HOMESTEADER 

Columbus, Montana
April 15, 1914

Dear Aunt and Uncle,




We red’d your welcome letter Sun. night and I will try and answer it now so I can send it the first chance I get. The mailman only goes once a week to Columbus and that is on Fri so unless someone goes to town during the week you can’t get a letter sent any sooner and it is eight miles to the mail box. What do you think of that.

That’s why if we get our letter Sat that’s the day they come out. We can’t answer and send one (till) the next Fri. I hope they’ll get out closer. They had a petition for one but they haven’t got any road out this way. We are on a hundred and sixty here. We bought a relinquishment of a fellow that couldn’t get his naturalization papers. He had been here six years. We can stay fourteen months and pay $21 an acre or three years and not have to pay the proving up fees.

Tom started to plow Monday but hasn’t had very good luck. Part of the time the plow jumps out of the ground every little ways and he gets disgusted and says if someone came along with a little money he would sell out and leave but when it runs all right he likes it a little. I think the plow would run all right if he got it sharpened.

He’s going to Reed Point tomorrow if it don’t rain and get it fixed up. I like the country all right in some places but most places I hate it.

We live in a log house about 20 by 16 on the inside. Kitchen parlor and bedroom all together. Ha ha. It is filled up all around the wall but there’s enough room in the center to get around good. We have our sofa standing up on one end in a corner and and four of our chairs out doors in a little shed. The barn is about twenty steps straight west of the house and the hoghouse twenty steps straight west of the barn. They are both of logs. The barn holds four horses and a small hog house.

We have to go about as far west as your house or gate to Warner’s house after water North of the house. It is a spring. We haven’t got it dug deep enough yet. Bessler talked about how nice it was to get water without pumping it but I’d rather pump it than have it where every thing can get in it. But we will dig a well if we stay here long enough.

We sold our chickens when we intended to go back and we’ve got two dozen again. We just got the one dozen last night. We got twelve eggs today. I haven’t any hens setting. We have some bachelor neighbors a little ways from here. They have geese and ducks. I would like to raise one of them but Tom don’t like geese. He says they destroy too much grain. Tom’s Uncle has a lot of turkeys. I’m going to try to get some of them eggs and raise some turkeys.

Ellen is setting on my lap now, bothering me so I can hardly write. She wants to write and the head is broke off her pencil. Whenever I sit down to write she is there.
Editor’s Note: Per this submission, this child later died at the tender age of 8.

It rained for a minute this after noon but not hard. It rained hard the other evening about 5 or a little after. It is after five now but Tom didn’t go out till half past three so I don’t think he will be in early.

Elbert lost one of the sows he got of you. She died right after she had pigs. The pigs were black and red spotted and he thought they were to be all red he said. They didn’t live sigh. His other sow had pigs a long time ago and they all died.

Tom wants me to send you a couple of porcupine quills for tooth picks. Sadie killed it out in their yard. I guess there are lots out here. It looks awful black in the northwest now like it is going to rain again.

Our neighbor has a bunch of 200 sheep and a lot of little lambs. I don’t know how many and one of the men herd a bunch of 2000 and he had 5000 last fall. They don’t belong to him tho. They belong to some men in Illinois but they certainly eat the dry grass off close to the ground.

No, you never said anything about Delilah’s baby in your letter but I read about it in the papers. That was certainly too bad. Did they know what was the matter with it?

Gee but the wind and rain is coming now. I bet it’ll be a big one until this blows over. My but the wind can blow in this country. I guess it never stops and fall and winter is just fierce with hard wind. They say that’s the only time it blows but I believe it blows all the time. I had just got a big washing on the line yesterday and the wind was blowing hard and out came the post and and the clothes all went on the ground but they had nearly dried as fast as I hung them up so only the under clothes got any dirt on them. That is certainly too bad about Hilda.

Tell every one I know hello from me. Say I wasn’t the first to read your letter. Some one had opened it and also John’s and sealed them back with melted sugar. What do you think of that. They were at Susan’s before we got them so I know she was married. I think I would leave that old man if I was her or is that what is she going to do?

This country is like an open prairie. You can look as far as you can see around and not see a tree. Only in the south east over on the hills or you can see lots of pine fir and cedar timber all along the way to Reed Point, and there is timber 6 miles from here or close but you can see it. I was to the timber once. It certainly is nice there.

Well, I am writing a newsletter I guess but I can’t stop. I wrote a letter to Ivy today and one to Agnes yesterday and have one to write to John next. Well, I must quit for this time and fix supper. We haven’t got any meat yet and don’t have enough milk to make butter so it’s hard to cook but we are going to try to get some meat some place. Tom’s uncle butchered four hogs. I believe he ought to divide up, don’t you. Ha ha. Well, I ain’t quit yet but will have to right away. You wrote a good newsy letter Aunt Mary. The kind I like to read from up here as it don’t seem like we were so far away when I hear of every one.

Hoping to hear from you soon again we are as ever your niece and nephew and niece I guess.

From Minnie