Spear Siding

Spear Siding was a railway siding located between Wyola, Montana and Lodge Grass, Montana in the Big Horn valley. Without cattle trucks like there are today, or local livestock auction markets, this was where the cattle ranchers from the area brought their cattle in the fall to be shipped to markets further east..

When I was going to high school in Lodge Grass, mother and I often visited my grandparents, then retired, in Sheridan, Wyoming and we would drive past the corrals at Spear Siding on our way back to Lodge Grass. When she was still a teenager, and later, after she had her teaching certificate but was still living at home and teaching at Big Bend school, she rode with her father from the ranch, driving the cattle they were selling to be shipped out by rail.

It would have been between 30 and 40 miles from the ranch to Spear Siding and driving cattle, would probably have taken two days to get there although I don't recall actually asking how long it took. Once there, the cattle would have been penned, then loaded on cattle cars to be shipped by rail to the markets.

There were no roads across the small mountain range between the ranch and Spear Siding and Mama told me that they would stop and drink from a spring on the way. Grandpa knew where it was from years of riding the area, but they had to get off the horses and walk through the brush along a cow path to get to it. She told of following him once, only to have him stop abruptly, snapping "don't move" ... and looked down to see a rattlesnake between his feet. She said she was absolutely frozen, could hardly breathe, while the snake calmly raised his head, looked her in the eye, then put his head down and slithered off into the brush.

She said she never did walk in to that spring again without watching every single step she took.

Mama was a schoolteacher

She told me many times that she knew she wanted to be a teacher from the time she was a child. Once she got her teacher's certificate, which allowed her to teach after two years of college, she was hired to teach at the grade school where she had gone to school, the Squirrel Creek school in Big Horn County, Montana.

Like all of the country schools at the time, it was a one-room school where one teacher taught all eight grades, in that area usually all of the children from somewhere between 4 and 10 families. The children closest to the school usually walked, those with further to go, rode horseback.

Montana could be somewhere between unpleasant and downright dangerous during the winter. Squirrel Creek School was over 4 miles from the ranch, cross country over hills and no roads. With shorter days, she left the ranch before daylight and rode home in the dark, trusting to her horse to carry her safely through snow and over rough country.

There were no "snow days" then and as the teacher, Mother was expected to get to the school early enough to build up the fire before classes started. At night, the fire was "banked" so that it would burn slowly, maintaining a slow fire overnight, allowing for a quick start the following morning.

I remember her telling me once that she got home and at supper worried that she hadn't banked the fire and set the draft before she left. It was mid-winter and cold, starting to snow. She had school papers to correct and about halfway through, realized her father wasn't in the house. Much later, he came back in and when she asked where he'd been, he said "You banked the fire and the draft was fine." He had gone out, not saying anything to anyone, caught up a saddle horse and ridden the 4 1/2 miles to the school in the dark and back to check on the fire.

Later she transferred to Big Bend School, another small country school that was closer to the home ranch It was 3 miles rather than 4 1/2 miles, there was a road as well and almost all flat ground, much easier on both horse and rider.

She taught there for several more years and was engaged to the son of a neighboring rancher, her best friend's brother. I'm not sure what went wrong. She never mentioned what had happened and I was too involved in my own life to ask questions once I was old enough to realize there must have been a "story" but it was after that, I'm sure, that she applied for a teaching job away from her home.

She went from there to Radersburg, a small mining town in western Montana, where she taught just one grade, in a "town" school. It was there she met my father, a miner originally from a South Dakota ranch and they were eventually married there.

After they returned to the ranch, she returned to teaching school. I had to go away to high school and rather than boarding with someone in town, she taught at the school in Lodge Grass, Montana, a small town on the Crow Indian reservation. We stayed in a rented apartment during the school year, returning to the ranch as weather permitted, 40 miles over a "good weather" road over the Wolf Mountains west of the ranch but not so often in bad weather, when the trip was 90 miles around the "long way".

Once I graduated and was gone from the ranch, she returned to teaching at the Big Bend School, where she taught for many more years, finally retiring when she was in her late 50s to be a full time ranch wife.

Fern Young Michael ... Mama

She was born in 1913, in Nebraska, the youngest of two girls. Just 2 years old when they moved to Montana, most of her childhood was spent growing up at the homestead, moving to the home ranch at the forks of Rosebud Creek when she was 14.

As in all ranch areas at the time, school was a one-room, one teacher school, 1st through 8th grade. It was 3 miles from the homestead cabin and the girls rode horseback to get there, riding double on the old, reliable mare called Rose. Mom used to tell me how annoyed she would get at her older sister because Millie always got to ride in front, but in the winter it was better because she could duck her head down keep her face warm.

The nearest high school was 60 miles from the ranch, in Sheridan, Wyoming. With horse drawn transportation and little cash money available, most ranch kids boarded full time with families in or near town, most of them working for their board and room. Mama felt she was very fortunate to be able to board with the high school music teacher's family, with only three small children to help care for and modern conveniences like gas stoves to cook on and running water in the house.

Summers were spent back at the ranch, helping with the usual summer work, from gardening and canning food for the winter to haying, working cattle and fencing. Without hired help, both girls helped when they were home and summers were when most of the preparations for winter had to get done. Without livestock trucks, selling cattle meant driving them 40 miles, a 2 or 3 day trip by horseback, to Spear Siding, which was a set of corrals at a railroad stop where they were loaded into cattle cars and transported to sale yards.

Mama never wanted to be anything except a teacher and I remember her telling me that she used to "play school" as a little girl, lining up her dolls and teaching them from her school books. Two years of college was what was necessary then for a "teacher's certificate", which meant you could get a job teaching school. While her parents managed to pay for the school fees, again, Mama had to work for her board and room while going to school. The first year was terrible, the woman she boarded with expected her to do all the housekeeping, washing and ironing as well as much of the cooking. From the few bits I heard, growing up, I think she managed most of the time on about 4 hours sleep, often falling asleep over her homework.

She said very little about that first year and more often mentioned her second year as she became very fond of the woman she boarded with that year. One story she told repeatedly was having to make a bug collection for one of her classes and one day she and this lady were on the street when they spied a bug she didn't have. Mama would still giggle when she described this lady, in her fancy dress and shoes, scrambling down the street gutter trying to catch this big bug for her.

For several years after getting her certificate, she lived at the ranch and taught at the little one room school over on Squirrel Creek where she'd gone to grade school herself. From the home ranch, it was nearly 5 miles cross country horseback, but there were no "snow days" back then. She was expected to get to the school early enough to get the fire going so the schoolroom would be warm for the children and at night, she stoked the fire before she rode home.

A few years later, she went to a small town in western Montana, Radersburg, where she taught until she met ... and married ... my father, who was working in one of the gold mines in the area, though he was from a ranching background as well. They eventually returned to the family ranch on Rosebud Creek, where they lived until their retirement.

They celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in May of 1990.