WHEN ASKED what her greatest achievement was, she turned her head slowly toward the window. Her profile spoke of a lifetime of achievements. Yet the gaze of her eyes never wavered from the view to the north.
The familiar scene changed with the seasons but the hills and mountains of Montana sought only to remind her of nearly a century of life and love, here in this valley, she came to as a child.
Her wrinkles and the years seemed to fade away as her thoughts took her to a longago train trip with her parents and family, heading West. She saw, once more, a dashing young cowboy, brash and handsome, and she saw their children. There was joy, hardship, love, work, and long Montana winters, all reflected in her eyes.
In her face, there was also the pride of accomplishment and there was happiness. And there was also something more~ memories. Ahhh, the memories.
If you were to ask her of her earliest recollection, she has often replied that it was of her sisters. The five of them, in white, hand-stitched dresses of a Victorian era ~ on the frontier. What a noisy bunch they must have been. No wonder their father had taken to the railroad and their mother to bed! How could the single brother have turned out any thing but a gentle man with such upbringing as those five girls must have provided.
Were they a sensational sight, to a stranger~ that beautiful bunch of children? In later years, they were still so vivacious and joy filled around each other. Their children were most often like brothers and sisters to each other. That is certainly the best testimonial that any family could acknowledge … happiness in shared family.
That warmth and love was destined to touch every one of us. As kids, our own lives were so simple and uncomplicated, sheltered by family. Our best friends and companions were our cousins. We were raised with a strong sense of values, respect for authority, honesty, thriftiness, refinement, and family.
Jessie Crowley and Lynn Purdy met, as young people will, of a certain geographic area. There were community dances, picnics, parties, school. They both came from parents who believed in the creed of getting your work done. The parents thought these young kids were too wild and tended toward laziness. The parents were going to do everything in their power to straighten out those kids. Jessie and Lynn were probably no exceptions.
Stories of the Purdy boys’ horse races with the equally wild Frost boys and the flirtations of the irrepressible Crowley girls set a stage for trouble, as anyone in turn-of-the century Eureka, Montana would have attested to. What could possibly be done?!