Telling It Like It Was – Pt. 2

(From We Went Westward . . . Ho Ho Ho)

When a few weatherbeaten houses came into view, we drove up and saw one had a sign that said, HOTEL.  A man was sitting on the steps, and we asked him what the name of the place was.  We still laugh about it.  He looked puzzled for a bit, then said, “Gosh, I don’t know.  I’ll go in and find out.”

When he came back, he told us it was Alzada, and it was in Montana.  “Well,” I said, “It can’t be much farther now.”  But it was.  The road became narrow, muddy and more rutty.  It became necessary for me to brace myself with my feet to keep from “hitting the top.”  As mile after mile passed, I was sure the ruts would lead nowhere, just end out there in the mud somewhere.  I was so tired that I didn’t care much if they did.

The sun went down, and it was on a down grade that we high centered, but for good.  Then we had a lucky break.  A carload of teenagers, out for a drive, found us.  They were just bursting to help.  They told us that Broadus was the next town.  They knew a man who had a truck and would pull us out, and there was a hotel and a dairy where we could buy milk for the baby.  One girl sat on her boyfriend’s lap so Barney could go back with them.  Waiting in the car in the dark, it seemed the quietest place in the world.  I thank God that I didn’t hear a coyote howl that night.  I would have been sure that we would end up eaten by wolves.

The trucker got us out and refused pay, and it was a good thing as we were not very flush.  As long as I remember anything, I will never forget the mud in the hall at the hotel.  It was inches deep, and men in cowboy boots and big hats walked back and forth in it.  I bet the one who had to do the cleaning had to shovel it out every day.  We bought a quart of milk in a blue fruit jar, a loaf of bread, and a little something to make sandwiches, had a lunch in our room and turned in.

At six o’clock in the morning it was a noisy place as others started to stir around, so we ate what was left from the night before and went to the desk and asked directions to the homestead.  “Go ten miles north to the Olive Post Office, ” we were told.

“Then turn west through ranch land.  Go through three wire gates, turn south and follow the trail, and when you see a large barn, it will be a short way from it.”

We almost missed Olive.  It was a small brown building, and I saw the post office sign just in time.  So we turned and drove over range land.  Every so often there would be a small log building, and I asked Barney what they were.  He answered right off: “Houses.”  I waited for him to finish the joke, then realized it was the truth.

“You mean people live in those things?” I wailed.  It was quite a shock.

P. 2 – Copyright Esther Barnhart

Telling It Like It Was – Pt. 1

(From We Went Westward . . . Ho Ho Ho)

We came to Montana in 1933.  Not in a covered wagon, although there were times we could have made better headway in one.  It was the month of April when we left Kansas City, Mo., heading west in a Ford Coupe pulling what possessions we could get in a two wheel trailer.  Our girl was eighteen months old, named Marla, by her grandmother.  The baby boy, six months of age, we called Bud, because his sister was asked so many times, “Is that your brother?” that she called him “Buddy.”

The coal soot that blackened the curtains when the windows were open, the heat that made us perspire all night and only cooled a little about the time the milkman’s horse came clopping by, were among the reasons we wanted to move.  A man that lived in the city had a vacant homestead and said we could try our luck on it if we wanted to.  When word got around that Barney and Esther were going out west, friends and relatives did a lot of protesting.  I can still hear a cousin as she said loudly, “But why Montanaaaaa?”

We had both been raised in the country, and city life never got much of a hold on us.  Besides that, Barney had an uncle and family out there, so off we went.  It was a long way.  Man Alive!  It was a long way.  The first night we stayed in Nebraska City, Nebr., at a motel cabin for a dollar and a half.  The next evening we came to Winside, Nebr., where relatives of mine lived.  This was as far away from home as I had ever been, having visited them once before, so I thought Montana must be like Nebraska.

The trailer load had shifted, so Barney unloaded and rearranged it.  There was a heavy oak dresser that had been in his family a long time, a double bed with a mattress, two baby beds, a high chair, my cedar chest and a large wooden bakery box, both of these filled with clothing and other things.   There was a child’s rocker made of willow sticks that I had bought from a door to door salesman for fifty cents.  We brought four kitchen chairs, and a coaster wagon was on top of the tarp with chair legs sticking out.  The load stayed in place all the rest of the way, and how it could with all the rough roads we went over, I’ll never know.

The next night we stopped at Alpena, S. Dak., where Barney’s relatives lived and where he grew up.  Here he met old friends and fellows he went to school with.  The houses were large and the barns big and red.  “Maybe, ” I thought, “Montana will be more like South Dakota.”

We had a flat tire near Rapid City, S. Dak., and spent another night there.  Then the going was slower and rough.  Marla was carsick most of the time and threw up a lot.  Sometimes it took a while to figure out where the road was, as the frost had gone out of the ground, and there were tracks everywhere.

Before we got to Belle Fourche, there was a low place with water running over (the road.)  Our car sank down and stayed there.  No farmstead was to be seen or any sign of life anywhere.  Another car was stuck there too.  Then, two men came from around a hill and told us it was their car and said, “We will all be here for a long time.”

They were mad and had been drinking, and they scared me.  I wasn’t about to be there after dark, so I twisted off a lot of sagebrush, and Barney found some rocks.  Putting this under the wheels gave some traction, and after a while we got out.  Near the city we got quite a jouncing, as the trail went over large, partly exposed tree roots.  We left South Dakota behind and went through a stretch of Wyoming, seeing only wide open spaces, following a rutty road.

P. 1 — Copyright Esther Barnhart