Longtime residents retain a wealth of information. They can tell us how people have lived within the ecosystem over time. Their stories are not only entertaining, they provide clues as to how we can both use and protect our forests, wildlife, water and a rural way of life. Swan Valley journalist, Suzanne Vernon, local students and volunteers, are conducting oral histories of longtime residents and summarizing them for Swan Ecosystem Center and the Upper Swan Valley Historical Society, with the goal of publishing a book.
Oral History summaries, volume I and II are available for $15 each at our gift shop in the notebooks "Swan Valley, a Century of Change." Featured below is an excerpt:
Researching family history can be a time-consuming and arduous task. Beginning in the late 1990s, Mark Lawrence began helping his mother - Alice Brunson Lawrence - record her life story as part of a combined family effort involving cousins, aunts, uncles and friends. Alice was fast approaching ninety years of age, and determined to give her family the stories about their Montana heritage.
In 2001 Mark delivered bound copies of his mother's memoirs to the Upper Swan Valley Historical Society and Swan Ecosystem Center.
The following contains excerpts from Alice's memoirs, reprinted with permission.
Alice Brunson Lawrence's family settled in Montana in the decades of America's western expansion following the Civil War. Alice's father, Wiley Brunson, moved to Miles City, Montana, from Missouri in 1897, at age 18. By 1901, he had secured full-time work as an engineer with the Northern Pacific Railroad, which eventually led him to Missoula, where he worked for the NP's Rocky Mountain Division. In 1904, he married Minnie Linn Sheldon, a Montana native. Minnie's parents had arrived in Montana Territory in 1883, and eventually established a ranch near Garrison.
Following their marriage, Alice's parents lived in Missoula until 1910, when they moved to Garrison, which was on the railroad route between Helena and Missoula. Alice was born at Garrison that same year. "Prior to my birth, my mother had planned to go to the hospital in Deer Lodge, 30 miles away. However, about three weeks before I was due, a Northern Pacific engineer, and husband of a very good friend of my mother's, was killed in a train accident. In helping her, my mother became very emotional and her labor started prematurely. I was born three weeks early at home with the help of a local Garrison doctor and my [grandmother] who came in from the ranch near Garrison."
Alice joined a sister, Ethel, who was three years older. The family moved back to Missoula in 1912, where they made their permanent home.
"During those years in Missoula, from the age of two, I had problems with bronchial pneumonia in the winters," Alice explained. The recurring illnesses were a constant worry for her parents. However, after moving to the Swan Valley when Alice was five years old, the episodes of bronchial pneumonia subsided. Alice's father credited the Swan Valley with healing his daughter.
Alice and her family first visited the Swan Valley in 1916, after hearing stories about the area's homesteading opportunities from her father's friend and fellow railroad engineer, Bill Deegan.
"Interest in filing for homesteads in the valley was spurred by a proposal of the Northern Pacific to build a line through the area where they had large tracts of land. It would connect Missoula with Glacier National Park," Alice explained.
In 1916, people were still traveling by horse and buggy into the Clearwater and Swan valleys. Alice explained, "Since the trails were not good enough for cars to make the trip, my parents rented a covered wagon and a team of horses from a livery stable owned by Elmer and his sister, Sadie, Sailing, who became very close friends of our parents from then on."
The trip took five days from Missoula, and the family camped overnight along the route. Camps included a site near the Blackfoot River at Potomac on the first night; Blanchard Flats (near Clearwater Junction) the second night; the Seeley Lake Post Office (which was next to the Clearwater River above Seeley Lake) on the third night; then up and over the Swan/Clearwater Divide to the Gordon Ranch where they camped on the fourth night, which Alice described as "my only pleasant memories of the trip." The Gordon Ranch, she said, "was a pretty place with a small stream and tall trees."
The next day, the Brunson family finally reached the Swan River near the mouth of Glacier Creek, "where the trails had stumps in the middle of them," she explained. Her father explored the area, looking for suitable land. A year later, in 1917, he made his claim in the Swan Valley.
"Dad filed and settled on a 160-acre homestead west of Elk Creek and two miles northwest of Condon," she said. "This location disappointed Mama, who wanted a parcel with a stream where she could have a cabin next to it."
Wiley Brunson had no trouble finding a willing and capable man to build the family's cabin. "Upon filing, Dad hired Joe Richmond, an earlier homesteader and adjoining neighbor to the west, who also served as road superintendent, to build a log cabin. He also built a small log barn and chicken house just west of the cabin and a root cellar just northwest and below the front porch," she explained. Richmond also built a bridge across "Big Elk Creek," enabling residents west of the stream to cross the channel without getting wet. (In those days, two forks of Elk Creek carried cold spring water and snowmelt from the Mission Mountains to the river. The larger channel, which today is dry, was known as Big Elk Creek. The stream we know today as Elk Creek, was the smaller of the two channels.)
In August of 1917, the family - accompanied by "Aunt Heppie" who lived with them - moved to the homestead from Missoula. This time, road improvements enabled them to drive their 1913 Model T as far as a hotel at Blanchard Flats, near Clearwater Junction. "Since the Model T Ford only had two speeds forward, it was necessary to keep it in low gear throughout much of the trip. With the car open on both sides above the doors, a lot of dust came into the car," she remembered.
They left their car at the hotel and transferred their baggage and other essentials to a rented wagon for the remainder of the journey, because the roads into Seeley Lake and the Swan Valley, at that time, were still not passable by car.
Upon arrival at the homestead, Alice's father immediately went to work on necessary outbuildings and a well. "Dad built an outhouse on the north side of the cabin, and he and Ethel dug a 30-foot well in a swale to the west of the house and below the barn that provided good domestic water," she explained.
Mark Lawrence, in helping his mother to record her stories, discovered that his grandfather built a "Missouri-style" outhouse, rather than a pit-privy which was more common in Montana at that time.
"The Missouri-style outhouses were also known as "tray-houses," he explained. "It was a style used in rocky terrain in Missouri. My grandfather evidently thought it was the best option for the rocky soils he encountered in the Swan Valley. The trays had to be emptied periodically."
Mark was also surprised by the shallow well that his grandfather dug to supply the family with drinking water. "The horses even drank from the well," he said, shaking his head, adding that it must have been a miracle that nobody got sick from polluted water.
Alice remembered many other aspects of the homestead in her memoirs.
"Mama also had chickens for providing eggs and eating. They were kept in the chicken house along with extra wood for heating our cabin. Since we didn't live near the stream, we didn't have a garden. Mama did grow some rhubarb near the root cellar. At the time my parents filed for their homestead, another neighbor of ours was Harry Wissinger who lived on an 80-acre homestead at the northwest corner of our property. He would occasionally bring us huckleberries in a basket that he had made from the bark of a tree," she said.
Alice's father was a very capable man who cleared the land, then planted and harvested it. "He ditched the four wetlands and drained them to provide... pasture for two horses and two milk cows," she remembered. "The wetlands consisted of a small lake directly behind the cabin; a small pond behind the barn; a larger, round pond north of the cabin and a long lake about two acres in size that was about [a half mile] northwest of the cabin. We later referred to this area as the Long Meadow."
Inside the cabin, Alice's father built a bedroom for himself and his wife, and a sleeping loft for Aunt Heppie and the children, accessed by a ladder.
"Aunt Heppie and I slept together on a double bed that was made of log poles with springs and a mattress on it. Ethel, my sister, slept on a portable cot next to us. Auntie's cat also slept upstairs with us. To keep warm we used homemade nine-patch quilts that Mama and Aunt Heppie made by tying them together with yarn tied off with bows."
During the winters of 1917 and 1918, Alice's dad took short vacations to finish clearing the property of lodgepole pine. However, he was absent from the homestead much of the time due to the demands of his work with the railroad. It was up to the rest of the family to help establish residence on the property (which was required by the Forest Homestead Act of 1906) by staying at the homestead nearly full-time until the spring of 1921, when they finally "proved up" on the homestead.
Several school-aged children lived in the Elk Creek area, including the Sias children, who became best friends with Alice and her sister. The Sias families (A.I. Sias and M.I. Sias) moved to the Swan Valley from the Flathead Indian Reservation, and were among only a few Native Americans to file for homesteads in the Swan Valley.
Minnie Brunson actively lobbied the Missoula County Superintendent and local school board to build a new school near Elk Creek, and she was successful.
"With the number of families who had moved into the western edge of the valley, it soon became evident that it would be difficult for the children to get to the Rumble Creek School during the winter [because it was] two miles away," Alice explained. The Elk Creek School was built between the forks of Elk Creek in Section 35 in 1918. (Very little remains of the school building today.)
Alice and Ethel started attending classes at the Elk Creek School during the summer of 1918, under the direction of Miss Jessie Larkin, who also boarded with the Brunson family. "She was like a big sister to us," Alice recalled.
Other students who started attending the school that year included two Sias boys, Carl Haasch, Minnie Sias and Thora Maloney.
"During the winter we hiked three-quarters of a mile with the Sias children in snow halfway up to our knees or deeper to get to school. The boys broke trail in front of us. We also crossed the Big Elk Creek Bridge that had been built by Joe Richmond," she remembered.
During the summer, the children enjoyed all sorts of outdoor games. For Alice and Ethel, favorite pasttimes included catching and playing with frogs from the meadow behind the house. "We would also make clothes for them," Alice wrote. "We each had one frog at a time, but when Mama noticed they were getting sleepy, we were told to return them to the pond."
Alice and Ethel attended Elk Creek School until the spring of 1921, when the family moved back to Missoula.
From 1921 to 1929, the Brunson family vacationed at their Swan River homestead for periods of up to three weeks in late July and early August. "My close friend Merlyn Jones sometimes went with us and we swam and hiked," Alice recalled. "Dad always went fishing... and would take two fishing baskets once a week and fill them up with bull trout and what he called "red bellies" [cutthroat]. He would bring them to the cabin and Mama and I would clean them in a wash tub."
Throughout high school, Alice's mother encouraged her to become a teacher, and Alice eventually agreed.
In June of 1931, Alice graduated from the Washington State Normal School with a two-year teaching diploma. She was selected to be the first teacher of the newly created Smith Flats School in Swan River during July of that year. She was paid $100 a month and taught seven students in grades 3rd through 8th.
"The Smith Flats School was different from other schools in the area since Royden and John Hollopeter had originally built it as a house for their sister, Anna Hollopeter. The house was rented by the school board for $5-$10 per month, and had windows on both sides, rather than one side without windows as called for in school buildings. It was located on the east bank of Swan River [behind the modern-day Condon Work Center] and the boys, primarily Harold Haasch and Russell Maloney, hauled water from the river for use in the room. It also had both boys' and girls' outdoor toilets," she wrote. Alice boarded with the Forrester family, who lived across the river next to Glacier Creek, and enjoyed spending free time with her many friends in the area.
"During the winter, community dances were occasionally held at the Rumble Creek School that would last until 3 a.m. I went by horse drawn sleigh with my friends Bill and Beryl Hoogbruin who had originally homesteaded in the valley in 1918, then moved to California, and had returned in 1930 during the Depression. I spent many a weekend with them and walked to their place from the Forresters. They, along with the Maloneys, hosted the Rumble Creek socials where music was by accordion or violin and refreshments were served at midnight."
Alice told a humorous story about her students that first year. Apparently a spirited girl in the first grade fell in love with eighth grader, Harold Haasch. The youngster, in a desperate attempt to win affection, teased the young man to the breaking point. Harold picked up the young lady, put her over his knee, and paddled her hind end. As Alice remembered, when the crying ended, so did the teasing. No other discipline was necessary, for either student, she said.
In September of 1932, Alice returned to teach a second year at the Smith Flats School. Her parents and a cousin drove her to Swan River from Missoula. While in Swan River preparing for the return trip to Missoula, her father suffered a massive heart attack and died. Later that year, Alice's mother came back to the Swan Valley to live with Alice, rather than stay alone at her home in Missoula.
In 1934, Alice's mother returned to Missoula to run a boarding house out of her home. One of her boarders was Al Melton, who worked for the Northern Pacific Railroad. The two soon began dating, and were later married. "He became known as 'Pop' to us," Alice wrote. In the spring of 1935, Alice's mother heard that the Maloney homestead in Swan River was for sale for back taxes, so she purchased it. "Over the years, the Maloney place [on Glacier Creek Road] became the favorite cabin for her and Pop when they went to Swan River, and a place for many fun family gatherings," Alice recalled.
In 1953, Alice's mother divided the original Brunson homestead and gave Ethel and Alice each 80 acres to have as their own. The families continued to vacation in Swan Valley for many years. In 1990, a family reunion brought them all together again for a visit.
"Upon arriving at the homestead, the beargrass was in bloom, the snow on the Swan Range stood out clear and white, the forest meadows were lush, and the lakes were clear and blue. It was an unforgettable day that I will long remember," Alice wrote.
In 2007, Alice Brunson Lawrence died peacefully at the age of 96. Her family still owns a portion of the original homestead.
Mark Lawrence, his wife, and his brother Linn Lawrence, actively manage the family property in Swan Valley. They return often for summer vacations.
© Copyright 2010 Suzanne Vernon, Swan Ecosystem Center. All rights reserved.
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