As I go through letters saved by members of my family over the generations, I am struck by what a deeply lonely life — not merely solitary — many of them led. They were far from where they grew up, a many-days-journey from their folks and their siblings, and visitors were few, indeed.
The letter below came to my great-grandmother in Sioux Falls from her younger sister Cecelia, who lived near Big Timber, Montana. She talks about her three adult children, Jim, Tom, and Mary.
Cecelia’s life is hard, she rarely sees other people. One day, she walks up the mountain on a day-long trek, to see the scenery that’s not visible from her little place.
Years later, someone wrote ‘mountain scenery’ on the envelope (probably my grandmother’s sister) to make sure the letter was saved.
Big Timber
August 18, 1913
My Dear Sister Mame,
I just received your letter of the 13th and was glad to hear from you. I am glad you had a chance to see the sisters. Did you see Julia too, and Mrs. Hussey, and Mrs. Dr. Hobbie?
If you write to sister Alice, tell her to be sure to come and see me. I am still in Big Timber, and tell her the stage comes up the Boulder almost at our house, up as far as L.E. Smoot, and get off the stage at his place, and he will bring her up the rest of the way. It is about two miles from his place. I would love to see her. Does she live in Independence? When she is at home I wish you could come to see me. I have never had but one relative come to see me since I came out to this country, and how very pleased I was to see him.
Yes, there was two coming to see us, but I did not see but one, and that was Willie. Then Burt Stimson came and got as far as Merrill in an automobile, and it broke down when he got that far, and the man went back to Columbus after another machine, and they got to the foot of the hills and broke down again. And as it happened, Jim went down to Merrill for the mail and met them on the road. And so Jim and Tom saw their cousin, but Mary and I did not.
I have not moved down on the Ranch, and I do not know when I will go back if ever. I do not want to stay alone, as long as Jim lives at this station, I suppose I will stay with him.
It is just 12 o’clock and I have not had any breakfast yet. I went out and fed the chickens and puppies. We have 6 and their mother has only 3 places for them to eat, and she kept them in 2 nests all the time until now they begin to run around a little, and they get so hungry and cry, so I took some canned milk and water and sugar out to them and how they did lick it up, and only 3 weeks old.
I will send you the lock of hair I forgot to put in my last letter to you. Will pin it fast and it will sure not be forgotten. Emma Pitcher writes for me to come out to see her but I cannot go, although I would like to. They moved in town and she is keeping a baker shop.
Mary my daughter has tried to get me to come down to see her. She tells me my yard does look fine with all the different flowers and vines around the house, but Jim is away so much that I cannot go and leave all my chickens to starve. He is gone now, and has been for more than a week, and expects to be away for a couple of weeks yet.
I do not know how this letter will be sent. Sometimes out neighbor goes by, and if I do not forget, will send it by him.
You spoke of it being so hot. It is not hot here. We have had snow just on the other side of Black Butte and some frost right here. Had frost last night, the ground was all white this morning when I got up.
Have you canned any fruit yet? I have 48 quarts put up so far, 4 quarts of serviceberries, 10 quarts of currents, and the rest are gooseberries. I canned them, for Jim does not care much for jellies and I do not either, and besides, down in Mary’s cellar at Reed is the fruit I put up last summer, over 200 pounds of sugar it took, and it is most all jelly, and Jim did not think it would pay to bring it up here, for so many might get broken.
I tell you it gets pretty lonesome for me when sometimes I do not see anyone to speak to for weeks at time. And no chance to go anywhere, for Jim has to have all his horses off to work, or they run away down to Reed when he leaves them, for the fence is not entirely finished.
How are all your family? I wish some of your girls could come to see me.
August 19
Dear sister,
After starting your letter yesterday, I got so lonely I could not finish the letter, so I walked outdoors and went down the road a ways, and I climbed under the fence and started up a canyon for the top of Black Butte, the highest one right around here. I walked for four hours, that is climbing up all the time, and it seemed at first the sun would melt me. I tried to keep out from under the trees as much as I could on account of the flies flying around my head. It made me so nervous and tired, I would stop to rest every little while and look back. I could see Big Timber, 11 miles down the valley, then I could see away to the north the crazy mountains. And the top of the mountains was covered with a black cloud, and there it stayed for a long time. But after a while, the wind blew them away, and how beautiful it did look. Away up towards the top the canyons were filled with snow and ice, and the ice glittered in the sun. And lower down the mountain, the forest looked black, and the nearer the bottom the mountain it grew, it looked blue. Then to the southwest was the valley of the Boulder River, and wheat fields looked like gold, and there were hundreds of acres of alfalfa growing so green. And in the places the river showed, it was like a ribbon of silver. You could not see it, only in places, for there was high hills between the mountains, run in streaks like.
Well, I finally got to the top and looked down on the other side, and there was ridge after ridge of high mountains and deep valleys, and such splendid large trees. Some fine Norway spruce, and forgot what the other kinds are called. And such beautiful rocks run along the top of the ridge, looked as if it had been thrown up there like a wall for protection.
And all along the crevices of the rocks wild raspberries grew very thick. I could see where there had been berries, but the birds go them. That was at the very top of the divide. Then I filled my apron pocket full of flowers, and am going to send you some. The pink are wild geraniums, and the kind that has green wreaths about the stem grows down by us. It’s blue, very dark, and is the first flower in the spring. The snow will be close beside it. Sometimes it comes up through the edge of the snow. I do not know the names of any flowers, but you can see what it looks like. I had to put them in my pocket, for I had to use 2 canes to keep myself from sliding backwards and falling down. It was hard work going up, but it was awful coming back, and I did not get home until it was too dark for the chickens to eat, so you know it was pretty dark. And I did not come back the same way I went up. I angled across the side of the mountain and crossed over into another canyon near to our house, where I went up. The grass was as thick as it could grow, but where I came down was nothing but sandstone and rock, and thick with trees. If Jim had been here he would not have let me go for fear it would make me sick. He tells me the reason I have such a lame back is because I am always tramping in some impossible place where I ought not to. For there are days at a time when I can hardly stand on my feet, for my back is so lame, but I cannot stay in the house all the time and there is nothing to see unless one does climb up the side of the mountain a ways. I wish you could see the beautiful scenery from the top like I did yesterday.
When you write, tell me all the news you can think of, and write soon.
Yours lovingly,
Cecelia
——
Cecelia Jane Davies Friend, b. 11 July 1852, in Pennsylvania; d. 9 April 1923, in Reed Point, Stillwater County, Montana
She had four children: James Charles (1878–1959); Thomas William (1880–1959); Phoebe Ann (1884–1903); and Mary Sara (1891–1975). The two sons were born when the family lived in Michigan, and later, the two daughters in Iowa.
In my mom’s family, everyone wrote a lot. Letters, poems, journal entries.
Our great-great grandmother wrote fairly understandable letters to her son in the “West,” but there’s erratic punctuation and capitalization. I did chose to standardize that somewhat in this post. Makes it much more readable.
Among mom’s stash of correspondence, I have found letters from her younger brother Hollis, living in Colorado. Here are two of them; one is undated, so I’m not sure about the sequence.
When she wrote this “rags-to-riches” story, Ruth Davie was 9 years old, and attending Lewis Heights school, on the east side of Sioux Falls, SD. The family maintained a very large garden and sold produce at a local farmers’ market.
January 1925.
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Things mom saved. 