The BARRETTS

My grandparents—the Tom Barretts—had staked their first homestead claim on Lodgepole Creek where it flowed into the South Grand River. They lived in a dugout in the side of a hill with their 4 young children.

They came from the east side of the Missouri River near Chamberlain where my grandpa had leased land on the Indian Reservation to graze his horse herd. My grandmother—Louisa Mosier—was a school teacher.

It was time to settle down and they wanted one of the first homesteads that were just opening up on the former Great Sioux Reservation—which originally had stretched across the western half of South Dakota. They loaded their 3 small kids (with one more on the way)--into a covered wagon and started off with the horses and a herd of cattle.

But first they had to cross the Missouri River and the Great Sioux Reservation itself with their covered wagon, trailing the horse herd and cattle.

My grandpa stopped a few days in Chamberlin to help a fellow traveler, Mr. Trizinsky, who had lost his horses. His family sat helpless in their horse-less covered wagon, waiting, according to the story my mom told.

Together the men finally found the horses and the two families proceeded with their livestock across the Pontoon bridge—which was engineered with rafts linked together across the turgid Missouri River.

They made it across. But on this side could not find the Indian agent in charge of granting permits to cross the reservation. “He should be back in a week or so,” they were told.

“We’ll just keep going,” decided Grandpa. And they did, keeping anxious watch for officials who might come looking for anyone travelling illegally across the reservation without a permit.

Grandpa was a friend of the Lakota and spoke their language. Various groups of Natives often rode up to chat around their campfire during the long 200 miles of travel.

Uncle Chet, as a toddler, was a great favorite. The Lakota were charmed by his bright red hair—loved to touch it and called him ‘Fire Child.’ Every evening as they camped, visitors came—each time bringing more family and friends to see the little boy.

One evening visitors clustered near the fire, visiting, laughing and admiring the red-haired little toddler.

The two older children, Uncle Will and Marie, our mom, chased with the Native children around the fire, running into and out of the crowd.

Suddenly little Chet, trying to keep up in his bare feet, cut-across through the middle of the red-hot campfire coals. He stopped, screamed and reached out his hands.

In an instant two Lakota men grabbed the little boy and ran with him to where their horses were tied. They scooped up fresh steaming horse manure and packed it onto his feet.

When they handed him back to his mother he Immediately stopped crying. His feet looked fine.

Mom told us Uncle Chet never had any evidence of burning on his feet. The steaming manure had proved to be a miraculous cure!

On the plains travelers told fearful stories of being chased by wild stampeding herds of longhorn cattle on reservation lands.

One evening the two men were coming up from the creek with full water buckets just as a big stampeding herd of longhorn cattle thundered over the hill. Attracted by the shiny tin buckets they charged down to attack the men, bellering and bawling.

In camp Grandma was hanging dish towels out to dry on a sagebrush just as the wild cattle came charging over the hill.

Quick to act, she shouted and ran toward them, snapping a big white dish towel at them.

“Whoosh!” the leaders skidded to a sudden stop.

They stared in shock at what they took to be a furious woman and then suddenly turned and ran the other direction out of sight—while the men hurried back into camp.

Finally, after a long week of travel, the newcomers saw two posts that marked the edge of the reservation, without any fence. Grandpa told the women to drive straight between the two posts and they’d be safely out of the reservation. He’d stay on the far side of the herd.

A stranger did come riding up—but the mothers hurried their horse-drawn covered wagons between the posts without stopping. The herd of cattle and horses moved up another coulee with the men on horseback out of sight.

Near the mouth of Lodgepole Creek my grandparents located their homestead, and dug their new home into a bank. It was deep and dark.

When winter came, snow blew over the door. One heavy snow winter my grandparents couldn’t get out their door at all. It opened outward and was sealed by a huge snowbank outside.

Mom told us, “When building a cabin, make sure the outside door opens inward so you can always dig out and don’t get trapped!”

They had to wait days before a neighbor rode over and shoveled them out!

They moved into that dugout during a time of generous rainfall—in 1905.

“When we moved there,” Grandpa recalled. “Grass was belly deep to a horse in the ditches!”

But inevitably, there came a drought that lasted 8 or 10 years. The grass didn’t turn green one spring. There was nothing for livestock to eat. Small creeks ran dry. When creek puddles dried up, they had to move on.

Like many others, my family moved to Washington State to raise apples. But that did not turn out well.

A couple of years and they moved back to Montana. Just in time for the Great Depression and the terribly dry years of the 1920s and 1930s.

Our Mom and Dad first owned land on the Missouri River—beautiful, productive bottom lands, with fields of alfalfa hay.

But with their first child Beverley in 1929, that land was confiscated by the US Government and flooded for the Big Dam at Fort Peck.

Mom taught school that year, riding horseback with her baby each day a mile up the Missouri to country school.

Depression hit that same year. As the dam filled with water, Mom and Dad had to move their cattle up onto the desolate Missouri River Breaks. With a far-reaching drought there soon was nothing for cattle to eat—so they sold them and raised sheep—which could get by on less grass.

I was born there in 1932, the 3rd daughter, with a neighboring mid-wife attending, in a log house they built on their claim in the rugged breaks of the Missouri River.

Wintering their sheep on beet tops near Fairview in 1937, my parents found they could rent irrigated land near Savage, MT on the Yellowstone River. There they discovered the blessings and hazards of irrigated living.

Dad and Mom worked hard—their 4th daughter Anne was born in Fairview. And there was water, but diseases lurked in standing back waters of the river.

Their 300 head of ewes caught a sickness called vibrionic abortion—and since they were bought on credit, they lost the sheep when they aborted their lambs. Their few surviving horses died of sleeping sickness that winter.

That next spring of 1939, we moved to the old Tusler cattle ranch near Miles City, irrigated crop land with a limited amount of grazing land.

In his time, Henry Tusler, a well-known cattleman, had run more than a thousand head of cattle on free range on both sides of the Yellowstone River. Our country school was named (Italic) Tusler School in his honor.

We also had fresh spring water piped down to the big house—and a bathroom!

We eventually purchased the ranch and our family lived and thrived there for the next 33 years.

Our adventures growing up on the ranch 10 miles east of Miles City are highlighted in our book “Montana Stirrups, Sage and Shenanigans: Western Ranch Life in a Forgotten Era,” as described by my sisters Anne Brink Sallgren Krickel, Jeanie Brink Thiessen and me, Francie Brink Berg.