By Margaret Knapp

August, 1931

    I well remember our first camp after leaving our Sumatra homes. Besides us were my parents and brother John plus B’s parents and brother Frank.

    Each covered wagon was loaded with as much as we could safely haul, pulled by one team of horses with another spare team tied on behind. Our wagon was fixed with a bed for the girls which was also their only place to play while on the road.

    The first nite we got only as far as Melstone and camped on the Musselshell river. The horses were all fresh and some were skittish. During the night one of Dad Knapp’s horses got loose. We all piled out of our bed rolls and we had just gotten out of ours when the mare’s big hooves were right in the middle of it. They finally got her quieted down and tied up again and we lay back down and went to sleep until day lite.

    As I recall the roads weren’t the same as now, and most of them weren’t paved. Some were graveled and made it pretty hard on horses’ hooves. So as they got foot sore, we would camp early and the men would shoe them. Which wasn’t easy, as mostly they’d never had them worked on before. Especially their hind feet.

    Our road let up thru Roundup, Helena, and Missoula. The continental divide is just west of Helena. We all walked over the divide to help the horses as much as possible. You didn’t realize how much you were going up until you looked back from where you came.    

    At Missoula we had to stop and have the horses tested for glanders, so we were there long enuf to do some washing in the creek. No hot water. B took Jean to the dentist there and he pulled a tooth. When he finished she jumped down madder than hops. He "pulled the wrong tooth!"

    Our route led up thru Ravalli, Paradise, Plains, Thompson Falls, Trout Creek, and on to the shores of beautiful Lake Pend d’Orielle and to Sandpoint, Idaho, to Samuels (our P. O.) where we had already bought a few acres.

    All were pretty happy to finally arrive after a month on the road. I guess probably the happiest were the horses. Grass was high and tender and special for horses as it was timothy mostly. With plenty of good fresh water. They weren’t used to that.

    We were quite a curiosity on the road, as people hadn’t traveled that way in some time, and some even wanted pictures of our "train".

    In all that trip our only bath tub was the mountain streams. And believe me, they made you yell when you stepped in above your knees. So our "swims" were pretty short lived with chattering teeth to finish up. The girls didn’t object much, but what kids objects to paddling in even cold water?

    The first item on the agenda was a little fence fixing so the horses wouldn’t stray. They were used to staying close to the wagons, but of course if they don’t work every day, they forget that.

    My dad was in seventh heaven to get where there was timber. He had started working in the woods when he was 12 and was an expert. Our place had been cleared at one time, so our timber was mostly leaf trees. But we had some white cedar and hemlock, also some fir and white pine. So he couldn’t rest until he got started clearing brush and wind falls. One day he and I were there alone with the girls when he came in all humped over and said, "They sure got me!" He had gotten into a bald headed hornets’ nest and they had stung him all over the face. And you’ve never been stung until you’ve been hit in the face by a bald headed hornet! The folks had some Raleighs liniment and he wanted me to put some on him. I didn’t think too much of it, but went ahead and used it. It was pretty good stuff tho, as it eased his hurts and didn’t swell much.

    The folks got places side by side near Elmira, not many miles north of us and each built log cabins.

    We built a log house with huge fallen white cedar logs. One log was big enuf to make both the bottom logs on the long side with plenty of room for the door step. Al Campbells’ had moved in near us before we got there and surprised us the day we arrived by coming to see us. We were glad to have old neighbors close by, and Al helped us get our log house built. B cut cedar logs the right length, and I made shakes to roof the house. I got quite expert with that froe. We got the house liveable just in time as on Nov. 11 (1931) when we woke up, the snow was so heavy on the tent that it had sagged to just a few inches above our heads.

    Of course, we had had time to only build one large room before we had to abandon the tent, so we had one end for the bedroom and the other for the kitchen and dining room. So it made a good place for the girls to play and they really polished that white pine floor using my old cape for a sled to give their cat a ride.

    The snow kept piling up because there was no wind and it would build up so high on wires and stumps that they didn’t really look like wire and stumps. All the time it was thawing underneath and if you got off the beaten path you were liable to bog down in it as that slush really packed around your feet and legs. In the spring I measured the snow depth on a white pine tree in the yard, and it was shoulder deep to me all winter. There were always long icicles hanging from the eaves, so we had no trouble getting ice whenever we wanted to make ice cream. But we loved it because we had only about 2 weeks of could weather all winter.

    We started a beautiful garden in the spring, but it was during the depression and there was no way to get money for needed clothes or foods we couldn’t raise. So towards fall, Fred said there was work there that the men folks could get, so we loaded up the wagons again and headed south. My folks didn’t go because they had cord wood they could sell to get a little money. Frank stayed in Elmira too as he had a heart throb there.

    I can’t remember too much about the trip to Menan, mostly because I had been quite sick and had a few bad spells on the road. We had sold our spare teams so couldn’t make quite such good time. We back tracked some, then turned south and I remember camping in Anaconda one nite. Then on south and crossed the divide again at Monida. We drove thru some beautiful country, mostly mountains.

    One of Dad’s horses got sick and we had to lay over one day to let him heal up, so when Fred and Minnie came looking for us, they came one day’s drive more than they figured on. But they were determined to take the women and kids home in their car so we wouldn’t have to cross that day or so of desert. I certainly didn’t want to go as I had never met either of them before, but everyone insisted, and over rode my wishes.

    When the men got there Fred had a big house for us and we each had our own "apartment" in it. Some time later Frank and Berniece came and lived there too. B used his team and hauled potatoes from the fields to the "spud house" where Dad worked sorting them. Later he hauled grain and when the beets were ready he and Frank had topping crews and topped beets.

    Frank irrigated and B hauled whatever needed it. Then he got steady work with one man and fed lambs. Quite a winter job.

    In the spring his boss moved us to a different ranch where he irrigated and cut and hauled hay. Then later we moved back to the first ranch and he fed lambs again. Jean started to school that fall.

    We had sold our horses and bought a car apiece by then. Had saved up enuf money at $25.00 a month to lease a place for ourselves so loaded our wagons again and started back to Montana where we hoped we’d be able to find a place to lease. It was some different traveling by car. So much easier and faster.

Betty, Margaret, Jean, Bee Knapp                                    Margaret Knapp at the second wagon            

        at their Idaho home                                                      Florence Knapp with Jean & Betty

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