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AS I REMEMBER - STORIES 3

More 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.
October 1964 Anna was born and reared in Chicago where she had never had so much as a back yard in which to play. Her only contact with farm life came when she was twelve years old. Their church sent her and her sister to a farm in Decatur, Illinois for a two-week vacation. It was then and there that she decided that some day she would like to live on a farm where she could have all the fresh milk, cream and eggs she wanted.... Go to the story. . . Return to Top
June 1966 Jens Scarpholt first saw Glendive on July 6, 1907 early in the morning. He came with a group looking for homesteads, but when he saw the black hills of Hungry Joe*, just like the badlands they had come through east of town, it didn't look like the wonderful farming country he'd been told it was. He decided right then that he didn't want any homestead here... Go to the story. . . Return to Top
March 1968 "You will starve to death over there!" wailed his mother when Karl Hepperle, thousands of miles from the Plevna, Montana site that was to be his homestead, announced sixty years ago that he was going to America. She was much distressed... Go to the story. . . Return to Top
December 1965 Rattlesnakes and windstorms! Mrs. Frank Fritsch, a native of Illinois, with her husband joined the homesteaders Montana-bound in 1910. She immediately took a liking to her adopted state, but the snakes and the windstorms she would have gladly omitted... Go to the story. . . Return to Top
September 1965 Thirteen year old Carl Colbrese met with a cold reception when he arrived in Glendive from sunny Italy. Back in his old home region in Italy the climate was much like that of California, and the temperatures seldom dropped to the freezing mark. Not so in Montana, he found, and especially not that winter of 1908. Much of the time that winter the mercury hovered around thirty-five to forty degrees below zero, and that was what greeted him when he landed in the Gate City the fifteenth of January that year. And snow! There was more than he had seen in all his life before, and it just kept coming. It seemed to him there was more snow than anything else in Glendive... Go to the story. . . Return to Top
December 1964 The West was raw and untamed in 1888, a place where a man might be shot for "speaking out of turn," when young John Bawden (father of Irvin Bawden) landed in Montana. A 'greenhorn' newly arrived from civilized Illinois had difficulty discerning just what might be his turn so generally the closed lip seemed most prudent. Even a funeral did not nullify the possibility of lead poisoning... Go to the story. . . Return to Top
July 1964 From the papers of Marie Dion, courtesy of Fred Dion, Jr., comes this first-person account of the Yellowstone flood of April 7, 1899, in which Margaret (Mrs. Henry) Dion's older sister, Mrs. R.W. (Nellie) Snyder, and her younger brother, Eugene O'Connor, perished... Go to the story. . . Return to Top
November 1967 Although Reece began his Dawson County sojourn between Redwater and the Divide, he has spent most of his Montana years (most of his life!) east of the Divide, chiefly between Glendive and Savage on the east side of the river in the northwestern corner of Wibaux County... Go to the story. . . Return to Top
September 1964 Billy Woods had to borrow the train fare that brought him to Montana. By the time he had ridden eighteen miles into a Chinook wind to reach the ranch where he was to be employed, he'd have been glad to borrow another fifty dollars to take him back to California! He couldn't, so he stayed. He says he's been trying to get hold of that fifty dollars ever since so he could quit the country, but he's still here... Go to the story. . . Return to Top
February 1966 Before his mother's death, Carl lived with her on the old homestead. One night, after they had retired, a knock came on the door and when Carl answered it he found a stranger on the steps. The man explained that he was from Sidney and had run out of gas. In answer to Carl's questions, he couldn't even say for sure which way he had come, but when Carl asked if he had come through Richey the man said he had so Carl figured he could find the truck and assured him he would help him... Go to the story. . . Return to Top
Unpublished Excuse me. Milford Babcock was a governor of Montana, you say? Are you confused about names or history? Neither. According to his birth certificate, Milford Babcock was born October 27, 1919, in Littlefork, Minnesota, to Erwin and Olive Babcock. And according to history, he became governor of Montana in 1962... Go to the story. . . Return to Top
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