Memories

I am going to start this article a little different by presenting names of a few individuals who I received cards, Christmas letters or phone calls from during the Christmas season. I felt these names may bring back special memories of school mates, relatives or long lost friends to you readers.

See if you can remember some of them: Kay (Schnieder) Brown, Harlen Wash, Harlen Yates, Judy (Yates) Grismore, Marlee (LaBree) Askin, Tom Tooke, Don & Tunk Pulse, Mary Ellen (Townsend) Samola, Marlene (Figg) Tesch, Willard Padden, Lloyd “Blackie” Davis, Marguerite (Goeders) Rozelle, Joy (Peabody) Newman, Tom & Beth Figg and Phyllis (Taylor) Purdum.

Now on to another homesteader family, who most of you didn’t know, but they had a part of Carter County and Ekalaka. That family was George A., and Katie Scruggs, and “Shifting Scenes” has an article by Mary Scruggs Bischoff, a daughter. Other names presented later will be more familiar to you.

“In October, 1910, Mr. and Mrs. George A. Scruggs and daughter, Mary L., arrived in Ekalaka, Montana. It had been a long three-day and three-night train ride from Geronimo, Oklahoma. They were a young couple starting a new home in a strange land, little realizing the severity of the winters and hardships they would encounter, getting started on a land with no fences or buildings to begin with.”

She reports that at first Mrs. Scruggs and baby stayed with a couple by the name of Tubbs at Ekalaka and George was loaned a team of horses and a wagon to help get things started. He filed on 320 acres on Ramey Creek about fourteen miles south of Ekalaka.

A home was started, also a shelter for livestock with the first two years being hard. The new life began with fields planted, wells and a cellar dug, a squaw wood hauled by team from the timber. Of course, chickens and milk cows were bought and two teams of horses came to help with the farming and other work. A huge garden was plowed and planted which produced abundant potatoes, beets, turnips, carrots and rutabagas. Also reported were large heads of cabbage that were hung from the ceiling and squash rested on the shelves. Surplus vegetables were sold to neighbors who might not have been so lucky. This must have been some of the best wet years in Carter County — many were not that way.

More rooms were added to the home, a large chicken house was built and pig houses and about 80 pigs were raised each year. The family worked together farming corn, wheat, speltz and millet, plus tending livestock and milking cows.

As with many homesteads, another 320 acres were purchased from an adjoining neighbor by the name of Mr. Thomas Dawson and family. Other lands were rented and some cattle grazed on government lands on Buffalo Creek in the summer. Oh yes, it was the girls job to keep track of them.

More to come in my next article on the Scruggs family about a new business, family, school and neighbors.