriage proposals.

Rankin attended the New York School of Philanthropy (later part of Columbia University) from The West Old & New

The West Old & New

1908 to 1909, then moved to Spokane. After briefly serving as a social worker she attended the University of Washington and be-came involved in the women's suffrage movement. She became an organizer for the New York Women's Suffrage Party and a lob-

byist for the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), facilitating suffrage victories in both Washington and Montana.

Rankin later compared her work in the women's suffrage movement to the pacifist foreign policy that defined her Congres-

sional career. She believed, with many suffragists of the period, that the corruption and dysfunction of the United States govern-ment was a result of a lack of feminine participation. As she said at a disarmament conference in the interwar period, “The peace problem is a woman’s problem."

Rankin's brother Wellington, a power in the Montana Republican Party, financed and helped manage her first campaign for the

Congressional election of 1916. The campaign involved traveling long distances to reach the large state's scattered population. Rankin rallied support at train stations, street corners, potluck suppers, and one-room schoolhouses. On the evening of the election, the Missoula daily newspaper reported her as having almost certainly lost. But results continued to trickle in over the next several

days, and Rankin won by over 7,500 votes. On November 7 she was elected to Montana's at-large seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, becoming the first female

member of Congress. During her term in the 65th Congress women did not have universal suffrage, but many were voting in some

form in about forty states, including Montana. "If I am remembered for no other act," Rankin said, "I want to be remembered as the only woman who ever voted to give women the right to vote."

Just after her term began the House held a vote on whether to enter World War I. Rankin cast one of fifty votes against the resolution, later saying, "I felt the first time the first woman had a chance to say no to war she should say it." Some considered

Rankin's vote to be a discredit to the suffragist movement and to Rankin's authority in Congress. But others, including Alice Paul of the National Woman's Party and Representative Fiorello LaGuardia of New York, applauded it.

On June 8, 1917 the Speculator Mine disaster in Butte left 168 miners dead and a massive protest strike over working condi-

tions ensued. Rankin intervened, but mining companies refused to meet with her or the miners and proposed legislation was unsuc-cessful.

During Rankin's first term, Montana legislature restructured its voting districts and she found herself in an overwhelmingly

Democratic one. She decided to run for the U.S. Senate and finished second in the Republican primary. She campaigned on a third-party ticket and finished a disappointing third.

In 1919 Rankin bought property in Georgia, where she organized social clubs for children, formed the Georgia Peace Society, and gave lectures on pacifism.

She also worked as a field secretary for the National Consumers League and as a lobbyist for the National Council for the Pre-vention of War. She argued for the passage of a constitutional amendment banning child labor and the Sheppard-Towner Act, the first federal social welfare program created explicitly for women and children. The legislation was enacted in 1921 but repealed

just eight years later. Rankin died of natural causes on May 18, 1973 in Carmel, California. She had been considering another run for a House seat

to protest the Vietnam War. She bequeathed her property in Watkinsville, Georgia to help "mature, unemployed women workers." The Jeannette Rankin

Foundation (later named The Jeannette Rankin Women's Scholarship Fund), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, annually gives educational scholarships to low-income women 35 and older across the United States. In 1978 the Foundation awarded one schol-arship in the amount of $500, and has since built capacity and awarded more than $1.8 million in scholarships to more than 700

women. In 2012 the organization awarded 85 scholarships in the amount of $2,000 each. A statue of Rankin was placed in the United States Capitol's Statuary Hall in 1985. At the dedication, historian Joan Hoff-

Wilson called her "one of the most controversial and unique women in Montana and American political history. A replica stands in

Montana's capitol, and the words "I Cannot Vote For War" are carved into the bases of both. In 2004 peace activist Jeanmarie Simpson produced a

play entitled A Single Woman, based on the life of Ran-kin. Simpson baked bread during her performances, to be

eaten by audiences in the final scene. The play was pre-sented 263 times in two years, both in the U.S. and abroad, to benefit peace organizations and movements

including the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, the American Civil Liberties Union, and Friends Service Committee.

Simpson then wrote and starred in a film about Ran-kin's life, also called A Single Woman. The film was di-rected and produced by Kamala Lopez, narrated by Mar-tin Sheen, and featured music by Joni Mitchell. It was

screened in 2008 at the Santa Fe Film Festival.

The farmer took off his shapeless western hat and sailed it at the gelding's

rump. Quick as lightning, the horse lashed out with both hind feet, stopped

the hat in mid-air and slammed it back across the corral. "He doesn't just kick; he aims," Tucker said. "I believe he'd kill a man if he could."

From Saddle A Thunder Bolt by Jo Sykes

By Kerrie Stepnick

Montana lost a vibrant voice last fall when award-winning children’s author Jo Sykes passed on.

Jo Sykes, award winning author, artist, dog and horse trainer died peacefully at the

age of 85 on September 8, 2013, in Livingston, Montana. Jo was born to Edna and J. T. Sykes. She attended MacMurray College in Jackson-

ville, Illinois, and Rocky Mountain College, Billings, Montana. To make ends meet, she also worked tying dry flies in a fishing tackle shop, was a children's librarian, an extra in a Western movie and a rodeo clown. She also wrote two books about dogs, and

bred Smooth Fox Terriers. Her greatest love though was writing about Montana and horses: she hoped, through her books, to make her readers appreciate the virtues of the Western stock horse.

Jo became the published author of six western novels. Three of these were Junior Guild Award winners. Jo was also an artist.

She preferred oils and acrylics of landscapes and wildlife of the west. Her devotion to dogs led her to a 50 year career as a dog obedience instructor.

The rugged Montana landscape waxed vivid in young imaginations through her books with titles like” Wolf Dog of Ambush

Canyon” and “The Stubborn Mare.” Something of a female monk, she transcended expectations towards women in preference to a life spent in the outdoors. The different hats she wore included surveyor, rodeo clown, carpenter, horse and dog trainer and con-summate outdoorsman. She lived the putative goals of feminism without once paying lip service.

She was a beautiful woman, never dowdy or downbeat. I was fortunate enough to know Jo personally through her lifelong

friendship with my mother. Together with a group of plein-air artists, they frequently went sketching and painting. Jo’s visits al-ways involved story-telling. “How come a good-looking girl like you isn’t married?” Grandpa once asked her. “Because I’ve had lots of chances but no opportunities” Jo shot back. She loved to laugh. Droll and keen, her wit never failed to make the room spar-

kle. This diverse and brilliant woman enriched the lives of other young Livingston girls for many reasons. She never made a po-

lemic issue of gender. She wanted to be free to ride, camp, and live outdoors as she pleased - something motherhood would com-

promise. She could enjoy other people’s children – me, for example – on a part-time basis. Courageous and insightful, she prided herself on figuring horses out. She broke the news to me as an adolescent: “You’re a great rider but you’re no horsewoman.” We set out to train a reining horse together. As my mentor/teacher in horse and dog training for 4-H, she coached me into blue ribbons and an analytic approach to what became lifelong passions.

Her unique approach to womanhood –nothing which would raise an eyebrow in these times - sometimes stood social expecta-tions towards women of the stuffy age of McCarthyism on end. Women were expected to wear dresses. Never mind the blustery winter winds of Livingston flipping hemlines, exposing bare legs to an icy lashing. Not to mention the impossibility of treading

through snowdrifts in a dress or – most importantly – riding horses. Her taste in outdoor wear would now be considered in vogue. Jo emboldened a generation of Livingston girls to wear jeans, play softball, float the Yellowstone River and ride horses with pride.

The sum of things is that as I enumerate her creative passions and the skills she taught me, I realize how crazy blessed I was to grow up around such a magnificent woman.

Her life was unconventional enough, framed in the faux Victorianism of McCarthy times. She went against the grain of expec-tations towards women without ever waxing polemical or political.

Links to books by Jo Sykes: http://ponybookchronicles.blogspot.com/search/label/Author%20-%20Jo%20Sykes

http://www.janebadgerbooks.co.uk/usa/sykes.html The West Old & New

Jo Sykes

BELIEF

Three women joined forces to create a theater work which shares the stories of Native Ameri-

can women.

Julie Cajune an educator for nineteen years and former classroom teach whose Heartlines Pro-ject was funded by W.K. Kellogg Foundation to research, develop and publish tribal stories and history. Cajune co-created the script for the one woman monologue with Finley Green, a

tribal member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribe, award winning poet and jour-nalist. Linda Grinde, long associated with theater in northwestern Montana took on the role of

the director. All three women are involved in the Kukusm Theater Project in Arlee, Montana.

Many of the stories in the show came from Cajune's extended family, especially her mother

who passed away after the first showing last winter.

The original musical score for the show was created and is played by violinist Swil Kanim,

flautist Gary Stroutsos and pianist David Lanz.

Julie Cajune

A Visionary Changing the World for Native Americans

“History is the story of human beings, as told by human beings,

meaning that it is all subjective.”

Julie Cajune is a member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of Mon-

tana. She holds a bachelor's in elementary education and a master's in bilingual edu-

cation. Julie was the first to teach the Salish language in the school system on the

Flathead Reservation in Montana. She is also the executive director of the Center for

American Indian Policy and Applied Research of the Heartlines Project. She was profiled in UTNE Reader as one of

“50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World.

Cajune received a 1.4 million dollar grant from the Kellogg Foundation in January, 2010. She was inspired by Howard

Zinn’s book, “A People’s History of the United States.” Zinn, a Boston historian, was one of Cajune’s heroes. He

passed just six days after she emailed him about receiving the grant.

Cajune established the American Indian Center for Policy and Applied Research and is producing authentic tribal histo-

ries in a variety of media, including a ‘parallel history’ of the United States as seen through the indigenous people and a

film about sovereignty.

One arm of the project is Visionmaker Media which currently has 170 videos and gives grants to native film makers.

Cajune’s vision to develop tribal history materials is an ongoing and extensive project which will have an important im-

pact on a people’s history that has been ignored.

Links of interest:

http://www.visionmakermedia.org/sites/default/files/resources/rfp2014guidelines.pdf

Cajune in Little Girl Spirit at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5B7wkTmQD1o

Julie Cajune

Bernice Ende

Long Lady Rider

“Who’s there?”

The voice rises on a curl of smoke. It doesn’t sound like Yogi or Smokey, so we scrab-

ble to the edge of a bluff and peer over. Down below in a clearing, a gray-haired

woman sits ramrod straight, tending a pot of hard-boiled eggs bubbling over a

campfire. Three horses graze near a tent with front flap made of lace. A large straw

sombrero hangs from a nearby tree. “You must be Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”

Bernice Ende chuckles. “Well, I suspect I am hard to find.” Bob Dotson - TODAY Contributor 9/24/2012

My father milked a small herd of Holstein cows, tall, lanky cows burdened with pink utters, heavy with milk until each day, twice a day they were brought into the barn where their precious cargo was delivered into stainless steel milk cans. What a play-ground. Everyday is an adventure on a small family farm. Both my father and mother rode horses, and I suppose I rode with my mother before I even entered this world. With two older sisters, old enough to carry me out side and set me on top of old Spot’s

back, a crippled black and white Welsh pony that was more or less a lawn ornament and baby sitter for dozens of children. My affection for horses came as natural as laughing.

It is not hard to see how and why the strong love of horses still resides in me. I WAS a horse for the first 12 years. By the time

I was four years old I could ride alone and what greater scene could be set than that of a dairy farm for a fearless young girl and her horse. Small farms are much like small towns, a variety of activities, a lot of coming and going with tractors, wagons, big ma-chinery. Unique communities (the cow herd, the horse herd, the cat community, the flocks of birds) all engaged in and around a set

of buildings that had different functions all contributing to “the town of …family of Ende’s”. With five siblings and many cousins, friends or neighbors stopping in, my memory of that old farm house and life was that of a grand central station.

Activity overflowed down the wooden front porch. Once chores were done I was more or less free to ride, alone over 100s of acres on our family farm out side of Rogers, Minnesota. Escaping to the dirty brown Crow River, bringing the cows in, racing

down rows of 8ft tall corn stalks, the ripe corn beating against my bare legs. I’m sure my father must have seen the hoof tracks, but he never said anything. I was on the back of a horse for the entire first 16 years of my life, well nearly. The tail end of the “golden age of cowboys”, Roy Rogers, Hop a long Cassidy , black and white figures held me in trance until I raced out to do my own rid-

ing. Across the cow pasture I’d ride, scattering the young steers - as if it were the great wild west itself. I have often times thought that I am doing the exact same thing that I did as a child. I remember thinking on my first ride, after

leaving the Irwin Ranch, north of Green River, WY., that I had ridden this before. The red cliffs of Wyoming, the ancient Little Red desert, sagebrush and rattlesnakes were all pouring out from my childhood memories of those black and white TV shows that

so captivated me. I had done this before. I had done 100's of long rides as a small girl. My imagination carried me effortlessly over that small Minnesota farm as if it were the entire world. So you see I began long riding at a very early age.

But one might ask, “how does a Minnesota farm girl get to… ballet teacher?” The horse, that is how. Inspired by the horse, a

most gifted dancer indeed. I studied under Ms. Susan Higgens, Portland, Oregon. Royal Academy of Dance method. Taught some, them picked up a Fitness Specialist degree at the Lake Washington Voc-Tech, in Bellingham, Washington. I taught for 25 years. Corporate dance/ fitness and Classical Ballet. In 1992 I moved east from Seattle, Washington to Trego, Montana. I opened The

Community Dance Studio in Trego and the Whitefish School of Classical Ballet in Whitefish, Mt. I have called this magnificent country home ever since. Those were wonderful years working with local children. Teaching a

most unorthodox ballet class in the old community hall building next to the Trego fire-hall. The wooden structure at that time had an outhouse and wood heat. It took at least 5 hours to heat the building for classes. I made wood ballet barres and many times the

girls would be warming up in gloves or mittens with the ballet barres pulled in close to that black, double barrel wood stove. I gave summer horseback riding lessons at my mountain cabin and trained a few horses for the McCurry Ranch out of Trego. Retirement in 2003 brought not a lack of activity, but rather a change of focus. I felt the pull of the open road. Adventure called, the need to

go, see, do. A window of opportunity opened and I climbed out…

The West Old & New

In 1950, when I was twelve years old, I was trilled to get my first steady job, tht of folding the local weekly newspaper. And, though I didn't know it when I was

hired, the job came with a huge bonus; Edna B. She was the owner, editor and publisher of the paper, "The Camas-Hot Springs Exchange," and she was a force to be reckoned with. Even to my shallow, self-absorbed adolescent mind she

stood out as an amazing person. Publishing the paper singlehandedly would have been a daunting task for anyone, and Edna was already sixty-seven when I started working for her. She gathered the news, wrote articles, a weekly Ednatorial, sold the advertising, did the lay-out, and typed it all on an old hot-lead linotype, where

I believe, the print appears backwards as you type. The linotype machine would balk, spit, jam and otherwise cause her grief until she could get it running again. She hoisted huge heavy reams of blank newsprint onto a high feeder platform on

the big, noisy press; then haul the printed newspapers to my folding station. She also delivered the issues to all points of sale, and mailed out the copies to the ru-ral subscribers, tightly rolled and wrapped in brown paper. She did this for thirty-

five years. The paper was called the Camas-Hot Springs Exchange because at the time of it's inception, Camas, where Edna and my family lived, had been the original town,

with the nearby community of Hot Springs developing later. The paper was professional and impressive with a minimum of four

pages, sometime more, on regular-sized newsprint. During her thirty-five years as a publisher, she was also the postmistress of Camas and had gas pumps and a dry-goods store. What a woman!

Edna was a pioneer in the truest sense of the word. She was born in and around Jefferson, Missouri on November 4, 1882. Her

father, William Gannaway, had lost everything in the Civil War, including his plantation and slaves. He moved the family to Jef-ferson City, Missouri after the 'unpleasantness', where Edna and her two siblings were raised. He died when Edna was eighteen. She attended a Normal College, as teaching colleges were called at the time, where she endured financial hardships, and told me of

going through college with only one dress. In 1909, she read in a local paper that the Flathead Indian Reservation was being opened for homesteading, and she submitted

a bid. The following year, while on a trip with her sister to a Seattle Exposition, she stopped by Missoula on the return to pick up her claim. Family history has it that she did not return to Missouri. As it was too late in the season to 'prove up' her claim, she win-

tered by tutoring the children of Andrew Garcia near the Clark Fork River. The next year, she proved up her homestead in Camas Prairie by building a cabin and was given her land title.

Edna taught school in Hot Springs and married Ray O. Billings in 1912. Her son Harry Leroy Billings was born in January

1913. Her marriage to Ray lasted until 1922. She later married Bill Leonard, who preceded her in death. Edna was an attractive, rather petite woman with lovely, wavy, graying hair that she pulled back loosely into a roll at the back

of her neck. She had an erect, regal bearing and large eyes with a compelling gaze. She wore dresses, with 'sensible' shoes when she was working, but dressy heels out of the shop. Her favorite pair was vivid red. She drove a late model car that was a king-of-

the-road. No one else in town had anything like it.' The newspaper office was a large brick building, the only remnant left of better times in Camas, and she lived in an apartment

in the back, which I found cozy and genteel. It was in sharp contrast to the grimy, harsh interior of the newspaper shop, where eve-

rything seemed covered with many years accumulation of fine misted newspaper ink. I loved my job, and kept it all through high school. Every Wednesday I would fold the papers. I was proud of the fact that I

could fold 600+ papers in an hour, with neatly aligned edges and crisp creases. I liked to think of myself as a model of efficiency. I

often sang or whistled while I worked, which would cause Edna to remark that, "whistling girls and crowing hens always come to a bad end."

She had a little idiosyncrasy which caused some amusement within my family. Sometimes on Wednesday, our phone would ring, and when answered, a loud, imperative voice would shout 'STAND BY!' followed by a slammed receiver. This meant that

Edna was having linotype or press troubles, and I was to await further instructions. It became a handy expression used by my fam-ily for many occasions.

Edna was a woman of strong opinions and did not hesitate to express them in the paper and to me

Thanks for the Memories

Edna B.

By Deanne Kendrick

The West Old & New

while I was working. We did not always agree and I, having been brought up to respect my elders would try my best to keep my big mouth shut. Often our differences involved the school system, its teachers and policies.

Edna was interested in politics and well-informed. Her son, Harry Billings and his wife Gretchen were well-known journalists and published the liberal newspaper, "The People's Voice" in Helena. They were awarded the Sydney Hillman award of out-standing liberal journalism and were given an all-expense paid trip to New York to receive the award.

Occasionally Senator Mike Mansfield would stop by the newspaper office while I working. He and Edna seemed to be good friends. I was excited to meet him; a tall, thin, quiet gracious man.

Another visitor I remember well was the town's only attorney, Bertram P. Burger. He was a somewhat seedy-looking man, with a slouching shuffling gait and downcast gaze, always dressed in a suit and tie. He ran a classified ad every week, which never

varied, and he paid for the ad a year in advance. It read: "Bertram P. Burger has moved his law office to the Ribardy house on Main Street. Edna would always ask him if he wanted to change his ad, but he never did. I realized later it was illegal for doctors or attorney to advertise at the time, so even though he was at the house for several years, I presume his notice was technically

within the law. Edna had the great pleasure of becoming a world traveler in her later years, visiting many exotic places such as Egypt, Mex-

ico, places in Asia. On her return, the community was treated to very interesting accounts of her travels, and she always brought

me a gift, a bracelet from Siam, dainty silver filigree earrings from Egypt; always something exotic and exquisite. Edna published the paper until 1959, when she was forced to retire after crushing her hand in a job press. She was seventy-

seven years old. Her son moved her to Helena, where she lived until her death in 1967. Edna was a woman of great strength, courage, independence and self-reliance. Her life was a model for women of her genera-

tion, and of every generation. It was my great good fortune to have known her. Deanne Kendrick lives in Missoula, Montana and grew up in the town site of Camas on the Flathead Indian Reservation. This story

was originally printed in the Hot Springs Journal in 2011.

Editors Note: In 1923-24 the banks in the area around Hot Springs and Camas failed. Gannaway was offered a bankrupt newspaper plant as a way of salvaging money she’d had in a savings account. Gannaway had no idea how to run the press and did not have elec-

tricity at the time. One can only imagine the studied look that may have crossed her wide determined face, her work-a-day hands

splayed on feminine hips as she considered a mechanical operation and a business endeavor that would make her one of Montana’s

only female newspaper entrepreneur to my knowledge.

Women's Stories of Surviving in the West

One of my favorite books is located in the Preston Town and Country Library in Hot Springs, Montana. "Settlers and Sod-busters," is an edition of stories about the people who moved to this area of the reservation beginning in 1910. It was compiled as a Bicentennial Project of the Hot Springs Historical Society in 1976.

Ruth McHenry-Greggs arrived with her family in Lonepine, Montana and tells , she tells how her

mother was happy to see a nice house with geraniums in the window because it signaled to her that The West Old & New

real people lived here. The children were immediately given chores after the tent was put up unloading the wagon, and hauling pails “water, water, always more water.” There was talk of building a “shack,” and Ruth spent the whole next day with her family

getting rocks and putting them in place for a foundation. Her mother was a woman she considered a real pioneer. “…if she had any qualms or fears, we young ones were unaware of them. She loved to hear the coyotes howl and we soon learned to tolerate them.”

May Page's parents, aunt or uncle had never done any kind of farming. “The men didn’t know how to hitch up a team. They

knew nothing about what to look for in buying livestock. Their first purchase of horses didn’t last long -- Jock died of old age in a few months and his team mate was a big placid mare.” May says their next team had “Cayuse” blood and ran away at every oppor-tunity. To do gardening the sage brush had to be removed using a grub hoe. “The sage brush was tall and tough. It was a big job because the valley was covered with a dense growth. Then the ground had to be plowed with a walking plow pulled by a team,

harrowed and planted. The crops planted were grain, mostly wheat. “ Martha Cook Taylor and her mother began proving up in May 1910. “We liked this country from the very first, not withstand-

ing a few hardships -- like carrying our drinking water from a spring about one and a half miles away.” The women came into

Pineville to the post office walking a distance of four miles and made it a day by staying for a bath. “There were two tents with wooden bath tubs, one for men and one for women. We always brought a small brush to clean the tub (and soap) although the Na-tives said, “No germs ever lived in that water.” After taking our bath and eating lunch we would walk home and call it a good

day.” The Musters settled on Camas Prairie and raised pigs, cattle, chickens, turkey, a garden, grain and hay. Virginia Erchul says,

“…like all settlers in a new, raw country, they saw promising crops dry up and die or get hailed out. They saw good crops sell for poor prices or not at all, but they managed to pull through these times and raise their family

The Campbell’s planted their first gardens in a “draw” west of the house -- actually a shallow depression that had a little more moisture than the surrounding flat ground, and certainly not enough to keep plants growing very long. The Campbell’s, from Scot-land, planted the seeds most familiar to them: potatoes, turnips, rutabagas, carrots, and cabbage. Mrs. Campbell and her sister

planted black currants, red currents and gooseberries but it wasn’t until the irrigation project was completed in 1921 that the trees didn’t have to struggle to survive. In 1915 they planted an orchard, of apples. They kept the trees alive for several years by carry-ing buckets of water from the well. It took ten years for the trees to bear fruit.

Duncan Campbell made coffins for people who had died. Mary C. Page says her parents would work far into the night to get it done. “Dad would cut and plane the boards, bend them by placing them in the copper boiler filled with steaming water, put them together, then stain the outside. Mother would line the inside with soft white material. This was all carried out in the kitchen, and it was mysterious and awesome experience for us kids.” Her father assisted at the funeral, as well, playing the bagpipes.

Otto Spies, his wife and two little girls came from Chicago in September 1910. They had a wagon bring them to the reserva-tion in a day long trip of twenty-one miles. Making their homestead of sage brush Otto Spies said, “Here we are!” According to Gladys Spies Weltz her mother just about fainted. “All she could see was sagebrush and she was pregnant with the first little girl

born on this part of the reservation.” According to Nancy Rhoades Marques and Lenora Brown their mother’s sister, a school teacher from Kansas visited in the

early days of the ranch. “My father and uncle were digging a root cellar in a bank at the time. Many hawks were preying on our chickens so a gun was kept handy for use. My aunt was sure the gun was for protection against the Native’s who rode by on occa-

sion. She thought they were in danger of being separated from our scalps. Also, she took a dim view of the riders who use to stop. They were given lunch and coffee and many times lodging for the night. My father knew these men as he’d rode the roundups with them while we were living in Plains. My aunt had never seen such “characters” with their big hats, boots and chaps and many

times a revolver hung around their waists. Needless to say her visit was short.” After she was safely back home in Kansas, their father received a letter from his mother asking why he had moved the family to such an uncivilized country.

All that remains of the “rock house” near Big Bend is a small heap of rocks and cement. Alleged at one time to have been a

social center for the early homesteaders it history is vague. It is believed Mr. Stillman built the house for his bride but they didn’t stay long. Elegant for the day, with panoramic views it is said to have been roomy and large, ideal for dances. The story goes Still-man sealed a jar containing .35 cents in pennies in the corner of the house. At one point the Winburn’s lived there, the woman dy-ing after coming in from a hard days work and cooking up a pot of rhubarb greens. Some say the Scarces family was living in the

house when all but the father drown in the river. Mrs. Markle worked for some time before marriage at the Sister’s Hospital and like nursing and later as a midwife delivering

several babies for early settlers. On the reservation the closest doctor was twenty miles away. She always went when called upon,

strangers or not. She delivered nineteen out of twenty-five of her own grandchildren. Her greatest pleasure was fishing. In 1928 she won the pole, line and reel for catching the largest fish in Lake Mary Ronan, during the year.

Herds of wild buffalo were a constant threat in certain places on the reservation. One day Essie Jackson took her children for a

walk to the neighbors to borrow an old setting hen. They were on their way home when a herd of about 60 buffalo descended on them at full speed. Essie grabbed the baby from the carriage and they ran; the poor red hen squawking all the way to their hideout in some bushes. From the nearby main homestead, one of the brothers could see the threatened danger and jumping on his horse he rushed out shooting his gun in the air. The buffalo were slowed up by a fence and they pawed the ground, stirring up a great dust

and then departed. The photograph on the left is of the Lonepine Women’s Club in 1936.

The West Old & New

Excerpt from Ida Hawkins, P.I.

EIGHT DAYS

“You can’t do this,” she screamed kicking her legs against him. “You loved me. You can’t kill someone you love.” Frankie locked her against his chest dragging her forward through the brushes toward the river. “You’re going to kill me and then go home to her?” Ida screamed. “It’s that easy, Frankie?” Ida aimed several wild kicks in succession for the most sensitive area on his body. He knew what she was doing and fought to stay out of the way but she got lucky and landed one that made him let go. As he bent over in a deep groan of pain Ida flew through the bushes behind him for open ground. Ida had once been fast on her feet but the desk job was showing itself, her legs raw from movement and her lungs searching for breath. It didn’t take Frankie long to catch up with her. This time he grabbed both her hands bucking them high behind her back. Ida fell on her knees moaning in pain and stopped fighting. “Please, don’t do this Frankie,” Ida begged. “You know I loved you. You can’t do this to me. You killed me once already.”

Frankie pulled the woman up in front of him and began drag-ging her to the edge of the river pushing her in front of him into the wa-ter. The icy cold river creeping up the legs of her jeans and taking her breath away as it climbed higher and higher from her knees to her waist. The water at the level of Ida’s chest, Frankie stopped moving. Ida slid her feet over the slimy rocks of river looking into the murky green grave.

Lieutenant Dunswood brushed a piece of lint from the sleeve of his dress blues. It was late afternoon and the fall sun beat down on his dark blue Calvary hat. He watched a dirt devil tossing a tumble weed across the empty prairie outside the open gates of the fort. With luck the stage would be on time, and he leaned forward scanning the hori-zon and the dirt tracks leading to civilization over the hills to the east. Beads of sweat gathered along his neck under the collar of the starched white shirt. He’d risen early to bath and shave a week or more of stubble from his chin. He’d swept the cabin one last time and straightened the calico quilt on the bed before leaving. He wanted everything to be perfect for Sara. They had only been married six months before he’d been called out west, leaving her at a Fort in Mis-sissippi. Six months of letters lay in a box under the bed, six months of waiting for the right time to bring her west and into his waiting arms. He flicked small beads of sweat from his brow; today he would hold her slender body next to his. He watched a red tail hawk ride the wind marking dust from the east, a winding haze of flying dirt under the hooves of alone rider. Dunswood squinted for a better view. It was news to him that a scout would be sent out in front of the stage. Dunswood knew something was wrong when the rider’s feet hit the ground seconds after he pulled his horse up, words were unnecessary. A cold chill climbing his spine to clutch his belly and making his skin crawl, something was terribly wrong.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/291041

An Anthology of short stories written

around the Montana landscape.

Excerpt from Silenced.


From the Montana Historical Society's Wikipedia

There are several contenders for this distinction.

The Missoulian newspaper reported that in the spring or summer of 1855 Henry G. Miller and his wife Minnie accompanied Dr. Lansdale, who was an agent for the Flathead, from Fort Hall to this country. The article explains that Mrs. Miller was born in Vermont and brought up a Mormon, and resided with her parents at North Ogden, Utah, at the time of her marriage, contrary to

their wishes, and which resulted in the departure of the newly-wedded couple for Fort Hall, in order to escape the Mormon wrath. Mrs. Miller was not more than sixteen years of age when she came to this country, and remained here for more than a year without seeing a woman of her race. (Missoulian, January 20th, 1875)

According to the Silver State newspaper, Mrs. Alva Mason was the first white woman to set foot on Montana soil. Mrs. Mason

was married to Hugh O'Neil in Utah and the young couple came to Montana on horseback, arriving at Fort Missoula on August 20, 1858. The news article continues: Being the first white woman in Montana and the first one Indians had ever seen, she was held by them in great wonder and accorded all the respect of a princess of their own people. (Silver State, Deer Lodge, January 28, 1915)

The February 24, 1941 Montana News Association News Inserts, reported that Mrs. Tom Brown was the first woman in Mon-tana. The article cited that when Mrs. Brown was a young girl in Scotland a Lord was taking his lady out to the Selkirk (Red River) settlements, wished to engage a maid to go with them. She was the only one in her village bold enough to go. She stated:

"We went to the Red River; it was very lonesome there, and most of the time I had to stay inside the stockade and it was there I met my man and fell in love with him. The lady, who had brought me from Scotland, objected to my marriage. After her death, I was offered my passage home but declined it to marry my man." The family left the Red River settlement in 1857 to go to Col-ville, and their road took them through the northwestern part of Montana. They spent one winter at the Hudson's Bay post on the

Pruin River on the Jocko Reservation. (Montana News Association News Inserts, February 24, 1941)

Who was the First White Woman to Set Foot in Montana?

The West Old & New

Early

Schooling

In

Western Montana

Taken from the Sanders County Signal

Before the homesteaders came, the Department of Interior had conducted a government school her for several years. The

teacher was Grace Dutton, who later homesteaded and taught in the public schools. The first teacher for the Indian School was Miss Myrtle Cole, who later became Mrs. T.G. DeMers. [DeMers platted land as

Pineville and it later became Hot Springs, Montana]

The first school board of the district was James O'Brien, Mrs. J. MacIntyre and Dr. Powell. The settlers locating in 1910 did not get settled before fall, but the uppermost thing on their minds was getting a school started. The people of Camas area met in a building placed just north of the Headquarters Hotel loaned by Charles Prongua for meet-

ings of Sunday School etc. A district was organized which included the town settlement and the settlement south of town.

The district being allowed, immediately the people of each school site began to make preparations for a building. They did not bond the district. Lumber was donated, labor was donated and basket socials and programs were put on to help toward the build-ing. The first building to be completed was No. 2 and school began on December 5, 1910, the first public school in the Little Bit-

terroot Valley with Edna B. Gannaway as teacher. School No. 1 opened in January 1911. By the fall of 1912 there were eight more schools located in gulches. All of the teachers

were female. Edna Gannaway taught five terms of school in District 12 and two at Garcon Gulch.

Shown above is No. 1 School on the hill above the Camas town site. Camas was never developed into a town because Pine-ville, now known as Hot Springs, became the development site. The school no longer exists. The first teacher here was Ada Car-son.

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The West Old & New

One man who came to the valley gave voice to the changes the Dawes Act leveled on the Native people. Known as an Indian trader Fred E. Peeso came to Camas Hot Springs in 1908, “The whites have come in and robbed the Indians of their lands and other possessions, killed off their game and destroyed their means of livelihood, made it impossible to get a square deal in the courts. Not satisfied with that, they have tried by every means to defame their character and give them a bad name.” The white settlers said little about the Native peo-ple in their oral history that was originally compiled in “Settlers and Sod-busters,” as a Bicentennial Project of the Hot Springs Historical Society in June 1976, the majority of their stories are about how they got here, how they built homes, and how they survived. This book is a compilation of their stories compiled in to chapters on the landscape that defined their lives.

In 1910 the Flathead Indian Reservation was opened

to homesteaders. Read real stories about life on the

high mountain prairie.

The best of

The West Old & New.

Stories from the first

year of publication of

the magazine as a

quarterly in 2012.

The first year of the West was as a hard

copy only. Read about the people and

places of Montana.



Mary MacLane (May 1, 1881 — August 1929)

Mary MacLane was a controversial Canadian born American writer whose frank memoirs helped usher in the confessional

style of autobiographical writing. MacLane was known as the "Wild Woman of Butte". MacLane was a very popular author for her time, scandalizing the populace with her shocking bestselling first memoir and to a

lesser extent her two following books. She was considered wild and uncontrolled, a reputation she nurtured, and was openly bisex-

ual as well as a vocal feminist. From the beginning, MacLane's writing was characterized by a direct, fiery and highly individualistic style. At the age of 19 in 1902, MacLane published her first book, The Story of Mary MacLane. It sold 100,000 copies in the first

month and was popular among young girls, but was pilloried by conservative critics and readers. Some critics have suggested that

even by today's standards, MacLane's writing is raw, honest, unflinching, self-aware, sensual and extreme MacLane had always chafed, or felt, "anxiety of place," at living in Butte, which was a mining town far from the centers of

culture, and used the money from her first book's sales to travel to Chicago, then Massachusetts. She lived in Rockland, Massa-

chusettes from 1903–1908, then in Greenwich Village from 1908–1909. MacLane died in Chicago in early August 1929, aged 48. She was soon forgotten and her prose remained out of print until late

1993, when The Story of Mary MacLane and some of her newspaper feature work was republished in an anthology titled Tender

Darkness. In January 2011, the publisher of Tender Darkness (1993) announced forthcoming publication of an integrated complete-

works anthology and biographical study of MacLane. In 2011 Bojana Novakovic wrote and performed "The Story of Mary MacLane By Herself" in Melbourne. In 2012 the production was staged in Sydney. It was well received by critics and audiences.[

In the flutter of youth – I found a voice – and I let free – danced with a fairly good gig I’d

say – with my potential, shadow and all, bright side and intellect. And then that which I

had danced in the privacy of my heart became loosed on society – a book – an unalterable

tale. I was an anomaly. The devil personalized – feminized. The comments fell short of

course; I was much too young to be labeled a witch. Much easier to say I was merely un-

supervised and vulnerable to my own anxieties. In retrospect I realize I was a mirror for

society at that time. My darkness became a path I sought to light with the torches of my

thoughts.

The book-writing craze has struck the girls of Butte. During the past week a number of them have started writing novels, while

others are revolving the plots of their proposed novels in their minds and will soon get to work. Soon eastern publishers will be

receiving packages of manuscripts from Butte in such large numbers as perhaps to drive them to despair. If all the girls succeed in

getting their books published, Butte will have more authoresses than you can shake a stick at.

Reporter from the Anaconda Standard

“Mad, you say? A fool? Perhaps. Perhaps not. If you read, “The Story of Mary MacLane,” to the end you may incline

to think that there is one human being who makes no immodest display of an inhuman modesty, but has the courage –

which Rousseau lacked, which Marie Bashkirtseff merely though she possessed – to bare its soul to the naked eye. It is true, as she herself admits that she has “astonishing vanity and conceit.”

Barrett Eastman - Chicago Journal

I have not yet had an opportunity to read Mary MacLane’s book, and therefore I am unable to express an opinion of it. If, however, the published extracts have been made with fairness and not with the intention merely of condemning the work, I must say that it

shows a most perverted talent, and the ravings of an immature mind. It does not seem possible to me that a girl with the true in-stincts of womanhood could honestly give expression to the sentiments which this book is said to contain, and it appears to me that only with the idea of accumulating money she permitted such a work to emanate from her.

Reverend Mr. Gibble of Butte, Montana The West Old & New

The West Old & New

An eclectic collection of short stories written over the period

of twenty years.

Excerpt from “Another Person’s Shoes”

Delbert Alexander Theiser could vaguely remember enjoying the win-ter’s night with a glass of brandy, in front of the fire place listening to classi-cal music, the sound covering the high pitched fever of the rapid fire tunes from the kid’s gaming machines in the family room below. His lovely wife of twenty odd years, Myrna, was sitting across from him with a book of word puzzles, a cup of hot tea on the table beside her and her thin blonde hair already in curlers, the edges of a heavy terry robe open and tucked around gray sweat pants. He remembered wondering how long it had been since he’d seen her in anything even remotely sexy, and he remembered crawling between the flannel sheets of the large King size bed after looking out the window into a light snow falling over the dense forest that hid his rambling ranch house from the neighbors. And that was the last thing he remembered before falling into the bliss of sleep.

He woke to a buzzing sound, the soft purr of flimsy wings hovering near an ear that brought the instinctive slap of a hand. Confused he sat up. His body was smaller, thin and undernourished, with skin the color of coffee before you add the cream. He choked as he swallowed, the unfamiliar limbs reaching out to feel along thin arms. He suddenly was viewing slender legs lying across dirty sheets that smelled unwashed. He had endured a few night-mares in the spread of his fifty some years but this one was unequaled in detail. The bed was ramshackle and held together by tied rope and a window lay open, the flies and mosquitoes passing in and out of the room like it was Grand Central Station.


While working with the then Indian Health Service from 1929 to1931,

Susie Walking Bear Yellowtail helped to bring modern health care to

her own people and to end abuses in the Indian health care system, such as the sterilization of Native American women without their consent.

She effectively communicated Native American culture and perspec-tives to non-Indians throughout the country then as well as throughout

her public service career.

From 1930 to 1960, the Montana nurse traveled throughout North American reservations to assess the health, social and educational problems Native Americans faced. One of her assessment's revealed that acutely ill Native American chil-

dren were literally dying on the backs of their mothers, who often had to walk 20 to 30 miles to get to one of the five hospitals that served 160,000 Navajo. She also provided midwifery services to Native American and other women in

the Little Horn Valley for 30 years.

Through her work with the then Department of Health, Education and Welfare, the founder of the Native American Nurses Association was instrumental in winning tribal and government funding to help Native Americans enter the

nursing profession. In 1962, Yellowtail received the President's Award for Outstanding Nursing Health Care.

Susie Walking Bear Yellowtail was born on January 27, 1903, near Pryor, to Walking Bear, a Crow and Jane White

Horse, a Sioux. She was raised on Pryor Creek and attended two local boarding schools. She was orphaned at the age of

twelve.

Susie attended a Baptist boarding school in Muskogee, Oklahoma and then enrolled at Northfield Seminary in Massa-

chusetts. She completed her formal education by training at the Franklin County Memorial Hospital and practicing at

Boston City Hospital.

She was the first American Indian graduate as a Registered Nurse. She went to work in private and school nursing in

Oklahoma and in home nursing with the Chippewa's in Minnesota. She returned to the Crow Reservation in Montana

and in 1929 married tom Yellowtail, a Crow religious leader.

Yellowtail worked on the Crow Reservation eventually taking a position with the Indian Health Service. Later, under

the auspice of the U.S. Public Health Service she traveled the reservations of America.

This self-possessing, deeply religious woman became an ambassador of good will to her people. Her family consisted of two daughters and one son, two adopted sons, numerous tribally adopted sons, as well as dozens of grandchildren

and great-grandchildren. She created traditional Crow beadwork.

She tailor her life to serve as a bridge between her people and non-Indian people. The West Old & New

Susie

Walking Bear

Yellowtail

First Native American Registered

Nurse in the United States

Here is your chance to read stories of life in contemporary Montana

published on my blog in 2013.

Read essays about wakes, happy hour, animals, bull

riders, life in general and the characters in a small town on a

western Indian reservation.

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https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/362785 The West Old & New

The West Old & New

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Excerpt from Madam Delacroix’s Diary

A thin patter of rain pelted the dark sheet of night driven by a gusting wind that banged an unsecured window shutter into the weathered side of the cottage. The lights were on inside, every pane brilliant with a glow that reached beyond them touching the edges of Madame’s flower beds tucked along the outside edge of the building. The nether light striking the angular stalks of dead flowers bent in full seed over a wetted earth. The late fall wind had scatter them and a periphery of color would sprout in early spring, but not as usual, under the vigilant gaze of Ma-dame, for Madame was dead.

Detective Henri Bernard stood in the bedroom of Colette Delacriox at the end of the bed and beside him the young Officer Petit. “She is beau-tiful even in death,” the younger man said removing his hat and drop-ping his eyes to the floor.

Detective Bernard glancing sideways at Petit, stated in a dry voice, “Your reference to her beauty would have irritated her.”

“But she’s dead,” Petit said putting his hat back on.

“That she is,” Detective Bernard sighed walking around the bed to look down at the deceased woman. She lay inclined across a spray of thick pillows, a burgundy shawl of soft material entangled about her still shoulders. Her head inclined to the side the patterned fabric of the pil-low case framing her in profile. Her hair falling in chaotic black curls laced with silver threads against the paltry skin of high cheek bones. She looked as if she’d taken a moment to doze, her chin tucked against the slope of her left shoulder as it curved toward an arm embedded in the delicate lace of a nightgown.


By Ruth McHenry in Settlers & Sodbusters 1976

Mrs. Mae Andres came to the Lonepine Community in the fall of 1912 from the town of

Somers. She was known as "Aunt Bun" by all the younger folks in the valley. She, with five children settled in the valley to prove up a homestead. There were three chil-

dren of school age and two baby boys. She raised a family of nine children, losing one in infancy and a grown son in a car accident in Alaska. It was not long after her arrival that the people found out she was a good person to have around sickness and she was kept busy at this job as long as her health permitted. At one

time she had delivered two hundred babies into this world. Some of these were in the town of Somers. It was never too cold or too hot for her to go if called. During a blizzard she was kept busy

between two homes where two babies were born on the same day. Both babies are living and she survived with nothing worse than a worn out feeling. It did not matter to her whether she was taken by horseback, sled, wagon, buggy or car. No one ever made a date ahead. They just waited until the time came and then came for her. She has left a washing half done, bread to bake, house-

cleaning under way, canning, or any other work and gone dutifully on her way.

A Lifetime of Delivering Babies

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The West Old & New February Edition 2014

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Transcript of The West Old & New February Edition 2014