Family?

I have been without internet access for several days.  I have been writing but was unable to post.  I should be caught up in the next couple of days.

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Townsend, Montana

I spent Friday morning with Louise, Dad’s childhood neighbor.  I met her for the first time the night before, along with two of her nieces.  But Friday was just the two of us at her house, sharing coffee and homemade cookies and conversation.

If I didn’t know better, I would say Louise is family:  she talks like family, she’s warm like family, she knows family stories.  But we’ve just met – and the only thing she knows about my family is from sometime after her birth in 1917 until about 1930.  She is five years younger than Dad, but she remembers him very well.  She also remembers his sister Frances and his brother Jim and his father Will. She says Dad’s mother was always very nice to her.  “She was a fine woman,” she told me.  Louise’s family and Dad’s family were close neighbors; they only lived a mile apart near the tiny town of Toston, Montana.

I wanted to know the connection, a connection that lasted their entire lives, between Louise’s brother Frank and my dad.  Frank was a year and half older than Dad; he was born on March 1, 1911.  Dad was born on November 26, 1912.  According to Louise, Frank was a man of few words.  Louise says he never talked about personal things, though he liked people a lot.  Dad was the same way – always involved with people and projects but seldom divulging interior thoughts or feelings.  I am wondering, even as young boys, if they understood that about each other.  I am also wondering what effect Dad’s broken arm and resulting lifelong handicap (though we never used that word) had on Frank.  I think those things can have a tremendous effect on young children.  Of course we will never know the answers; we can only speculate.

We talked about farm life in Montana and how you learned to make do and cope with whatever happens.  Life was hard and I suspect Dad’s parents cut him little slack. Louise and I talked about how you do the best you can and you go on.  We talked about how our families moved across the prairies in the late 1800s and early 1900s and how hard that must have been.  If people died along the way, you buried them where you were and kept on going.  But people were determined to move west.  Louise said people came to Toston in the 1860s because of the gold in Confederate Gulch where her family still has a cabin.  It was the richest gold location for miles.  Back in 1965, Frank took Dad and me to the cabin for an overnight.  We fished for trout, cleaned them, and Frank fried them for breakfast the next morning.  I remember him showing us the tobacco cans, nailed to the trees that held claim papers for gold in certain locations. 

Louise had all kinds of tidbits of information.  I peppered her with questions about farming and sheep raising and harvesting and school.  The more questions I asked, the more questions I had.  Louise was gracious and witty in her answers, and then she said, “I prefer to not dwell on the past.  I prefer to think of tomorrow, which will be more interesting than today.” The twinkle in her eyes often gave way to laughter.  Even with frustrating eyesight and reduced hearing, she is determined to stay active well beyond her 95 years.

Louise confirmed that the original ranch was 4000 acres.  The ranch has since been split among the family.  Current crops are hay, wheat, oats, and potatoes.  They keep the hay to feed their own herds of cattle and sheep.  The other crops are sold.  Louise is concerned about the huge round bales they use today, because they require machinery just to move them.  Used to be, with the rectangular bales, a man could move a bale by himself.  I used to help Dad load the small bales into the barn to feed our own horses when I was a kid.

Louise and I even share the same middle name:  Louise. Was I given this name because Dad knew her as a child and liked her name?  Again, we will never know, but we speculated.  She mentioned other people, people with the last name Connor and Hunter, both common names on Dad’s side of the family. More questions.  I was supposed to ask Louise about her counted thread cross stitch, which Nora said last night is absolutely fabulous.  But we had too much to talk about.

I reluctantly left after 2½ hours, with more questions unasked.  I will have to come back when I have more time.  Next time, I will bring pictures of Dad’s childhood and home, and dates of when they moved to Oregon. 

We have to return for another visit because she’s family.

Louise's home place

View from Louise's home place to where Dad's home might have been.