Whitewater News & Opinion for Wednesday, January 17, 2024

Greetings from the North (rather, North Country) Pole. It snowed and turned c-c-cold! Whitewater, like most of Montana, is changeable.

Again, Happy New Year 2024!

On New Year’s Eve, the North 40 had a party with Chinese food as the special. It was very good! There were also sleigh rides for the children.

Here is an excerpt from my dad’s book in 1909.

Chapter XI

New Friends - New School

One day, in the summer of 1913, I was unloading hay at our place. I heard a noise and looked around. I saw what I thought was a caravan or a wagon train, but it turned out to be one family, Mr. and Mrs. Joe Stearns and their family of three boys and four girls.

They had a two horse drawn wagon, and one team of oxen, which we seldom saw on another wagon. Some cattle were being driven along by two riders. They had left Whitewarth, North Dakota early in the summer, headed west in search of a new home.

Father helped them find some land about a mile and a half west of our place. Elmer, the oldest boy, filed a homestead claim on it. They lived there many years, until Mr. Stearns died. Soon afterwards they sold out and moved to Malta.

In 1913, Brother Ray was born. in 1916, father built a new barn. It sure was a good barn. It measured 72x32 with 20-foot leans to on each side and one on the back. It had a loft that would hold a hundred ton of loose hay and 3,500 bushels of grain.

We had a barn dance in it and made $150 clear which we donated to the Red Cross!

The winter of 1916 and 17 were hard winters. In the fall of 1916 the "76 Outfit" turned loose 136 saddle horses. In the spring of 1917, the following spring, they gathered 135 horses. The horses had made their own living and were in fair shape.

The "76 Outfit" had lost over half their cattle, after feeding all the feed they could get.