The Phipps Connection

as told by Bee Bell Knapp

    Old man Phipps was another freighter.  He had a run from Billings to Lewistown and he did it with bulls.  He was a bull whacker and could whack a horsefly on the lead team with a bull whip.  The bull team was a slow go.

    Phipps' wife was from back east and had some money.  She decided that her daughter, Frances, needed a littler eastern polish.  She took her back East, dressed her in new clothes and put her in a good school.  But Frances liked the west better than she did the East.  She liked the wide open prairies and horseback riding more than she liked her new clothes, and she liked young Buster Knapp better than she liked school.  She ended up becoming Mrs. Knapp, running a herd of cattle and keeping watch on four youngsters while Buster rescued farmers and stockmen from livestock raids by bears, coyotes, bobcats and a few mountain lions thrown in on the side.

    Mrs. Phipps advanced civilization in her ways. She let the old man handle the bull team and bought herself a new Model T.  She hired red-headed Mutt Sherod to chauffeur it.  Sometimes he would drive into Ingimar or Samatra and she would take the train to Billings, Miles City or some other place.  Mutt would stay in the hotel until she came back.  The only problem with chauffeuring was the Mrs. Phipps didn't always know where she wanted to go.  Sometimes she didn't make up her mind until they were part way to some other place.

    Mrs. Phipps was a Republican.  Her husband was a Democrat.  They had a bet of five hundred bucks on the Presidential election.  The radio brought the news that her candidate won.  "Pay up," she said.

    "Danged if I will," was Phipp's reply.  "That fool radio doesn't know any more about it than I do."

    He didn't pay until he got the daily paper which came once a month.

    One day Mutt was driving Mrs. Phipps past the place where John and I lived.  They stopped in to see us.  John was Mutt's half-brother.  We were farming together.

    Mrs. Phipps looked the bachelors' homestead over.  "This place is a worse mess than mine will be when I get back home," Mrs. Phipps declared.  She set about giving the house a good cleaning before she went on to town.

Edgar Floyd "Buster" Knapp

and

Mary Frances Phipps

were married October 15, 1927

picture:  Buster & Frances Knapp's wedding anniversary

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