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AS I REMEMBER - STORIES 1

Stories of the Pioneers who settled Eastern Montana, as told to Mrs. Morris (Gladys) Kauffman Click on the buttons below to read selected excerpts from the As I Remember Stories. The Sam Sampson story at the bottom of the page is included in its entirety in order to give the reader an example of a full A.I.R. interview.
April 1965 When Red was a little fellow, their mother viewed with trepidation the approach of spring because she just never knew what to expect to find in Red's pockets when she'd undress him for bed. He'd stuff into his pockets anything from rocks to bugs, toads to watersnakes. Go to the story. . . Return to Top
August 1966 Mrs. Albert (Ivy Fluss) Brubaker of Terry doesn’t remember a thing about her arrival in Montana, so all she knows is what people have told her. But from what people have told her, the year she came was an eventful year. While one member was added to the family, another member came close to being subtracted. Lon Fluss and Irva Boothe had been married five years when they moved to the Bar G Ranch near Mildred in September of 1908. That same fall Mrs. Fluss went back to Illinois to await the arrival of their first child while Mr. Fluss kept things going on the ranch. Go to the story. . . Return to Top
March 1966 Family banks may be on the wane numerically across the country, but Terry’s State Bank - the bank that started in a poker game - is a family bank. W.A. Brubaker, back in 1905, was watching a poker game in Medora, ND, when one of the old ranchers sitting in asked him, “Why don’t you start a bank in Terry? They need one out there. ” So Brubaker started a bank out there. He was not a banker by occupation or background or training, but he was equal to the challenge. Now his three sons run the bank. Go to the story. . . Return to Top
February 1968 Mrs. Paul Jarvis isn't sure just when her grandfather first came to Montana, but it was early enough so that he could leave here (temporarily) in 1904. Joe Novasia, Sr. had come to America, leaving his wife and two small children in his native Italy, before his first child, born in 1882, was old enough to remember him. He went first to St. Louis where his older brother lived and worked in his brother's restaurant. His brother had done well enough in this new land that he was able to launch the newcomer in a business of his own, but the next business didn't last long, perhaps because he was his own best customer. The business was a bar, and Joe not only liked his product; he liked to 'treat' his customers so it wasn't long until he went broke. Go to the story. . . Return to Top
December 1964  In the ‘good old days’ when Mrs. Linda Bryan and her five children alighted from the train that brought them to Glendive the first time, they were met by a unique ‘ welcoming committee’; sleeping hoboes covered the depot floor, and the depot agent had to chase them out to make room for the new arrivals. Go to the story. . . Return to Top
March 1965  Memories of the days spent in the Bloomfield Valley and near linger on in Viola (Barber) Coryell's mind - a lot of happy ones and a few sad ones, as is the case in most everyone's life. Here in her own words is her account of that eventful period, as well as a summary of the years that followed: "We were one of the families to leave Bloomfield, Nebraska, to seek a new home in Dawson County. My mother, Mrs. Romaine (Antha) Barber, my sister, Mary, and I arrived in Glendive by train the thirtieth of June, 1909. My brother, Charlie, met us, as he had taken a homestead west of Bloomfield a year or so before, and brother Levi joined him a little later." Go to the story. . . Return to Top
August 1965 When Miss Catharine Calk invaded the Big Dry country in western Dawson County (then), the rancher was still king and the region was still rough and primitive (just how rough and primitive she didn't quite realize before her arrival) even though much of the eastern part of the county was becoming well settled. She had come from Kentucky to visit her aunt in Bozeman, where she had two brothers attending college. One of these brothers had already located in the Jordan area, and it was as a result of his urging that she had decided to file on a homestead. Go to the story. . . Return to Top
October 1966 A dugout in a bank - a blanket for a door - a dirty table piled with dirty dishes - a sullen, uncommunicative squaw - what a reception for a new bride! Such was the reception for Mrs. Theodore Armstrong, mother of Sidney's Lucy Fisher. Theodore Armstrong, a cowhand near Woodriver, Nebraska, had long harbored a hankering to go West, and in 1882 his chance came. The Wood Brothers, bankers in Woodriver, had heard about Eastern Montana's vast ranges with their lush grass so they bought a bunch of long horns down in Texas and hired some cowboys, with Armstrong as herd foreman, to drive the cattle north to the Montana range. Go to the story. . . Return to Top
December 1968 Cowboy - horsewrangler - broncpeeler - rancher - homesteader - sheriff - Floyd 'Gobbler' Davis, has lived in three different counties, all in the same spot. When he homesteaded, after a colorful career as cowboy, his claim was located in Dawson County. Later, as chunks were lopped off Dawson to form other counties, he found himself and his farm in Richland until still another division put him in McCone. Go to the story. . . Return to Top
December 1967 There is no man living today who came to Glendive before Louie Elliot (there never have been very many who could claim that distinction), long-time resident of Glendive now in the Holy Rosary Rest Home in Miles City. Louie was born in 1881 and came to Glendive when he was only a year old. Go to the story. . . Return to Top
1966 Perhaps the difficulties Sam Sampson encountered on his first attempt to move his belongings to his homestead were portentous of the problems and obstacles that lay in the path of one striving to wrest a living from 160 acres of Montana's dry land - although dry land certainly was not his problem on that first trip. Go to the story. . . Return to Top
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