My mom was Montanan through and through. She was born in Missoula, one of five children. At the age of four, she was raised by her grandmother in the Hamilton area. She told stories of how tough her grandmother was, having raised many children and as a widow, left with a house and acreage to take care of. You didn’t want to tangle with her grandmother when it came to her irrigation ditch. I think a lot of that toughness rubbed off on my mom and helped her survive her younger days.
After graduating from high school at the age of 16, she was on her own. Her earliest jobs were waitressing in Great Falls, Butte and at the old Diamond “S” in the Boulder Valley. She and a girlfriend eventually went to California where she married and had the first of four children.
Moving back to Montana, they settled in Butte, where my dad worked in the mines and Mom was a housewife. For reasons unknown, they then moved to Elkhorn. My dad continued to commute to Butte, which left my mom alone with three little kids for a good part of the time. I have vague memories of the shack we lived in, but I do know there was no indoor plumbing. Besides taking care of three small kids, Mom carried water from a spring and kept the home fires burning. She fondly remembered the winter we kids would go out and play in the snow, get wet, come in and dry off, and go back out again. She was amazed that we never got sick while we lived there. She reminded us that our playhouse was a two-story dance hall.
