The other day while trying to “organize” one of the chaotic areas of my room, I came upon a short memoir my Grandmother Marchant had written about the time she homesteaded in the barren prairies of Montana. I have always felt a special kinship to my grandmother, because of what she did when she was a young lady. Like her, I left my family when I struck out to Canada, but I was married, she was alone, and she was a female, which made things a whole lot more difficult for her.
Here is the first part of what she wrote about her homesteading adventure:
Homesteading Memories
by
Sadie Carr Marchant
On an Easter Sunday morning in 1911, my father looked up from his paper and said, “Sadie, here is an opportunity for you.” He was reading an Aberdeen South Dakota paper, and he had read a letter from a Mr. Truax of Big Sandy, Montana, who told of what a wonderful country it was and of the land yet to be filed on,
Some of my school teacher friends had gone out across the Missouri River in South Dakota and taken up homesteads, and I, too, had been thinking of this fore some time. My father offered to help me finance a claim if I wanted to go. I wrote to Mr. Truaz that very day and soon received an answer. He gave such a glowing account of the country that it make me even more anxious to go.
At the time, at the age of 23, I was teaching school and my term ended in a few days. I closed school on Friday and the following Monday, went into Redfield to see when there would be an excursion to that part of the Montana. The depot agent told me there was one that day, and if I could leave that night on a freight train that would take me to Aberdeen, he could give me the cheap excursion rates.
I knew deep down in my heart that if I did not leave that day, I would in all probability, not go at all. I went home, talked things over with my father. He had planned to go with me, but circumstances were such that he could not leave at that that time, but he advised me to go anyway.
I packed my suitcase, stopped at my County Superintendent’s office to get a recommendation and left on the six o’clock train. I was young, it was spring, and I was off on a great adventure. How great it would be, I did not realize.
The depot agent had advised me to buy a ticket to Great Falls. This was good advice for when we came to Big Sandy, my heart sank. It was not at all as I had pictured it, so I decided to go on to Great Falls.
After three days and nights on the train, crossing the great barren plains, Great Falls looked like an oasis in the desert. I checked in at the beautiful new Rainbow Hotel. Everything about Great Falls impressed me. Here was a city with street cars, beautiful parks, beautiful falls, the great copper smelter, and there was land to be homesteaded not far away.
I had become acquainted with a land agent on the train (the very thing Mr. Truax had told me not to do,) This man came to the hotel and persuaded me to come out to the areas around Carter and Floweree and let him show me the land. I had gone to the land office in Great Falls and they had just shoved a map out in front of me and told me nothing.
I went out to Carter and put up at a little hotel and the land agent took me out with some others. The land he showed me was thirty or forty miles out of town. I knew I could not go out there as it would cost a fortune to have my provisions hauled. He then showed me a claim that was available about six miles away from Floweree, and three miles from Carter, on the Missouri River.
We rode around this 320 acres on horseback. Everything was green and beautiful, as there had been a great deal of rain. It was evening and off across the river I could see the beautiful Highwood Mountains. I decided that this was just what I wanted. I went back to Great Falls, filed a claim and had my cabin built right away so I could establish the needed residence required as part of the Homestead Act, before I left for home.
I borrowed a cot and blankets from the hotel and the first night I slept in the cabin, there was a terrific storm. The top of one side of the cabin had not been completed and it rained on my bed, drenching me. As I walked over to the hotel the next morning the folks were all out on the veranda waiting for me.
I knew what they were thinking, “I’ll bet this fixed her and she will have had enough of homesteading.”
I’ll admit I had been frightened, as storms and rattlesnakes were something I feared very much, but it had not daunted me. I waited to have the cabin completed then stayed in it several nights before leaving for my home in South Dakota.
I had all that summer in South Dakota to think about it and my father, who was beginning to have second thoughts about having his young daughter homesteading, tried in every way to discourage me. He was willing to lose the money he had given me, if I would only give it up.
I did a lot of praying over it and did not know myself how I was going to endure the five years of residency required before that land became mine, but I was determined to go. The settlers in Montana had promised me a school, so when August came, I packed my belongings, and ordered a laundry stove, table, chair, and folding cot from Sears & Roebuck to be delivered. My friends gave me a farewell shower and finally amidst sad farewells, I left for Montana.
Sadie’s adventure continues tomorrow.
You can see my paintings: davidmarchant2.ca
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