The Purdys
London, England → Jackson, MichiganHenry Purdy (b. London, 1825) and Mary Keeler. Henry was a cobbler who fashioned shoes from buffalo hides; the family reached Michigan before the West called.
Where We Come From
The Purdy Family Tree
Four immigrant lines — English, Irish, Polish, and Cornish — crossed an ocean and a continent, met in the Tobacco Valley, and became one ranch family.
The Old Country
Four Lines, One Valley
The Crowleys & Lowlers
County Cork, Ireland & Kelsie, Scotland → MinnesotaDave Crowley (b. County Cork, 1830) and Jessie Jane Gibson (b. Scotland, 1829); John Lowler (b. Ireland, 1836) and Anna Daughtery. Farm people who crossed an ocean, then a continent.
The Kuchenskis & Scholtzes
Poland & Bohemia → Phillips, WisconsinValentine Kuchenski and Anna Klucznik of Poland; Vincenz Scholtz Sr. (1841–1908) and Maria Schmidt of Bohemia. Their children homesteaded the Kootenai.
The Copps & Douglases
Cornwall, England & PennsylvaniaJohn Andrew Copp and Elizabeth Ann Hoar of Cornwall; Asa N. Douglas (1843–1924), a Pennsylvania Civil War veteran, and Frances McLaud.
The Founders · 1890s–1940s
Arthur Thomas Purdy
1866, Jackson, MI – 1942, Eureka, MT &Terecia LeBeau
1875, Cincinnati, OH – 1960, Eureka, MTMet at a pioneer gathering in Kalispell while Arthur mended from a smelter burn. Homesteaded Terriault Meadows in 1899, then bought the old Sinclair place at Eureka and started the valley's first dairy. Arthur served as county commissioner; their sons Lynn and Comet later divided the ranch.
Thomas Crowley
1864, Coburg, Quebec – 1947, Eureka, MT &Sarah Jane Lowler
1871, Kandiyohi, MN – 1957, Eureka, MTJessie's parents. Thomas 'Pa' Crowley proved up a 320-acre homestead in 1919; the Crowleys reached Eureka in 1912.
Albert Kuchenski
1866, Poland – 1935 &Julia Anna Scholtz
1869, Bohemia – 1913Married 1890; homesteaded the south side of Big Creek where it meets the Kootenai, selling cordwood to the steamboats that worked the river.
Herbert James Copp
1877, Linkinhorne, Cornwall – 1917 &Jennie D. Douglas
1879, Pennsylvania – 1932Marie's grandparents on the Copp side — Cornwall miners' stock and the daughter of Civil War veteran Asa Douglas.
The Second Generation · 1900s–1990s
Lynn Lionel Purdy
1898, Foy Lake, MT – 1984, Eureka, MT &Jessie Jane Crowley
1897, Kandiyohi, MN – 1999, Eureka, MTMarried January 1918 and ran the Meadow Home Dairy for half a century — pails, then bottles, then milking machines, milk delivered by sled when the snow called for it. Jessie lived to see her 100th birthday celebrated on the ranch.
Felix Kuchenski
1896, Phillips, WI – 1947, Eureka, MT &Zoa Geraldine Copp
1907, Eureka, MT – 1974Felix was in Eureka High's first graduating class (1915), rode with the cavalry in WWI France, took the area's first census on horseback in 1920, and built the Big Creek Silver Black Fox Farm.
The Third Generation · 1923–2012
David “Dale” Purdy
Dec 23, 1923 – Jul 31, 2012, Eureka, MT &Marie Claire Kuchenski
b. 1931, Eureka, MTMarried June 30, 1949 at Our Lady of Mercy, Eureka. Dale built the silo in 1952 and ran the dairy; both drove school bus from 1964 to 1982 — as the family put it, to support their 'farming habit.' They raised eight children on the ranch. Dale was born on Grammie Jessie's 26th birthday — December 23.
Dale's siblings: Rae Jane (1920), Jessie Jean (1922), Arthur and Donald.
The Fourth Generation · the eight
Virginia “Ginny” Dale
b. 195035 years with the U.S. Forest Service
Dorothy Marie
1951 – 2017U.S. Forest Service, 1973–2007
Russell James
b. 1952Air Force, accountant, realtor
Mark Vincent
b. 1954Forest Service & Bureau of Reclamation; Wagon Train Master, 1972
Joseph “Joe” Lynn
b. 1956With his wife Rita, bought the ranch in 1995 — the fourth generation — and turned it to beef cattle
David Keith
b. 1959Electrician
Colleen Rae
1961 – 2005Montana Tech Hall of Fame, 2005
Deanna Kay
b. 1966Keeper of the huckleberry tradition
Today
From the eight came more than a dozen grandchildren, and from them great-grandchildren and now great-great-grandchildren — well over fifty descendants of Arthur and Terecia have called the Tobacco Valley home. Joe, Russell, and Nathan Purdy carry the ranch and the family's work in the valley forward today.
Dates and places are taken from the family's own tree charts and fact pages in the Purdy Family History album (compiled 2020). Where the old records disagree — and after 150 years, a few do — the family tree charts were used. For living family members, only birth years are shown.
The names have stories.
The dairy that ran eighty-seven years, the fox farm under the lake, the wagon train of 1972 — read them the way the family tells them.