Memories

Well, in my last article I wrote about Bob and Grace Renshaw getting married, moving over to the homestead, digging a well, and planting and harvesting a crop. Bob and Grace both taught, and earned money to by material for a barn and a chicken house, other essentials they needed. They had a boy and a girl, filling out their family.

Renshaw continued to teach at the Peabody School during the 1914-15 term. With some cash he finished fencing his land and bought a walking plow, a rod-breaking plow, and a harrow to break more sod. During the spring of ’15, rains started early and lasted all summer. Crops made large yields and their garden produced an abundance of potatoes, carrots, beets, rutabagas, cabbage, and turnips which they stored in “the cave,” as he called it. It was known as a “bumper year.”

Renshaw, the farmer, broke more land in 1916 and planted corn-gehu, squaw, and dent. Each year he rotated with corn and wheat and planted a field of millet for cow feed. Renshaw was ahead of his time as far as crop rotation.

I will now share some information about weather, crops, years, and people that he described in his Shifting Scenes article. He decided to quit teaching and go into the stock business, broke more sod, put in crops, and raised a bountiful garden. Wild fruit, which Grace mixed with other fruits, was also plentiful. Some of us may remember a few years of wild fruit but there hasn’t been much in late years.

Renshaw tells a story of him, Joe Curry, and George Pugh hiring out to haul potatoes and flour by team and wagon from Belle Fourche for B. B. Gross who had a good country store and later a post office called Belltower. Renshaw took his wages out in potatoes, flour, sugar, and other staples.

Well, southeastern Montana showed itself as Renshaw reported that following years were more dry than wet. The winters were also more severe than mild. As I write this I am reminded of how much of eastern Montana and Carter County in particular are living up to those statements. It is dry and we need rain!

Like many, the Renshaws mortgaged their land and bought more livestock. They raised hogs for cash, besides using some for the meat which they cured, smoked, and canned. Gallon crocks were used to keep produce. As a young boy in grade school I spent much of my summers with granddad and grandma Townsend on the Tie Creek homestead. I can still picture that same type of food storage in the root cellar on their place.

Although times were tough, Bob bought another team, plows, and other machinery, adding to his cultivated land.

One plan the couple had was to select nice potatoes, take the eyes, and once sprouted carefully plant them in a furrow. The potatoes did great and by the fourth of July they were sold to Matt Carey of Charters Mercantile. Carey paid eight cents per pound for all they had. I doubt that you could find that kind of price today.

Oh yes, a few of you may remember, as I do, Matt Carey and the Charters store. My dad worked there many years and I remember the marble games that were played along the west side of the store and the sidewalk. The Carter Manor occupies that space today.

I need to remind readers of more early years of weather when there was no moisture and winters were severe. Renshaw gives a pretty descriptive picture of a couple of those years. Think about the following excerpt from his Shifting Scenes article:

Crops were good in 1918, the winter mild. Spring 1919 saw usual plantings of field and garden, but no rain came. Nothing grew, not even grass. Corn came up, grew six inches, turned yellow and withered. The only feed we had in the worst Montana winter I’ve ever seen in 65 years was the Russian thistles we cut and stacked for hay. Heavy snow began in October and kept piling up. I turned our horses except Dick and Dan into the school section; distemper killed all range horses, calves became ill from a disease caused by dry summers pasture, followed by no winter feed. March 14 a three-day howling blizzard came and livestock died; we lost one cow, four horses, and eighteen yearlings.

Renshaw reported that in the spring he bought a poor, weak team and was slow in putting in a crop, although at harvest time their was a good yield. However, prices were low for grain. Cattle prices were also low, and horses were bought scarcely. Those of you in the same occupation today know that situation. He also reported that many ranchers never recovered their losses from that hard winter and spring blizzard. Banks all over the country went broke but the two in Ekalaka continued to operate.

Well, I hate to end this article on such a dark picture of Carter County. Some of those years were certainly discouraging as Renshaw describes.

To be continued…