Reflections on a Woman Homesteader

Guest post by Christy Goll, Assistant Editor, Montana The Magazine of Western History.

I read last month's post about the county history books on the Montana Memory Project until I got to the third paragraph—and then I stopped in shock. Lois Imler Warren? She was my great grandmother!

March is Women’s History Month. What better time to do a little research on a female ancestor? I searched for Lois Imler Warren on the Montana Memory Project, and found her diary printed in east Blaine County’s history, Thunderstorms and Tumbleweeds. Lois came to Montana in 1914 to join her brothers Albert and Frank and took a homestead on the Big Flat near Turner. Her diary is a glimpse into the life of a woman homesteader.

"I got up at 5 to get breakfast for Albert," she wrote soon after arriving in Montana. "Made some soap from some cracklins and lie [sic] that were here. Made a cupboard of three shelves from a few boxes and put the dishes into it. In the afternoon I washed up the dirty clothes the boys had laying around the shack. I had to put them through the boil suds and boiling twice and they was somewhat ashamed of them."

But Lois didn’t work so hard every day. On January 10, she "Got up at 10:00. L.D. [Lowell Warren, who was courting her] came down with eggs so I could bake a birthday cake. Audra and T. Simons came over at 3:00. They stayed all night. We played cards & checkers had popcorn & apples."

A month later, Lowell took a trip back east. While he was gone, Lois’s entries grew shorter: "Did fancy work & usual chores," she wrote on February 23. On March 26 Lois wrote: "I felt quite blue in the morning and read over all of Lowell’s letters to me and the tears ran down my cheeks." But the day had a happy ending—when Lois went out in the evening to do the chores, she "saw L.D. come around the barn." Two days later, they took the train to Havre and were married. For entertainment that evening, they "took in city" and attended a lecture at the high school on "Booze and business."
What a fascinating woman! Her story is one of many; the Montana Memory Project is a good starting place to find out about your own ancestors. You’ll find even more resources at the Montana Historical Society Research Center. What will you discover about the women in your family?

My favorite discovery? Lois and L. D.’s wedding photo. It turns out that I look just like her.

Christy Goll, March 2011



Lowell and Lois Warren on their wedding day, March 28, 1915

New resource for genealogists goes live

If a book like Montana: A History of Two Centuries offers the “macro” history of our state, county histories give us the “micro.” With a generous grant from Humanities Montana, the Society recently digitized 23 Montana county history books comprising more than 11,000 pages. These books are now available on the Montana Memory Project, an online tool that enables users to type a search term and instantly retrieve any page on which the term appears. A treasure trove for family historians with Montana roots, the collection currently includes histories of Big Horn, Blaine, Dawson, Fallon, Garfield, Hill, Lincoln, McCone, Musselshell, Pondera, Prairie, Richland, Roosevelt, Sheridan, Stillwater, Toole, Treasure, Wheatland and Wibaux counties.

Varying in size from one hundred pages to one thousand, each county history presents the story of one piece of Montana, told by those who lived it. Typically, the books are organized into hundreds of first-hand accounts, each focusing on a single family, homestead, event, or institution. This fiercely narrow focus reflects the books’ creators—not academics or theorists but everyday folks driven by curiosity and affection.

And the riches these books reveal? Where else can you find a hand-drawn map of Big Sheep Mountain with each family’s homestead carefully penciled in? Or a captioned photograph of the 1928 girls’ basketball team in Terry, Montana? (Wheels Across the Prairie) How about a complete transcription of homesteader Lois Imler Warren’s 1914-16 diary? (Thunderstorms and Tumbleweeds) Or Dora Jarrett’s memory of riding a horse six miles—then walking another mile and a half—to her first teaching job at age 19? The horse, Dora explains, was deposited in the last available shelter, because “horses were more valuable than teachers.” [Horizons O'er the Musselshell]

A good portion of county history projects were conceived and nurtured by the local women’s club. Sometimes, funds were raised and a professional writer commissioned. But more often, content was collected by a “book committee,” who visited, telephoned and wrote to hundreds of residents, asking them to contribute memories, stories and photos. [For more on women’s clubs in Montana, see this March 2009 blog post.] Such a project was years in the making and undertaken only for a significant milestone, such as the county’s 100th birthday. When the manuscript was finally ready, it often went to press at the offices of the local newspaper.

It was a privilege to work with these remarkable books and to make them accessible in digital form. They are not just a record of an area’s past. They are a testament to the pride of its citizens: pride in a community and its longevity but especially in the struggles, hard work, and enterprise of those who built and sustained it.

Jo-Jo, The Dog-Faced Russian Boy!

Daily Yellowstone Journal,
July 31, 1887, page 2

The staff involved in Montana's National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP) grant spend many hours of looking at historical newspapers on microfilm. To keep things interesting, we look for pages with intriguing headlines, illustrations and ads.
One such advertisement was for S.H. Barrett’s New United Monster Show, which visited Miles City on August 16, 1887. We noticed the ad in the July 31, 1887 issue of the Daily Yellowstone Journal and saw it reappear daily for a few weeks (see ad above). Then it would disappear until the following summer. The show's main attraction was "Jo-Jo, the Dog-Faced Russian Boy." Our Photo Archives staff located a photograph (below) of Jo-Jo in our collection. According to his Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fedor_Jeftichew), "Jo-Jo" was actually Fedor Jeftichew, born in Russia in 1868. Fedor’s distinctive look was due to the medical condition called hypertichosis (hair growth in amounts considered abnormal). Fedor was first brought to the United States in 1884 by P.T. Barnum and he toured extensively until his death in 1904.

Jo'Jo' The Dog Faced Russian Boy, Chas Eisenmann,
The Popular Photographer, NY, Tilton Family Photograph
Collection Lot 5 Box 4 Folder 6

The Daily Yellowstone Journal’s review stated:

"While we were not particularly stuck on Jo-Jo the fact remains that he is all and more than represented. The human skye terrier was the wonder of the women and children who apparently appreciated his wonderful growth of hair to a greater extent, even than the men. Barrett’s circus and menagerie is well worth the admission charged.”

Find additional information on Fedor Jeftichew at
http://thehumanmarvels.com/?p=59. The Daily Yellowstone Journal (1887-90) is available online at Chronicling America (http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/) .

Archives Month Activities Continue: How to Care for Your Family History

On this blog the Montana Historical Society Research Center staff has discussed a variety of ways that archivists and librarians provide public access to historical materials. Another important function of working at the historical society is taking measures to preserve the materials in our care. Since the Montana Historical Society has staff that is knowledgeable about how to preserve documents, books, photographs, and objects—we decided to use this knowledge to give an Archives Month presentation to the public on how to care for their family history.

The Montana Historical Society Archives and Museum staff worked together to present a three part presentation on preservation: Lindsay Matson, Photograph Archivist, discussed how to preserve photographs inexpensively and effectively, Rowena Harrington, Assistant Registrar for the Museum, talked about how to prevent the deterioration of objects, and Caitlan Maxwell, Electronic Records Project Archivist, presented on how to care for documents and books. I am excited to say that we had a full house. People were very enthusiastic and had tons of questions for us on how to care for their collections. Some people even had useful preservation tips of their own to share with the rest of the audience. For example: did you know that you can remove photographs from a scrapbook safely by using dental floss?

In addition to our presentations—we also had handouts with contacts for licensed appraisers and conservators, as well as links to go for more information and preservation supplies. In November we are offering a second opportunity for the public to talk with the staff at the Montana Historical Society about preservation. There will be an open house on November 6th from 2-4pm where people can bring 1-2 small items (or photographs of the items if they are too large or fragile) to the research center reading room to talk with us about how to care for the item. It has been a very exciting Archives Month here at the Montana Historical Society!

Online Resources:

University of Washington Libraries: Annotated List of Useful Websites on How to Care for Family History

Montana Historical Society List of Manuscript Appraisers and Dealers

Archives Month in Full Swing

MHS librarians Anne McDonnell and Virginia
 Walton work to save Helena banking records, 1955

Who do we think we are, anyway? Well, we are archivists seeking to celebrate the work we do! October is Archives Month across the country, and this year the staff of the MHS Archives wanted to spotlight the long tradition of “history keepers” in Montana going all the way back to 1865 and the founding of the Montana Historical Society. A couple weeks ago on Oct. 7 we kicked off our celebration with a light-hearted program revealing the men and women of Montana who were critical to collecting and caring for the superb historical collections we now hold at the MHS archives and photo archives. Rich Aarstad, archivist and oral historian, began with a tale of the original “Beard of Directors,” reviewing the efforts of the Montana pioneers (and mostly bearded men) who founded and led the Historical Society through its first decades of existence. State Archivist Jodie Foley, then illuminated the audience on the “maternal branch” of the Society’s history as she celebrated the long line of female library professionals who began applying professional standards to the care of archival collections. The MHS archives came into its own during the “Age of Acquisition” in the late 1960s and early 1970s, as explained by Archivist Jeff Malcomson. The Montana Legislature in 1969 declared MHS the official state archives, while at the same time MHS administration hired professional historians, like Brian Cockhill and Lory Morrow, for the first time to work solely with the archives collections. Archives acquisitions quickly increased through the 1970s and 80s, right on through to the significant collections of today. Caitlan Maxwell, electronic records project archivist, concluded the presentation by describing the coming of the computer and its impact on the MHS Archives. She demonstrated the multiple ways computers are used to make the Archives collections accessible to the public and users around the world.  The MHS Archives and photo archives have come a long way, and we look forward to carrying on our mission into the future.