Recollections

excerpts from stories

told by Anita Brannin Ward

    First thing every morning, I check the weather out of my dining room window. If the weather is clear, the Crazy Mountains stand out in detail, and you can see the snow-topped peaks with their deep canyons outlined by dark ridges like spokes in a wagon wheel. Other times, in spring and summer, black thunder clouds hover around the mountains, hostile and angry looking, and I laugh to myself. From here in Big Timber, forty miles away, those mountains look too fierce to get near, but I know it’s a big bluff. I’ve spent nearly all my life living up there, right up Sweet Grass Canyon, as far as you could get with a car.             

    "Aren’t you going to stay in town all night?" the town folks would ask whenever we would come in for supplies. They’d take a look at those old Crazies and shiver.

    "Heck, no," we’d always tell them. "Have to get home and do the chores."

    They’d just shake their heads and wonder about us. I suppose they thought we were a little crazy, like the mountains themselves.

    Then there are those days when winter settles down to business. The clouds, white and cold, start covering the peaks until the entire range disappears. When the weather finally clears up, the entire mountain is white from top to bottom.

    My kids and grandkids ask me if I don’t want to go up in the Canyon again. I just tell them no, I don’t think I’d better try it. The roads are pretty rough, even for a pickup. The creek crossings are washed out, and besides I don’t have to go up there to know what it looks like. So I just tell them to run on without me, and I’ll just take a little nap. They are always pestering me to tell them all about living in the Canyon and how the Brannin family got there. So in between snoozing, I think of some more stories to tell them. It is quite a tale at that.

    I suppose the story of one’s life begins at birth, but the family history had been going on for several years by the time I was born in a little log house near the mining camp of Silver City, Montana, near Helena, on August 12, 1899. I’m sure that Mamma, as much as she loved her babies, must have eventually breathed a sigh of relief as I was the last of her thirteen children. My brother Sid, two years older, and I, were the only two of the family born in Montana. The other eleven were born in New Mexico and made the trip by wagon train when my "fiddle-footed" father as his sisters called him, decided to move. He had been in Montana many years before and never got it out of his system. I grew up hearing stories about the ranch near Silver City, New Mexico and the trip to Montana with horses, burros and almost 1,000 Angora goats. I shivered as Mamma and the boys told how Papa had to abandon most of his prized horses along with his dream of making a fortune selling them in Montana. There was no water across that stretch in Arizona. They could only take care of the teams and saddle horses, and they were limited to a gallon of water a day. I suffered as Mamma told of losing hundreds of goats in an ice storm in Utah when they started out of Annabel after wintering there. We often wondered why Papa hadn't taken Mamma's advice and sold everything and come by train. We never got tired of hearing the stories told by Mamma and the "boys" as my older brothers were called, even when they were old men!

    However, my first trip was from Silver City, Montana to Sweet Grass County and up into the Crazy Mountains. One of my older brothers, Ed, and a friend, Jim Murphy, spent the winter of 1898-99 in Sweet Grass Canyon in the Crazies. Mr. Murphy, an Irishman, was a miner and a good friend of Jack Cooper, who was married to my oldest sister, Luella. Ed and Jim had a pack outfit and were traveling around the country. I don’t know where they heard of Sweet Grass County. The Tucker family who the Brannins had met in Marysville were living on the Sweet Grass near Melville, and Ed and Jim could have been grub stake riding on their way back from checking out the mining possibilities over in Fergus County around Gilt Edge. Jack Cooper, Murphy, Ed and my oldest brother, Dolph, all worked in the mines in that area a year or so later.

    As the two young men followed the Sweet Grass up into the canyon, they stopped off at a small cabin along the river bank and visited a wiry Norwegian named Cornelius Rein, known as C. M.  C. M. told Ed and Jim that this was about the last of civilization except for George Monroe who had a homestead up the river a couple of miles. C. M. told them he had tried a sawmill further up the mountains, but it had burned down so he had decided to run cattle instead.

    I guess Ed must have tucked that information away in his head as he had helped Father with a sawmill back in New Mexico. At any rate, Ed later bought a mill and operated it in the Crazies.

    They built a log cabin on the south side of the Sweet Grass along the hill and spent the winter hunting and exploring, amusing themselves with target practicing. Right now, I’ll bet I could find the tree with bullets still in it.

    Years later Ed showed my son, Robert (Buck) the exact spot where he stood when he killed a white tailed buck with a single shot from a 45 Colt on what is now Section 17 above the Horseshoe Prairie near the old Rein logging camp. He told Buck that he killed that deer on October 5, 1898, and if Buck’s eyes were real sharp, he’d probably find the shell. Amazingly, Buck kicked the dirt around and dug up that shell! It is now in a collection put together by Jim Brannin, Ed’s son, along with a newspaper clipping showing a picture of the antlers. The mounted antlers had been given to an old blacksmith in Melville, Charles Heisler. The blacksmith’s house later burned, but the antlers had survived, and the horns were given back to Jim.    

    Papa and brother Joe came back for us, so we packed up and once more Mamma had to move. I don’t think she was too happy about all this running around, because she told me once that she informed Papa she wouldn’t go unless she could take her sewing machine and Elsie’s picture. The sewing machine was one she got after she came to Montana. The picture was all she had left of Elsie, her first and adored little granddaughter. Elsie, the oldest child of Luella and Jack Cooper, had been born April 7, 1895 at the ranch near Silver City, New Mexico. The family was already preparing to leave on their move to Montana. Elsie was just six weeks old when they started out. My sister, Alice (usually called Tooie) was six months old, having been born in November the previous year. Mamma shared the joys and responsibilities of the little baby with Luella as the two women faced the problems of feeding and caring for the family from wagons and camp fires from New Mexico to Montana.

    Near Flagstaff, Arizona, some of the family got typhoid fever, including Luella. So Mamma had to nurse baby Elsie, sharing her ample supply of milk between Tooie and Elsie. There was no doubt but that Elsie was more than a special granddaughter to Mamma. She was also a favorite with all the rest of the family having a sweet, obedient and cheerful disposition. The picture was all that Mamma had left. Elsie had died of diphtheria over in Lewiston the first part of December, 1902. She would have been eight on her next birthday. Mamma was a very stoic person, but I remember seeing tears in her eyes as she looked at Elsie’s pictures.

    Missing from the family when we got ready to move was "Old Moss" the old Mexican named Maximillan Veta who had come with the family from New Mexico. No one had known why this nice old man left his home and came with the family to Montana until one time one of the boys, either Barney or Sid, playing with a wooden toy pistol, shoved the toy gun into Old Moss’ back and said, "Stick ‘em up."

    Old Moss got very upset and told the boy not ever to do that – this had happened to him once before. He then told Mamma, speaking in Spanish, that he had witnessed a killing in New Mexico, and almost got shot, but the gun misfired. The murderer told him if he ever breathed a word, he was a dead man. So Old Moss came to Montana bearing his secret. This killing, incidentally, is recorded in some of the histories of New Mexico.

    Old Moss died a short time before our move. He left Sid and me his horse and saddle. I still have one of the stirrups which was made into a lamp stand. A few years ago when Sid was here from Washington, along with his son and grandson, he stopped on his way back home and located Old "Moss" grave at what remains of Silver City. Sid told them how he had helped Will Smedley make the coffin. Mr. Smedley was apparently quite impressed that Sid, who was about eight years old, knew just what tools to hand him.

    It was Old Moss who stirred my conscience. One of the kids, probably Sid, talked me into swearing at him. Afterwards, I felt so bad, and I still think about it, even though I’m not sure he understood me as he spoke only Spanish. Possibly the fear of seeing a black-eyed flashing look from my Mamma helped my conscience along. She had only to speak to us in a low voice and give us one look, and we wilted.

    So in the spring of 1904, according to Dick, the family pulled up stakes and moved. Barney, who was about sixteen, got left behind at Dolph’s place to look after the Angora goat herd until the kid goats were big enough to make the trip. The goat herd, had been expanded as Papa had sent Dolph back to New Mexico to buy a couple of carloads of goats from Jim Upton.

    So now Papa and Joe came to get us and take us to the Sweet Grass and the Crazy Mountains. Papa drove the spring wagon with Mamma, Sid, Bess, Crawford and me in it. Joe drove the lumber wagon and Will Smedley went along to help. I think Gus must have been with Dick over at the new place. Tooie wasn’t with us as she had gone with Julia and Jess Cannon and Delia over to Trout Creek, south and east of Big Timber, where they and Ed were now farming. Bessie had stayed with Luella earlier over in Fergus County. It seems strange now, but the family thought nothing about traveling a couple hundred miles by horse, buggy or train, if available, just to visit.

    According to information supplied by Sid, the family camped the first night near Power Dam on the Missouri near Helena. Two children had just drowned there. The second night we camped out along the trail, and we spent the third night in White Sulphur Springs. My one personal memory of the trip is when we were going along the lane near White Sulphur Springs and looking back saw the team pulling the lumber wagon following us. Our route took us down Deep Creek Canyon to Martinsdale, around Coffin Butte, past the Don Martin place on Big Elk. We spent the fourth night in Martinsdale, and the fifth night on the Little Elk near Two Dot between Henry Pump’s place and P. J. Moore.

    Later on that year, Luella and Anna, another niece of mine who was a year older than me, stopped at the ranch. The Coopers had gone to the World Fair in St. Louis and then on to Mississippi to visit Jack’s sister. Luella brought Mamma some pretty salt and pepper shakers from the World Fair.

    That winter, Mamma, Joe who was about 21, Bessie, Tooie and I went over to Fergus County for Christmas. Luella was living at Whiskey Gulch near Gilt Edge. I don’t remember how we got to Harlowton – perhaps on the stage from Melville, but I do remember that we rode on the "Jawbone" railroad from Harlowton to Lewistown. This was the railroad built by Richard Harlow without adequate backing of money – just talk, thus the name "Jawbone." (He had to mortgage the line with James Hill the Great Northern magnate; however, in order to the lines available, Milwaukee Railroad paid off Harlow’s mortgage in 1910.)

    From Lewistown we took a stage to Gilt Edge which was a mile or so from the mining camp up Whiskey Gulch. Jack met us and took us to their small log cabin where we stayed for a couple of weeks. Don’t ask me to explain how all of us managed – I suppose that Jack and Joe slept at the boarding house or someplace else. Jack was working in the Big Six mine. (In 1957, Anna Cooper Doore and her daughter Kathryn and I went back to the old place, and we found remains of the old cabin where they lived. The camp is mostly gone and only a few places could be recognized.)

    The big social event while we were there was a masquerade at Gilt Edge. I was so taken with the grocery boy, Dick Blake, who was dressed as a woman with a blue dress trimmed with popcorn, I don’t remember anyone else. Luella was masked, but I don’t remember what she wore. We had Christmas at the boarding house which Mrs. Mershon operated. Mrs. Mershon had a son, Joab, who was about 10 or twelve, and a little girl named Sarah Rebecca. A woman named Mrs. Limbaugh gave each one of us girls a silver thimble. I still have mine. Tooie lost hers. A little girl that lived up the hill gave me a tin doll head. Later Bessie made a body for it out of a rag and stuffed it with goat hair. 

   After leaving Joe, Bess and Tooie behind, Mamma and I came on home following Christmas. We rode the train back to Harlowton and took the stage to Two Dot and stayed at the hotel. There we heard that Mrs. Brown had died. She left two girls and two boys, the youngest, Leslie, just a baby. Mr. Brown turned his place over the Jack Arthur so the Arthur's could take care of the children. These all were young people we got to know quite well.

    From Two Dot, we took the stage to Melville, around the east end of Porcupine Butte and went on to Tuckers. Dick met us there, and we came on home. Fred Tucker, who was just a kid, came home with us and stayed a week or so. By now, we had built more rooms on the house, so we had five rooms built in an L-shape. We also had a well house, woodshed, shop and chicken house. While Fred was there, he was cutting shavings or something with his knife and stuck his leg. It really scared him, but Mamma put some turpentine on the wound and bandaged it. He thought it would hurt, but it didn’t seem to. I remember that about that time, I was running from the middle room to the front room and fell and hit my chin and caused a "big" wound, I thought, so of course, I howled.

    That was about all the excitement of that first year on the Sweet Grass except that I did go with Papa and Mamma on my first trip to Big Timber that summer or the next spring. Papa drove the team as Mamma needed a tooth fixed. We spent the first night at Tucker’s near Melville. The road at that time crossed the Sweet Grass at the Lavold place and went down the north side of the river. In Big Timber we stayed over night at the Blakely Hotel. I felt pretty important, but one little thing made me mad though. The John Campbell’s were also staying at the hotel with their girls, Maude and Grace. The two girls were bigger than I was, and they got hold of my cap and started tossing it back and forth between the two of them. I tried to catch it, but I couldn’t because I was too small. I was pretty sore about that. We chuckle about that years later.

    Papa got waterproof boots for Sid and me so we could wade in quite a bit of snow. I used to stand in the doorway of the living room and kick my boots off. They sometimes landed on the table across the room – nice little kid that I was.

    That winter was pretty typical of happenings around the Brannin family. People came by and stayed a while and kids had fun. Joe Brown, from over around Marysville, spent part of the winter with us. I think Joe may have been along when Barney and the boys brought the rest of the goat herd over.

    It was perhaps that fall that I first saw Creston Crest; anyway, I saw his legs. He was very tall with long legs, and I was very small. He came up to the ranch to get help getting their sheep out of the Canyon. Up until 1914-15, there was no way to get beyond the falls of the Sweet Grass. To take advantage of the grazing in the upper canyon, sheep men had to take their bands up the American Fork and over the mountain and drop in around the lakes. The Crest Brothers had their sheep up in the canyon when it started to snow. Joe Brown volunteered to go in and bring back the sheep. He went in with skis (Norwegian type) and brought the sheep out. There was about a foot of snow at the ranch, so I imagine there was a great deal more up the canyon. I wish I had been a little older to have heard more about Joe Brown’s expedition!

    The rest of the party included the other kids, Bessie, Tooie, Sid, Crawford (Rube) and me.

    A rather amusing incident happened in Big Timber. Tom McCall approached the team Papa was driving and showed a great deal of interest in Prince, the gray gelding, and started asking a lot of questions about where Papa got him. Finally it came out that McCall was hinting that it was the horse that had been stolen over on the other side of the mountains around Wilsail. The stolen horse, a two or three year old, had apparently been left unclaimed at the Hopkins. Papa let McCall know that he was badly mistaken as Prince was one of the horses brought from New Mexico. More about that stolen gray horse later.

    Back to the honeymoon, we drove to Springdale where we camped. The next day, we went on to Livingston and then to the Park. I can’t remember how long we were there. I know we stopped at Mammoth Hot Springs, the Golden Gate, Old Faithful where we stayed, and then on to the Yellowstone Lake. We saw some grizzly bears eating out of garbage piles. I remember we drove by the stink pots and other parts of the Park. I guess we were gone about two weeks. We had a great trip.

    The horse never kicked anyone, but he was touchy. Anyway, when Luella was visiting, we decided to go visit the Hopkins. It was nothing for a bunch of us to decide to go someplace, hitch up a team and go. Also there was nothing unusual to have a "stray" person or so at the ranch. This time we had Jim Husband along who wanted to ride back to Hopkins. Jim was from Marysville where he had been in the tailoring business. He knew the family when they lived in Silver City, Montana. In fact, he had spent part of that first winter with Ed and Jim Murphy in the canyon. I think the boys were inclined to think Jim was a bit of a sissy. Anyway, Luella was driving the gray horse, Dick, and another horse on the spring wagon. Jim was riding in the back.

    When we got out on the flat beyond the Rein plow and headed toward the Hopkins place (located at the edge of the present American Fork Ranch), Luella popped Dick a little with the lines, and he began to dance. Jim, who knew of the horse’s wild background, got nervous. Luella added to the suspense by pretending to calm the horse down.

    "No, Dick, now steady. Whoa now Dick."

    Then she would sneakily pop the horse again. Of course from the back of the wagon, Jim couldn’t see what was going on, so he was really nervous. Mamma scolded Luella, "Luella, you shouldn’t do that!"

    But there was a devilish streak in my oldest sister, and she had quite a bit of fun with poor Jim. When we got to Hopkins, Jim was overheard to say, "They shouldn’t give that poor woman that crazy horse to drive."

    He didn’t know that Luella was an excellent horsewoman, and that the boys often told of her riding horses by standing up on their backs when the family still lived in New Mexico. Also while Jim certainly knew about the streak in the Brannin men that made them such teases, he didn’t suspect that it infected a mature Brannin woman. 

    Speaking of chickens, years later (about 1920), Buddy, Jim and I were going home to the sawmill from the Ranch and saw some pintail grouse just through the gate in the bottom. They were good ones, and we had chicken for dinner when we got home. Years later, I was driving down the road and ran over a wild chicken and killed it. So I got out of the car and cleaned its innards out and put it on the brush and picked it up when I came back. We had chicken for supper that night. That was the end of my law breaking career.

* * * *

    Next to Mamma, my Papa was the most important person in my young life. Even though the older ones in the family seemed to walk a wide berth around Papa, the grandchildren and I were never afraid of him. I would climb up in his lap to be held. When he pretended to protest, I would tell him that I was his baby, and he would hold me and rock me.

    Whenever we went any place, Papa rode his horse, Bob most of the time leaving Dick to drive the buggy with Mamma in it. When I got tired of riding in the buggy, Papa would lift me on behind his saddle and I would hang on to his coat very pleased with myself.

    Papa was a small man, not more that 5 foot 2 or 3. He wore a size 4 ½ boys boot, but as one man in New Mexico put it, "Stant Brannin isn’t very big, but he sure is awful loud."

    Papa who was born in Georgetown, Wisconsin on September 8, 1844, was only seven years old when his mother died. When he was 18 years old, he came to Montana with a couple of his aunts and their husbands and lived there for a few years. Then he wandered down to New Mexico where he saw my mother in the little mining town of Golden, New Mexico. After they were married, they moved on to Fort Stanton where he killed game for the soldiers there. They then went to silver city and to Georgetown where he went into mining. Later he ran a sawmill as well as a cattle and horse ranch near Silver City. Papa was also an Indian fighter, being a lieutenant in a volunteer cavalry. His final career in New Mexico was that of a county commissioner. His sisters, who were rather a nasty lot according to some of us, told him that he was just a "fiddle foot" – always wanting to go somewhere else.

    But to me, he was my Papa. I still remember the whisper of his corduroy pants when he walked around the room in his long felt boots known as German sock overshoes. I can still remember his hat. He always wore his hat with the center pushed in, Texas style.

    In November 1906, Papa wasn’t feeling well so he decided to go to Helena to have a check up. I watched him ride away on his black saddle horse, Bob. It was the last time he rode. Mamma was called to go to Helena as Papa was quite ill. Since Dora was at the ranch, she helped keep house and cook. Naturally, I had a fit because I had to stay home. I didn’t like to have my Papa away, and being away from Mamma was the worst thing in the world for me.

    Right after Christmas, Papa sent word that he wanted me to come to Helena. I don’t remember how I got to Melville, but I do remember going from Melville to Big Timber with Julia and Jess. They were living in Melville at the time, and Bess and Tooie were staying with them and going to school. We caught a ride into town with Joe Hopkins and stayed at the Grand Hotel that night and took the train the next day. I got hungry so Jess took me into the diner, and I had lunch.

    In Helena, Papa was staying at the home of our cousin, Aurel Clark, which wasn’t far from the depot. Mamma, watching from the window saw Jess and Julia coming and thought at first they had Delia with them. She was really tickled that it was her "Baby." I think this must have been right after Christmas as my cousin, Warren Clark, had so many nice toys.

    Papa was very sick but he was really glad to see me. Everyone said I was his pet. I sure hoped so. The sad thing is that Papa never recovered. He died the 5^th of January and his body was returned to Big Timber.

    The family gathered in Big Timber for the funeral. Luella had come from Idaho. Julia had written her earlier that if she wanted to see her father, she should come. They got there in October after getting on the wrong train – a non-stop one, that paused only long enough to throw off her luggage and little Stanton’s basket and let her jump off with the baby and Anna.

    Services were held in the Congregational Church. The two babies, Buddy and baby Stanton, were left with one of Dora’s sisters in Big Timber so they didn’t have to ride out to the cemetery. There is nothing as miserable as a cemetery on an icy, cold winter day.

    We stayed over night in Big Timber, but left for Melville the next day. Mamma and I went with George Monroe in his buggy. The rest of the family came in wagons or spring wagons. Mr. Monroe took me to the harness shop where Jim Husband was working, and I stayed there near the fire until Julia’s house was warm enough.

    We all left for the ranch the next day. Joe drove the spring wagon, the one that came from New Mexico, with the three young boys, Crawford, Sid and Ralph. The rest of us came by bob sled pulled by four horses.

    A storm hit us crossing the Mydland Flat about ten or twelve miles from Melville. We got as far as Abram Grosfield’s place in the Basin Creek area. It was blizzarding, and we were getting cold, so Abram insisted we stay. Joe had been traveling faster, so got through before the blizzard struck and went on home.

    Abram’s little cabin had only two rooms. Where everyone slept, I don’t know. There was Mamma, Luella, baby Stanton, Dora and Ed and baby Buddy, Tooie and me, Dolph, Georgia, and Alice and Dick, as well as Abram. The old log house, so Byron Grosfield, Abram’s son, tells me, was moved down to Big Timber and is now on a small place at the edge of town. In any event, none of us ever forgot Abram’s kindness.

    When we finally got home, quite a few of the family got the flu or whatever it was called then. Mamma sure had her hands full. Fortunately, Dolph and Georgia didn’t get the bug and could help with the nursing. On top of it, Buddy was just a little fellow and was a bottle baby and the milk didn’t agree with him.

    Luella’s baby was a husky little guy. Alice got inflammatory rheumatism. She was really sick and hurt all over. She was only five years old.

    After a couple of weeks, I guess everyone got well. Dolph and his family left for home. Dora’s brother-in-law came for her to take care of his kids in Harlowton as her sister was a patient in Chick Hospital. That left Mama with a little baby to take care of as Ed wouldn’t let Dora take Buddy with her.

    When Dora came back, Dick took Mamma, Sid, Crawford and me to Melville where Sid and I started to school, our first real school. Mamma was quite worn out and needed a rest after her long siege of nursing and her loss of Papa. Bessie and Tooie were already in school in Melville staying there with Julia. Sid and I weren't too bad off as we had reading lessons from Mamma. Incidentally, when Mamma married Papa, she couldn’t read English or speak English. She learned to read from her older children. She could read, but never learned to write English. I don’t believe she could read or write Spanish even though she spoke it.

    Sid, of course, being a new kid, had a scrap with three boys. Stanley Hanson, Jim Smith and Jack Colvin figured the three of them could handle him. Sid just flipped all three boys, one of top of the other and walked away. They never bothered him again. I guess all the practicing he did on us girls, Anna, Delia and me, paid off.

    We stayed in school until it was out in May. There was a real fancy program the last day of school. The girls were all in white, and the boys wore suits, and I think they had red, white and blue sashes.

    Then back to the ranch, and life went on as usual only without Papa. Dick seemed to be the one who took charge of the family and the kids so he had his hands full. Julia and Delia and Luella, Anna and Stanton went to Goldfield, Nevada where Jess Cannon and Jack Cooper were, working in the mines.

    That fall in 1907, we moved back to Melville so we could go to school. Bessie and Tooie stayed the first part of the fall with Mrs. Tucker, about four miles north of Melville and rode to school until Mamma moved there so Sid and I could start out next year of learning. That was the time they almost had a war at school – really silly to start with, but it grew into quite a feud.

    Sometime before we came to Melville (about 1905, I guess), there was a problem at the Melville School. I don’t know the teacher. She was, I imagine, 30 or so years old, a Miss Love. She taught the upper grades. She didn’t believe in wearing a lot of false things like pads, bustles, or corsets. So our "lovely ladies" in the town had to be funny, or thought they were by getting an old worn out corset and mailing it to her. She heard that it was sent to her by the "do-gooders." All she did was say she wouldn’t pay any more attention to their comments than if it were a puppy barking. It seems that as it was repeated, she was to have said she wouldn’t pay any more attention to them than a bunch of sore mouthed puppies. Of course, she had insulted the dear ladies, so they had her fired.

    The next big school disturbance was that year we were in Melville staying in Julia’s house as she had gone to Goldfield. We always played in our backyard. We had sort of a make-believe house there. Sandy McMahan had just had an operation so he was still not moving around very fast. He knocked over a box or something, and Viola Smith got mad and pushed him. So he pushed her, and her brother, Rex, was going to poke Sandy, but Bessie put a stop to the argument.

    Very foolishly this incident was carried on to school until it really became a mess. Mrs. Smith told Miss Harris, who was one of the teachers and who boarded at Hanson’s, that she was to let Rex ride home with here because this argument had gotten so big the kids at school were taking sides. Most of them were on Sandy’s side. Miss Powell, the other teacher was ordered to keep Sandy after school so Rex could get home before Sandy did seeing as how so many were backing Sandy. Fred Tucker must have been kept in too, as I remember, as he rode to school.

    So Jake Christensen got Fred’s horse and had her at the steps when the boys got out of school. The boys jumped on the horse and headed for Melville. They caught Rex just as he was crossing the ditch near his house and one of those kids hit him with a quirt. He yelled, "Mamma!"

    Miss Harris caught it. Mrs. Smith stopped her as she drove past and gave her an ugly chewing out for not letting Rex ride home with her. 

    From then on, it was a grown up fight. Mrs. Smith and Miss Harris became bitter enemies. They went to a dance in Melville on Thanksgiving. When they went to the hotel for midnight supper, Miss Harris was escorted by Fred Schallock. As they walked out of the hotel, two fellows grabbed Fred and held him. Mrs. Smith hit Miss Harris and then there was a real fight. Hair pins, combs and bad language were scattered all over the street. Miss Harris didn’t go back to the dance, but Mrs. Smith did. She had a lovely black eye.

    We stayed in school that year until May. Julia and Delia had come back from Goldfield, but they didn’t stay too long in Melville, instead they went to Helena as Jess was working in a mine at Winston near there.

    Once again we had a new baby in the family. James E., Ed and Dora’s second son, was born in the Cannon house in Melville on January 12, 1908. Dora was on her way to Big Timber, but never made it, so Jim joined his little brother Buddy in a very special family relationship.

    Then in February, some of the folks at home got the chicken pox. A few of the old big mouths in Melville stirred up a mess saying that we would expose everyone. Most of the gossip came from some females who didn’t even have any kids. The eighth grade teacher was one who helped the gossip going as she was an "old hussy" and I guess she wanted to have the girls, Bess and Tooie, leave. So instead of kicking the old gossips in the teeth, we went back to the ranch. Some of those old biddies in Melville sure caused a lot of trouble.

* * * *

    Even though the little "city" of Melville seemed to spawn a few unpleasant people, we found a lot of interesting things to do. Mamma refused to become involved in any neighbor dispute, so all the folks there liked her and came to her for help or visiting.

    One woman who certainly thought the world of Mamma was Mrs. McMahan. Louise McMahan was the daughter of Joseph Dahl, an early Norwegian settler in the country. Louise was just a child when she and the rest of her family came by train to Billings to join her father. She told me that when they got to Billings, she was looking out the train window and recognized her father’s team. She also told about the terrible winter of ’89 made famous by Charlie Russell in his little sketch "Waiting for the Chinook", and how great herds of cattle from the Helena based ranch drifted along the lower Sweet Grass and piled up and died. She said the stench from their decaying bodies that next year were horrid.

    Billy McMahan came out from Illinois with Hersh Franklin as Franklin had a number of fine horses and Billy was a good horseman. Later, Billy Mac got a job hauling ore from the Independence Mine. He hauled with an eight horse team, two ore wagons hitched in tandem, down that narrow, winding wagon road from the mines. I don’t know how he did it, because in later years, I went in a four wheel drive vehicle over an "improved" road, and it was difficult to get around those narrow steep curves.

    Later Mr. McMahan drove the freight wagon bringing supplies from Bozeman or Big Timber to the general store in Melville.

    Mrs. Mac took in washing and sewed for a lot of people. She often told how she learned to sew when she was just a little girl and could make a pair of underwear in one day. She was a beautiful seamstress and for a "hobby", between juggling all her work and children in the small house, made beautiful pieced quilts.

    The McMahan kids, Sandy (whose name was Edward), Minnie, Clarence, Tom, and baby Walter, were all playmates. Later Harold (or Smokey) joined the family. While we were living in Melville, Sandy developed a severe stomach ache. Dr. O’Leary was called from the one phone in the general store, and he and Dr. Clairborne came out. Of course, it took some time to get there, as the more than 20 miles had to be covered by horseback or horse and buggy.

    Mamma had heard that Sandy was sick, so she went down to the little house along the Sweet Grass where the McMahans lived. When the doctors got there, they decided that Sandy had a real "hot" appendix, so they set up their surgery on the kitchen table. Mamma was drafted into being an operating nurse, and they soon had Sandy’s appendix out.

    He was barely up and about when Walter got shot. A chicken hawk had been bothering the chickens, so Sandy (who was about 12 years old), got his .22 rifle out to try to get the hawk. His mother then asked him to take some sacks up to the store to leave for Mr. Harper for potatoes. Sandy sat his rifle down and took off. Tom, who was about five years old, picked up the gun and aimed it playfully at little Walter saying, "I’ll shoot you."

    The gun went off sending a bullet right through the fleshy part of Walter’s cheek and into his shoulder. Mrs. Mac grabbed Walter and running, headed for Mamma for help. She met Sandy on his way back and turned him around to go get Mamma. Mamma had just picked up her bonnet and started out when Mrs. Mac fell in the door and dropped the baby in Mamma’s arms having run the whole way from her house in the bottom by the creek nearly a mile to our house.

    Mamma sent someone to call the doctor and had Bessie go down and take care of the rest of the McMahan children. Mrs. Mac stayed right there until the doctor arrived from Big Timber and fixed the baby. The shot went though the cheek, missing any bone, and on into the fleshy part of the shoulder. Dr. O’Leary took the bullet out of his little back and in a few days, he was crawling around again.

   Melville seemed like a big place to me. Of course, school was the most important thing as far as I was concerned, but there were a lot of other neighbors and establishments to observe. There was the hotel, the big one. Sister Julia’s house where we lived had been the original hotel, but the other hotel seemed very impressive. It even had an eating place in it!

    Then there was the livery stable where one could rent a good team and buggy or put horses up for the night.

    Charlie Heisler had a blacksmith shop. Most people thought he was a pretty rough character, but he liked Mamma.

    We also visited Mr. and Mrs. Tessier. Mrs. Tessier was part Indian, which made some of the women turn up their noses at her. Mr. Tessier was a fine old man and was postmaster for a number of years. They had two sons, Frank and Louie, the latter dying when he was quite young.

    Mrs. Barneke, formerly Agnes Van Cleve, often visited Mamma. Mrs. Barneke wouldn’t have anything to do with most of the other women who made up a false "social" structure in that little one-street town. Once in a while we got to visit the Barneke house, and I would peek around Mamma’s skirts and admire the grand piano and the lovely big house.

    One woman in Melville who took quite a liking to Bessie was Mrs. VerBeek. Mrs. VerBeek was a Dutch woman who was among the Dutch people who Mr. Wormser had imported for a land development project. The project wasn’t a great success, but some of the folks stayed on, and Mrs. VerBeek later moved to Melville. She had an organ, and she would let Bessie come over and play it. She also had a dog, rather a fierce looking thing. She would order the dog to jump up on a chair, then she would say, "Now sneese," and the dog would "sneese" for her.

    She had Bessie drive with her to Big Timber after the big fire in 1908 so she could see what it looked like. Mrs. VerBeek had a horse named Dolly. When the hired men would try to catch the mare she would run away, so Mrs. VerBeek would have to go catch her. As she explained, "Min Dolly, she’d run wid her tail high oop!"

    The family chuckled over that for years. She also held Sunday School classes in her house and would play the organ and sing. That’s where I first went to Sunday School.

    Incidentally the big driveway where wagons could drive in and unload is still up on the Big Timber Creek road where Mr. Wormser had built himself a big yellow house when he established his "Wormser Settlement."

    Then there were the Tuckers. Mamma and Mrs. Tucker were very good friends. After Papa died, quite often the boys would decide it was time for Mamma to get out and go visit Mrs. Tucker for a while. Of course, since I was the "baby" I went every place with her. One May, she went down to the Tuckers which was located on the north side of the Sweet Grass (across from the present Bordie Green place.) It started to rain, a real heavy Montana May rain. The sod roof of the cabin began to leak and mud ran down the walls into the house.

    Back up at the ranch, Gus was helping with shearing of the Angora goats. He hurt his hand and since he was busy, he just squirted some machine oil on the sore. He got blood poisoning, so he got on a horse and rode down to Tuckers, a usual stopping place for the Brannins going to town. He wanted Mamma to take a look but figured he would have to go on to town. Mamma and Mrs. Tucker got their heads together, prepared a poultice with ingredients available, and put it on Gus’ hand. In a short time, the red streaks began to fade and the swelling went down.

    They had five sons, Clarence, Elmer, Albert, Ira and Fred. Their one daughter, Emily, was born 16 years after Fred.  

    Ira Tucker, who was a bachelor (until very late in life) lived most of the time in Alaska. He and brother Barney went to Alaska in 1909 or 1910. One of the jobs Barney had up there was working in the mines. He was driving a wagon loaded with dynamite up a steep hill to a mine. It was hot weather, and he was almost asleep. He thought papa had spoken to him, and he woke up. The wagon was just about to run off the road.

    Fred Tucker spent quite a bit of time at the ranch, especially when we got a little older and Delia was visiting. Julia and Delia usually came down every summer, and when she got to be a teenager, Delia took great delight in dangling all the young men in the neighborhood. One time when Fred was there, Jake Christensen came over riding his little mare. Delia, of course, had to ride the horse, really making quite a fuss over it. Poor Fred got so mad that he did something desperate! He chewed some snuff and spit! Delia, Fred and I had a picture taken together once.

    Fred married Stella Rhodes and they had eight children and lived in Big Timber where he worked for the City most of his life in street maintenance and other jobs.

    Emily Tucker went to Alaska when her mother died. She was about 15 years old then, and she kept house for Ira until she married a fellow they called, ‘Stick." They had three or four children, I believe.

    In any event, Mrs. Tucker was a fine woman and a good friend of Mamma’s. Mrs. Tucker made marvelous bread. Mr. Tucker used to butter the bread and feed it to his hounds with small regard for the work that Mrs. Tucker put into it. Of course the hounds loved it, but she should have wrung his neck.

    Mrs. Hopkins had a nice house with a big kitchen, dining room and parlor. The kitchen had cupboards that opened from both the dining room and the kitchen. Upstairs there were two or three bedrooms. After the place was sold, Albert Hiller, who married one of the Hopkins, bought the house and moved it down to Big Coulee. Later it was sold to Charlie Sherod. I saw it once and it didn’t look like the same house.

    The Van Cleve girls used to ride over to the ranch. One time, Dora, Allie and Phyllis and some others came riding in after dinner. Mamma as usual offered them something to eat. Most of the girls said they "weren’t hungry."

    Dora said they had ridden from the Butte Ranch to the American Fork and then over to the ranch and she was starved. She told Mamma she was so glad they were asked to eat. I guess the rest of the girls admitted their hunger and ate. Dora was very fond of Mamma. Dora and Dick were very good friends.

    Paul Van Cleve used to visit quite often. I remember one time he came over with a young man and of course, sat down to eat a meal. Mamma had biscuits – I believe they were raised biscuits or buns. Paul kept eating them, but as he loved the soft insides, he ate that part and shared the crusty outsides with his friend. We could look back years later and Francis Sayre, the man who was to be the son-in-law of President Woodrow Wilson, really enjoyed Mamma’s biscuits!

    Another visitor at the ranch when I was very young was a nephew of Papa’s Ed Templeton. Papa never liked him though. Papa had some strong prejudices – and that included young men who parted their hair in the middle and smoked cigarettes! (This was also the reason he gave for not letting his young daughters go to dances in New Mexico.) When Papa saw his nephew riding in that first time, he decided right then and there that Ed Templeton wasn’t any good. Perhaps Papa had some justification for his feeling. One time Templeton got smart and started to throw a cup at someone. Dick or Joe caught his hand. I guess he left the ranch then.

    When we were in Melville, Bessie used to go to the Sandsness home with Christine Sandsness and visit. The Sandsness family were fine quiet people, Henry Sandsness being a good friend of the boys.

    In the fall of 1908, Bess and Tooie went to Helena to go to school and stay with Julia. Joe was working over there at the time. He later went to California and worked with Jack Cooper at Cima in the mines.

    Joe was the one whom the family depended on to make important decisions. He insisted that the girls get an education and as much as possible made the arrangements. Joe himself was a self-educated mining engineer, able to operate all kinds of machinery. He was also very musical playing the violin by ear. He could play any tune if he heard it once and played for dances. Dances in those times went until daylight but Joe kept playing until sometimes he was almost asleep on his feet.

    My most prized possession I own is my doll, Josie, that Joe gave me. She is a beautiful doll with kid body, china head, hands and feet, and my own hair which I added years later, for her wig. Joe must have seen how much I envied Delia and Anna for all the dolls they had. Joe’s sensitive heart must have sensed the loneliness in me when Papa died, because right after that he bought my doll. I think he got it in Melville, or at least ordered it from the general store there.

    Everyone turned to Joe for advice in everything. In addition, he was a handsome, charming young man that everyone, kids and all were attracted to. Joe and Dick were very close brothers. Dick preferred to stay at home and take care of the livestock and little kids – human, not goats – he’d had enough of those four footed kids as he was the "goat boy" coming from New Mexico. Joe was interested in the outside world.

   When Bessie and Tooie came home from Helena that next spring, they were quite grown up. They had gotten Merry Widow hats, one had a wide pink band, the other yellow. I guess I must have been quite impressed as I still remember. They brought me a new white dress and patent leather slippers, the first pair I’d ever had.

    Summers of course, meant members of the family visiting. In addition to Delia and Julia who were there whenever possible, Luella came bringing Anna and Stanton. Mamma was never so happy as when her house was crowded with family and friends. All the young people from the country found that all roads led past Brannin’s no matter where they were going. Summer time meant young people riding in, staying over night, sleeping wherever there was a vacant spot on the floor. Mamma was always pleased and made sure everyone was fed.

    One particular event during the summer of 1908 was a surprise party and dance for Bessie on her 16^th birthday on July 9. She was really surprised. We moved the beds out of the house and danced in both large rooms. Naturally it was an all night event – no one went home until the next day.

    Shortly after that party in July, a little three year old niece of Dora’s Janice Jewell, died of typhoid fever. Ed made the little casket, and she was buried in the Settlement Cemetery. The Settlement Cemetery was established by the Norwegian Lutheran congregation who started the Melville Lutheran Church, the oldest Lutheran congregation in the state of Montana.

    That fall of 1909, Tooie, Sid and I went to the Basin Creek school and stayed with Ed and Dora who were living in the "black house" as their place on the Sweet Grass was called. The Brannin Brothers dissolved their partnership with Ed and the sawmill. Dick was a rancher and cattleman, and Barney was getting itch-footed, later going to Alaska. So in 1908 or early 1909, I would guess, Ed moved the mill down on the Sweet Grass near the Lavold place. They lived in tents until he sawed enough lumber to build a house. We called the "black house" because it was covered with tar paper at first. The saw logs were floated down the Sweet Grass River from the logging camp up in the canyon. Gus, who enjoyed that sort of thing, helped him.

    We had a great time at the Basin School. A lot of the Tronrud kids went to school there, and we were all good friends. Marion Nicholson was the teacher, but only until Christmas, then we had another teacher. Tooie, who was always a rebel, stayed in school about three months – only as long as Marion Nicholson was a teacher. While we were staying at Ed’s place, Tooie and Lena Hoyem decided they wanted to go to Melville to get the mail – about seven miles. So they walked to the ranch, about five or six miles over the hills, the opposite direction, to get a couple of saddle horses to ride clear back to Melville!

    Attendance at the little rural school was pretty inconsistent. The older boys were in school only when they weren’t needed on the family farms and ranches. Sometimes the total time in school would be only a couple of months – and then only over a period of four or five years. I always loved every minute I went to school, and not only learned my lessons but kept my ears open to everything else going on. In the short time we went to the Basin School, we developed friendships that lasted all of our lives! However, our school life at the Basin School ended early when we moved back to the ranch. Dora’s sister Mae and her children moved in with Ed and Dora. Mae’s husband, Jase Jewell, a charming sort of an individual from the south with all the manners and personality of a Southern gentleman, also had a strong feeling for the horses – other people’s. This landed him in the penitentiary. This put a real strain on Ed so the next time Dick came down, we packed up and went home. That was the end of school that year. Bessie had gone to Marysville to stay with Julia and go to school. I still have some postcards she wrote to Mamma and to Tooie begging Tooie to write and saying how lonesome she was!

    We had school at home for the next two short school years. Elsie Grunert from Butte taught both years. This would have been starting the fall of 1910 and again the fall of 1911.

    Meanwhile, Joe had been in California up at Cima, working with Jack Cooper. He made good money and helped Luella buy a little farm at Downey so she could get Anna in school. The schools in the Los Angeles area had been so crowded that Anna couldn’t even get into school the first year they lived in the area.

    The mine at Cima apparently went into receivership, so Joe came back home again and took the job as deputy sheriff for the Melville area under Sheriff Oscar Fallang. There was a lot of stealing going on around the country, horses and cattle, so Joe was sent to Melville as a more or less permanent assignment, staying in the hotel there. Then on November 16, Fallang called Joe in Melville to bring Mel Jewell in for questioning. Mel had previously been sentenced to eight years in prison for horse stealing, but had been paroled after four years. Fallang warned Joe not to trust him, but apparently didn’t tell Joe exactly why he wanted Mel. Joe knew Mel as well as his brother Jase, as Jase was married to the sister of our sister-in-law, Dora.

    Joe walked up to Mel and told him that he was going to have to take him in to town. Mel was unarmed and seemed agreeable.

    In the meantime, Charlie Bennett who ran one of the saloons and had been deputized by Joe, was getting a team to take them into Big Timber. Jewell then asked Joe to come into the back room of the saloon as he wanted to talk to him or some such pretext. When Joe stepped back there, another fellow by the names of Ricketts (an ex-convict) slugged Joe with something. Joe reached for his gun and fired at Ricketts, wounding him. Jewell grabbed Bennett’s .45 Colt from behind the bar and fired three shots at Joe. The final shot was fatal, cutting an artery and entering the heart.

    Jewell fled, taking a horse that was tied to the hitching rack. A fellow by the name of Duncan MacDonald held a gun on the men in the other saloon which was run by Schallock, ordering them not to interfere. Bennett rushed from the livery stable, grabbed a horse and took out after Mel. The horse fell with Bennett, momentarily stunning him; however, he grabbed his rifle to shoot at Mel. Just then some small children ran across the road, so Bennett held his fire and Mel got away.

    We didn’t hear about Joe’s death until the next day. Joe was shot about 4:30 in the afternoon on November 16. Someone had told some fellow to come up into the canyon and tell us, but the man got cold feet and didn’t do it. In the meantime, Mr. Tucker was put out when we didn’t show up. He remembered that we had just a small one-seated buggy, so he had Fred start out with their small buggy. Fred kept expecting to meet us, but got all the way to the ranch. Dick came out to meet Fred, with his usual greeting of, "Get down and rest yourself a while."

    Of course, the rest of us had walked out on the porch and poor Fred had to be the one to bring us the dreadful news.

    When Fred said that our brother had been killed, Mamma almost collapsed. We were all stunned but since it was noontime, we tried to eat the dinner that was ready and prepared to go to Melville. Mamma and I rode with Fred. Dick took the teacher and Tooie. Sid and Crawford stayed home with Gus. Barney was in Alaska that fall. He had gone there in the spring.

    One always hates to remember the sad things of life, but I remember the Tessier’s opened up their home to us in Melville. George Monroe took Mamma and I to town. George Monroe always seemed to be around whenever and wherever he was needed. We stayed at the Jarrett house (now Faw’s apartment house.) Julia, Jess, Delia and Dolph met us there. Ed and Sheriff Fallang had left the night before trailing Mel Jewell. Joe’s funeral was held at the Congregational Church. The newspaper clipping of that date reports that the church wasn’t large enough to hold all the people who came to the funeral and that the "floral contributions were among the most elaborate ever seen."

    We heard another point of view to this tragedy some years later from Jim Brannin who was not quite four years old at the time. Jim and his mother were in Big Timber when they heard the news. His mother left for Melville – Jim didn’t remember who drove the buggy. He did remember his mother falling hard on the ice and hurting herself, and she was crying but as a little kid, he didn’t know if she was crying because she was hurt or what.

    In Melville, someone lifted him up so he could see his uncle lying there on a table. He then kid-fashion peeked through the curtain where the doctor was extracting the bullet from Ricketts. He got the impression before someone yanked him away, that the doctor wasn’t too sympathetic with his patient. Jim reminded us that his mother was pregnant at the time. Of course, the added burden to Dora was the relationship with both Joe and her sister’s brother-in-law, the killer.

    (Dora had a baby girl February 29, 1912. The baby, named Josephine, was badly crippled and died April 21, the same year.)

    Ed chased Jewell into Wyoming where he escaped into the southwest. A few years later he was caught for stealing horses and sentenced to 14 years in Nevada. He was paroled after a few years and brought back to Montana. He stood trial and was sentenced to twenty years in the State penitentiary. He escaped from the train on his way to Deer Lodge and was later on picked up. In 1919 he was granted a pardon on the basis of a petition so that he could "go overseas to fight and save some of the young men from going." Of course, the war was over that fall before 1919 so he was free again.

    She loved dancing. Before she came to the Sweet Grass, she used to go dancing. When they were still living in Silver City (Montana), she and Dolph would go dancing and leave Papa and Georgia to take care of the kids. Georgia didn’t dance and neither did Papa, so Dolph would take Mamma to the dances, and they would have a good time dancing. She danced all the different "old time dances." She and the girls did a lot of dancing in Utah when they spent the winter there among the Mormons. They had a great time as they didn’t get much chance to dance when they were in New Mexico as Papa didn’t approve of most of the men around the country there. (They part their hair in the middle and smoke cigarettes, he maintained.)

    Later in Melville, Mamma would come to the dances and sit all night watching the dancing and listening to Joe play, never seeming to grow tired. John Hoyem always spoke of how Mamma enjoyed herself in contrast to his mother who was horrified by anyone dancing.

    But now some of the music had gone from Mamma. She could only think of the many tunes she had whistled or sung for Joe and heard him play back on his violin.

    We left the first part of November; Mamma, Tooie, Gus and me. It was hard for Mamma to leave Sid and Crawford behind. Sid, of course, spent most of his waking hours with Dick, so he would be well off. However, with Crawford it was a different matter. Crawford had a great dependency upon Mamma. As a little boy of four he had a severe case of typhoid fever on the way from New Mexico to Montana. He developed double pneumonia along with it, and Papa had a doctor from Flagstaff see him. Ordinarily Papa did some of the doctoring himself believing in the magic of quinine tablets. Only now, they didn’t know if little Crawford would live. He did live, however, apparently the high fever did something to his brain, and he was left a little retarded. It also affected his body to some extent, weakening his legs so he had to learn to walk again and leaving one leg so that he always dragged it a little. Some of the family urged Mamma to send him to Boulder to the state school where he could be taught and trained, but Mamma refused to have him sent from home. This trip to California was the first time that Mamma had been away from him for any length of time.

    We stopped off in Marysville to see Julia and then to Silver to see Dolph and his family before going on to California. It rained every place we visited.

    Luella and Stanton met us in Los Angeles, and we went on to Downey by train and were met at the depot by one of the neighbors with a Democrat wagon, that was one with a fifth wheel, and a buggy. Anna had stayed home.

    We arrived at Luella’s little farm about noon time. I remember my first impression of the place. The white frame house was set back in the yard and had a geranium beside the bedroom window as high as the house. There were a lot of big pepper trees along the fence. Everything was green and the flowers were in bloom so it was quite different from Montana in November.

    Luella had fields of alfalfa and an orchard with fig trees, one apricot tree in the front yard and a few apple trees. There was a big weeping willow behind the house, a barnyard with a hay barn, cow and horse barn all under one roof, a couple of chicken houses and a corn crib. The latter had slats to let in the air. One cow was a black Jersey, and she had a yearling heifer who was humorously called "Bully."

    The house had three bedrooms, a living room, dining room, kitchen, front porch and a back porch with a store room where the milk in pans was kept. There was also a three story tank house and a windmill to pump water. I was really excited to be there. Anna and of course, Delia, were my closest friends whenever they got to the ranch. I was thirteen years old and Anna a year older, just the age when we could really have a good time together with all of our girl nonsense.

    I went to school in Downey along with Anna, only a different grade. The kids on our side of the lane went to the Downey school, and the ones on the other side went to Gallatin School in a friendly rivalry. We walked the two miles to school most of the time. Once in awhile we’d catch a ride, but not often. It was a short way to school, but it took us a couple of hours to walk home. Once we stopped at an orange orchard and got some oranges, but were almost caught. It scared us. Of course, we were scolded for doing such a thing.

   I was elected chore boy at Luella’s. I milked the cow and fed the chickens. Later on Luella bought a horse and buggy so I had another chore to do. I liked it though. Tooie didn’t want to go to school, but she and Luella got along so well she was entertained.

    She also visited old friends in Los Angeles, the Newmans. She had known the husband, Ned Newman, in New Mexico as Ed had ridden the range with him. They later came to Montana in 1922 and visited Ed and Mamma. I think it must have been very consoling for Mamma to visit these people, as she had never had a chance to see her folks since the time she had taken the four older ones to Santa Fe and had them baptized. She had planned to go back to New Mexico once after she had moved to Montana, but she received a letter from someone telling her that her parents had died, so of course, she didn’t go.

    On Thanksgiving, Luella had dinner and invited some of her in-laws. In cleaning a ditch behind one of the buildings, someone found a big watermelon in the sand, so we had watermelon for Thanksgiving, a treat I always associated with the fourth of July!

    During Christmas vacation, Anna and I went into Los Angeles and visited the Youngs and the Prices – relatives of Anna’s on the Cooper side. We went to the Christmas program at their church. Aunt Jeanette Price was very sick and in the hospital, so when we got home, Anna told her mother. Luella went into Los Angeles to do what she could to help. They needed some buttermilk as Aunt Jeanette had an ulcer and couldn’t eat anything but ice cream, milk and buttermilk, so Tooie took in fresh buttermilk for her.

    There was a revival meeting in Downey, Anna and I got some of the folks to go to it. There were a lot of people there, also good speakers and singers. After the meeting, I went to the Baptist Church because a lot of the girls I knew belonged there. Anna, Tooie and Luella went to the Methodist Church, so you see we were a divided family even then. My Sunday School teacher had a party for me when we were going to leave for home. It was a church picnic, and we took a trip to Long Beach from Downey in a truck.

    One time we wanted to go to Catalina Island, but Stanton, who was six years old, cried and "was scared." He said he was afraid he’d drown and all sort of excuses, so we didn’t go. The little rascal.

    Mamma, Tooie and I enjoyed it there, but we were glad to get back to Montana in the spring. Sid seemed quite grown up when we got home, but life soon settled down more or less to normal.

    So then Dick would come to me and say, "Say, Bill. Go out and find those horses for me."

    He always called me Bill when he had special work for me. His tone of voice always implied that I was the only one who had brains enough to find the horses. So I would climb on the wrangling horse and start up the canyon. Except for the wrangling horse, and perhaps a team once in a while that was kept in, the horses had the run of the canyon.

    I just let my horse find the herd. I’d watch his ears and let him go in that direction. More than once I had to ride clear up in the mountains above the Falls. I was always something of a ‘fraidy cat’, so believe me, it was spooky having to go those four and five miles up into that rough lonely canyon. The friendly evergreen trees that climbed up to the shale rock became hiding places for all kinds of dreadful "monsters", and the rustling cottonwoods and quaking aspen trees concealed other unmentionable things creeping up on me. If by any chance my horse shied or let out a little snort, I was practically paralyzed. Only my pride in doing what Dick wanted me to do kept me going sometimes. I usually found the horses, too. As I would ride in trailing the herd of horses, I forgot about all the "spooks" in the canyon and was very proud of myself and really pleased to know that my brother Dick had such confidence in me.

    In addition to being a brother and uncle, Dick was sort of a stand-in father figure, as they would say now. He always had a herd of nephews and nieces around in the summer. His theory for raising kids was pretty basic.

    "Now you take a horse and abuse him, and you’re going to have a horse you can’t trust. Same way with a kid."

    He also figured that if you put a kid on a horse and get him started out right that way, that kid might amount to something. He always said, "You can beat more cussedness into a dog or horse than you can beat out of them. Same way with a kid."

    His continual admonition to parents was "don’t fight the kids."

    Of course, Delia was there the minute school was out, Jesse Cannon indulging both Julia and Delia in anything they wanted. All of her daughters never lost the need to be with Mamma, no matter what age we were.

    Up in the Canyon, we never missed not being nearer to "civilization," not even in winter. I’ve always enjoyed a good snow storm and isolation in the Canyon was nothing to be concerned about. We had plenty to do. Feeding the stock took up most of the morning. Then it was time for "dinner", the mid-day meal and sitting down to Mamma’s beans, goat meat, potatoes and bread. For breakfast, we usually had biscuits, fried potatoes and gravy. Angora goat meat is about as good food as you can find, and Mamma sure knew how to cook beans!

    In the spring, there were new little goat kids, and we played with them until we smelled like goats ourselves. Little Angora kids are about the prettiest little things there are. They were kept in a little field when the nannies went out to graze. One could look out there and see the little kids suddenly run from one end of the field to the other, their long ears flapping, and looking like a flock of white birds. The goats had long before cleared the willows off the bottom. This eventually was turned into a pasture for the little goats and a large park like spot for the future ranch house. I can still smell the remaining willows along the little creek running through the little goat pasture.

    In the summer, there were always folks coming by and staying a few days. Then we would go to a dance or visiting by horseback or by spring wagon.

    July 4^th usually called for a big celebration. There was usually a rodeo in Melville. That meant a bucking contest, races, and a dance at night. Sid rode in the bucking contest the 4^th of July, 1914. Mamma never liked to have him ride. However, he was never thrown when he rode at rodeos even though he spent quite a few years on the rodeo circuit. He was just a little runt, but he stuck on the back of a horse like a cockle burr.

    I was always amused because when we were out riding for fun he always fell off if he was riding bareback. On the other hand, I enjoyed riding bareback and did most of my riding that way. It was easier on the horse.

    Then Barney came back from Alaska. The loss of Joe had shaken Mamma quite a bit and she missed Barney, and I guess was afraid to have him so far away in the "unknown." So someone wrote and told him that Mamma wanted him. He came back and stayed, even though his heart was always in the wilderness and wild animals he had seen in Alaska. Gus, too, came back from California, to be with Mamma. Somehow the boys sensed that Mamma’s old fears had come back to haunt her, and she needed her family near to be sure they were all right.

    We often sat around listening to stories about New Mexico and the trip to Montana. We were always impressed by Mamma’s big lie. We would all look at Dick at this point, because this story featured him as a little kid. Dick would look a little sheepish as Mamma told how that he was the only one of the children who had blonde hair and light colored eyes. The rest of the kids all had black hair and brown eyes, but Dick apparently inherited some of the blonde Spanish traits of Mamma’s father, who they called Goldie. As Mamma told it, some Apache scouts stopped by one day and seeing baby Dick playing on the floor offered, in a combination of Spanish and sign language, to take him out and bash his head.

    "He no good. He no belong to you. He Texicano!" The "Tehanico" – Texan, was not loved by the Apaches.

    Mamma, so scared she didn’t have time to think, reacted instinctively. "Yes, he is mine. He is like my father!"

    With great interest, one of the scouts asked who her father was.

    "Old Victorio is my father," our truth speaking mother answered.

    The Indians were impressed. "No one will bother your place or your family," they told her, and they never did.

    After they left, Mamma’s knees went limp – probably more from the lie that had come so easily to her lips. For some reason, the Apaches believed her – and they were well known for recognizing a lie. Mamma was always amazed about her lie. So were we. After all, Victorio was known to be a notorious Apache chief who outsmarted most white soldiers. There was also rumors that he really wasn’t an Apache, but had been a little Mexican boy stolen by the Indians and raised Apache. In any event, Mamma’s lie saved the family a lot of problems.

    Many times we sat around the house in the evening hearing Mamma and the boys tell Indian stories. We never got tired of them.

    Another story told was about the time Mamma went to look for a mare heavy with foal which had wandered from the camp. She had Ed, age 2, with her. He was usually chattering, but for once he was quiet and tagging a little behind her. She was a mile or so from camp walking quietly when she suddenly saw an Indian sitting on a rock chewing on a cornstalk, watching the teams going up the grade to the July 4^th celebration in Santa Rita. Quiet as an Indian herself, she swung around, grabbed Ed, putting her hand across his mouth and ran toward camp. She said she ran all the way and could hardly talk when she got there.

    They didn’t believe she could have run that far; however, when some of the men checked it out, they found the horse tracks, her tracks, and the chewed cornstalk and imprint of the butt of the Indian rifle. Mamma said that her lungs hurt for a long time after that.

    Mamma told us about an incident in Arizona on the way from New Mexico when she heard the tinkling of the goat bells in the middle of the night and knew the goats were leaving the camp site. She quickly got up and called Dick who was in charge of the goats. He answered her, and confident that he was right behind her, she went off in the dark following the herd and rounding them up.

    When she got back to camp, she found that Dick was still sleeping. She said she was really scared then. Mamma told me she never really got over her fears until she settled up in the Sweet Grass Canyon. Finally up there, protected by the mountains and far away from the past, she could find peace and could stay alone. But the horrid death of her beloved Joe had shattered that peace. Her "boys", sensitive as always to Mamma, never left her and gradually formed the Brannin Brothers ranch.

    As for us younger ones, Tooie, Sid and me, we were growing up, reluctantly, but growing up anyway.