COUNTRYSIDE YARNS
Home on the Range in the Wild West, Part 2
by Janis Stein

Join in the continuation as a little girl recalls her Father building their tar-paper shack on their new Montana homestead.

Father promptly built a tar paper shack on our new land - it would be our dwelling during the summer months until our real home could be built. Mother bristled at the thought, but Father did what he had to do. I began to wonder, too, about Father's decision; the land looked mostly barren, no trees and no green clover.

The shack measured 18 by 16 feet and mainly consisted of one big room, though one area was partitioned off for Mother and Father's sleeping quarters and another for the chamber pot. Mother's wood cook stove lined one of the walls, though eventually she would burn the soft coal Father discovered in a vein in the nearby cut bank. Our tar paper shack sported bare wooden walls on the interior, and a hard, smooth dirt floor. When Mother commented on the substandard condition of the place, Father promptly reminded her that the tar paper shack was temporary housing - before long the chickens would take up their residence.

After Uncle Bill's debt was paid off Father had little money left, but he did have enough to buy a few cattle to start his herd as well as two milk cows for the family. Though he had to travel some distance to find timber, Father worked hard felling trees for our house, and eventually the barn and granary, too, but winter came early that year, forcing us out of the chicken coop and into the home of Mother's sister in Glendive. The construction of our new home would have to wait 'til spring.

Moving back to Glendive was another great adventure, and I loved Aunt May and Uncle John; both were as happy as you please and added cheer to my every day. Uncle John was a railroad engineer on the Northern Pacific line and, upon his arrival home, he always brewed a batch of root beer from extract, all the while sharing stories about the railroad and the movement west.

Spring brought with it new hope, and Father's priority was to regain Mother's favor by completing the house. Though our neighbors - the nearest was five miles away - all lived in sod houses, Father built ours of wood into the side of a low bank. Our home consisted of one large room with the kitchen at one end, and two bedrooms and a small room for storage at the other. The floor was built of wood as well - Mother would not settle for dirt!

Beside our home, a root house was dug into the bank for our winter vegetable storage, and another room was dug out to store our coal, kerosene and kindling. Father already had a taste of the harshness of winter on the homestead, and he kept that in mind, designing his plans so both the root house and the coal room could be accessed easily in stormy weather.

Father chose the location of the well, and then set to work on digging it. On the top he crafted a heavy wooden frame and fastened it in place so my sister and I wouldn't fall in. Within the well, Father placed hooks all around. Little pails with covers would eventually hang on those hooks, refrigerating our milk as well as the good store of canned tomatoes Father liked to quench his thirst. Eggs and butter along with anything else that needed to be kept cool were lowered with ropes from the hooks. Father said we were fortunate to have a good well. Other homesteaders weren't so lucky.

Feeling guilty for Father's predicament, Grandfather came from Detroit for a spell to help plant the grand garden we would need to carry us through the next winter. Since Father had but a few cattle in his herd, he needed to farm to raise some money to supplement the ranching operation. Of the 360 acres, Father planted 10 acres of flax, and to my surprise when the crop blossomed, the bland Montana prairie transformed into an ocean of blue.

Father helped Mother as much as possible, but he was often busy on the land and with the livestock. Living her new pioneer's life, Mother showed great strength in the time she spent washing, ironing, baking and sewing. The garden proved to be a lot of work for her, too, but my sister and I helped out anyway we could. In the fall, we were proud of our efforts, harvesting an abundant supply of potatoes, cabbages, rutabagas and turnips to store in our root house. Father also bought boxes of apples that came from Oregon; these he purchased from a little town called Terry, which was closer in proximity to us than Glendive. Because the root house didn't freeze, Father also bought a variety of canned goods, boxes of dried apples and dried peaches and boxes of salted cod fish, and Mother had to be sure to stock enough flour, sugar and other cooking essentials to last through the long winter.

Winter came then with a vengeance, and while I thought Father may be able to slow his pace - he had accomplished much in the past few months - I soon learned surviving a Montana winter would take even more strength than the summer. Caring for the livestock was a constant concern, and if there wasn't a storm raging I sometimes accompanied Father to the barn. Either Molly or Tiny needed to milked, depending on which cow was producing, and Bud and King, Father's team of horses needed to be fed and watered. We didn't have to worry about feeding Porky our pig, since Father butchered him in the fall to complement our winter's diet; Mother fried Porky down, storing the lard in a crock and salting the pork for storage in the root cellar.

Father made sure the livestock ate before we did, and when we got back inside and shed our outdoor gear we huddled by the cook stove to thaw. Mother always made sure we had hot cereal for breakfast, whether it was cream of wheat, oatmeal or cornmeal, though we all favored oatmeal. We ate our meal off the glass dishes Mother used when we had lived in Glendive. Father thought we were probably the only homesteaders in all of Montana with such fine dinnerware, but he didn't tease Mother about it. Mother did her best to accept this new existence; a pioneer woman's life was often a lonely one.

After breakfast, my parents taught us reading, writing and arithmetic using a large slate for written work. We never tired of listening to Mother read to us or of Father regaling tales from his cowboy days. Father was an animated story teller, and we made for a captive audience. He often spoke of his buddy, Charles Ruggles, and how the pair would sit on the low-growing buffalo grass and scrape it away to draw pictures in the dirt.
Father also taught us about the star formations and how to read weather signs. In the summer, we would lie outside on our backs and look up at the stars. The Montana sky was so close and the moon so big, Father dreamily mused someday somebody might visit the moon. Father taught us ho
w to use the stars as a guide; should we ever get lost we wouldn't stay that way for long.

Be sure to look for the continuation next month when a handful of Blackfoot Indians come a knockin'.

Have a yarn you'd like to share? We'd be happy to spin it. You may write to Janis in care of The Lakeshore Guardian, 9697 Purdy Rd., Harbor Beach, MI 48441, or give us a call at 989-479-3448 to share your story.

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