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Mrs. Moore Eyer

AIR #31
June 18, 1964

"Oh, my goodness, the world is empty!" was the reaction of Mrs. Adda Eyer when she stepped off the train in Glendive and saw how much there was with nothing in it.

Coming from Eyersgrove, Pennsylvania, in 1907, the only attraction for Mrs. Eyer in Montana was her husband. Adda Miller and Moore Eyer had grown up together, and even as little children when they played house and 'dressed up', he was always her 'beau'. As a young man he spent some time in Iowa, then came to Glendive to visit his two brothers, Clark and Wilson.

When he went back to Pennsylvania to marry his childhood sweetheart, she had declared, "We're not going West!" But here she was. The West had cast its spell upon him, and he had come back to Glendive in 1906, then returned to Pennsylvania to bring his family. Now Mrs. Eyer, with five-year-old Claude and three-year-old Alton, was here with him, but she shared none of his enthusiasm.

Their first home in Glendive was on the corner of what is now Anderson and Hughes. The next, most vivid in Mrs. Eyer's memory, was a little log hut on Barry Street. Exclaimed Mrs. Eyer, "We spent seven months in that purgatory place!" Following this, they made two moves on the north side. While they lived in the alley back of what is now the Chevron Station, the Indians, who often camped on the present Buttreys Store site, would come up town right through this alley. If the milkman had brought the milk, they'd take the bottle right from the porch, even if you stood and watched them!

Claude's interest in the city's engineering department goes back a long way. When the boat which brought Glendive's first sewer pipe about 1909 or 1910 was docked here, Claude decided to investigate and played on the boat. His interest at that time was not encouraged, however, and he recalls that he got a licking for it!

Montana just didn't bear much resemblance to Pennsylvania with all the relatives and friends. Mrs. Eyer was homesick after they came, and so was Claude. He wanted to go back to Grandma's house and 'go upstairs' so the year after they came to Glendive his aunt took him back for a visit. While he was there he contracted typhoid fever. Mrs. Eyer hurried to be with him, and they were able to nurse him back to health, but when Montana was mentioned, he just wasn't interested in going back - that is, until he saw his daddy. When Mr. Eyer came to get them, Claude ran to put his arms around him, and told him, "Yes, Daddy, I'll go back with you."

In spite of her reluctance to come to the West, Mrs. Eyer found herself becoming attached to Glendive, and when death claimed her husband in 1922, she withstood the pressures of her family back in Pennsylvania to 'come home' and stayed on in the town that had so won him. Mrs. Eyer clerked for 29 years in the Douglas-Mead store and is widely known throughout the Glendive area.

 

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