The hobos that frequented box cars and rode the open rails had their own language and culture. Jumping trains, riding the rails from place to place, gathering in hobo jungles while waiting for the next outgoing train, was a different way of life. One way for them to communicate within their “family” was by a series of signs and markings. A drawing of two shovels indicated a place to find work. There were signs given for doctors who wouldn’t charge them a fee, places to get food, caution about thieves, free phones, and warnings of danger. If they saw the symbol of a smiling cat drawn on a fence post or side of a house, they knew they were at the home of a kindhearted woman who would offer them a meal. Such was the home of my Great Grandmother whose house was along the tracks in Big Timber, Montana.
My Mother told stories of the hobos that came into her Grandmother’s yard behind the house by the railroad tracks. The hobos who jumped off the train in Big Timber, Montana, certainly knew where to find a pot of stew or tin barrel of “torpedoes” (beans) with a fire still burning beneath. They surely sent word down the tracks of finding “The Big Rock Candy Mountains.”
Maybe some of the hobos reminded Great Grandma of youngsters she had known who had to make their way at an early age. Maybe she saw a reflection of her own boys, one at least who was known to hop a train on occasion. Regardless, she saw those who were hungry and needed a warm meal and a kind hand.
I wonder if there was a symbol of a fat, happy, smiling cat etched on a post facing the tracks. Here was the place of a kindhearted woman who gave of her meager bounty to feed hungry hobos down on their luck, exploring the country, or seeking a place to call home. Let me tell you, even her scraps were heavenly!
There was a song written about the hobo culture. This is a portion of the cleaned-up variation of the original lyrics:
One evening as the sun went down And the jungle fire was burning, Down the track came a hobo hiking, And he said, “Boys, I’m not turning I’m headed for a land that’s far away Besides the crystal fountains So come with me, we’ll go and see The Big Rock Candy Mountains
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains, There’s a land that’s fair and bright, Where the handouts grow on bushes And you sleep out every night Where the boxcars all are empty And the sun shines every day On the birds and the bees And the cigarette trees The lemonade springs Where the bluebird sings In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
“The song is about a hobo’s dreams of a supposedly perfect life. Based on the song and some outside information and context, the theme is simply dreams and wishes for a better life. For example, “The Big Rock Candy Mountains” are mentioned often and they could be a symbol of euphoria: “Oh I’m bound to go where there ain’t no snow, where the rains don’t fall; the winds don’t blow, in the Big Rock Candy Mountains.” “This quotation describes a place where everything is perfect, at least in the author’s eyes.”
Stars twinkled across the sky from one side of the prairie to the other. It looked as if they had been cast into the black of night to hang by a thread. They swayed and lit up the world below as they illuminated the path of stardust across the Milky Way.
Fiery red and yellow flames danced against the night sky in rhythm with the twinkling lights and the music that glided on the breeze. The crackle and pop of the fire added percussion to the tunes that rose and fell from the stringed instruments.
After days on the trail, the evening fire under a clear sky was a reprieve. Not only had there been some days and nights of rain when everything got soaked, but they were travel weary. Oh, there were times when they stayed in camp a couple of days when they camped beside a river. That’s when they repaired harnesses, wagons, and equipment, did laundry, cooked a big pot of beans, and swam in the river. But a cool crisp evening around the fire was a special treat.
Sitting around the fire was a diversity of participants and onlookers. Dad Knapp with his fiddle, and his son, Bee, who played the fiddle he bought from Old Man Bradley for $12.00 a few years earlier, drew their bows across the strings to release the rich mellow tones. Someone else grabbed the banjo, while another tried to add to the tune with a mouth harp.
Those who sat in the warmth of the flames were diverse as well. A toddler was in the arms of Mother Knapp. Little Evelyn sat wide eyed, not wanting to miss a thing. Bee, at seventeen, was the oldest of the children on the trail, brother Fred having stayed behind. He and Buster drove one of the teams. Leone usually rode with the brothers though her eyes were set on the shy handsome young man who helped Uncle Press with his wagons. The McNeil cousins, one Evelyn’s age, added to their companionship. More than just family shared their fire as well. Travelers they met heading east pulled out their instruments to join in the revelry. It is said when Dad Knapp played the fiddle, even “a wooden Indian couldn’t have kept his feet still.” No less could the Indian braves who joined their fire on the open prairie as they neared the Crow Reservation. The braves found great entertainment with the pioneers but also wanted to try to work a trade for Bee’s big bay, Bill, that had outright beat their Indian ponies in a race. They offered five ponies for the bay whose veins ran with race blood. Bee would not strike a trade.
As I peer through the curtains of time, I see Indian braves and children dancing around the fire, the braves trying to coax Leone to join in the dance, smiles and joy reflected on faces in the firelight. I hear the music of the instruments playing old dance tunes with laughter and singing rolling across the prairie like tumbleweeds. Somehow, I sense that Dad Knapp especially was completely content.
He thrived in the wide-open countryside. When neighbors moved too close, he felt penned in. He was among the rushers into Indian Territory in Oklahoma 25 years earlier. But things were getting too crowded for him. By 1914, word came of new territory. Montana was open country. There was land a plenty. A couple of the McNeil brothers had already staked a claim with glowing reports of good grass and plenty of land, 320 acres per homestead. That was enough for Dad Knapp to pull up stakes. Their success depended on the Oklahoma harvest. One hundred acres were planted in wheat. They could easily lose a crop to locusts, drought, hailstorm, or prairie fires. So much hinged on the weather, they were nervous and anxious until the time of harvest came. Dad Knapp didn’t care for the storms that rose up without warning on those western prairies. With an eye on the weather and a prayer on their lips, they waited. The time of harvest came and brought a bumper crop. It was enough for them to make the move.
They arrived at their final destination sixty days and over 1300 miles after they began. The following spring, the families all moved to their prospective homesteads. That was wide open country that seemed as vast as the endless sky – enough to satisfy the wandering soul and itchy feet of a prairie fiddler.
Knapp homestead on the Montana prairie, Evelyn to the left
Years later, Charles Knapp retired in Big Timber, Montana where he lived out the rest of his days.
Memories of Grand Old Bee Bell’s fifth Christmas, 1901
I sure did feel good about getting that long letter and picture page from you boys at Christmas time. I don’t much to write about so I’ll just tell you about my fifth Christmas.
Our neighbor lived 4 miles from us and mother told me to take a small bag of popcorn balls to the boys. It was not so far if I cut thru the hog pasture. A small creek ran thru the pasture, had a small bridge across it.
Grand Old Bee Bell, on left
Well – I was going under the bridge on a narrow trail. It was only wide enough for one boy or 1 hog. I got halfway thru when that big old sow – she went WOOF and I fell in the water and the old sow went on by. Well I tore out fast as I could run. I left the bag of popcorn on the porch and headed for home around the road.
When I got home mother thot I was sick. I had been running so hard and forgot to breathe, it just about done me out.
Well – we had a real nice time that year.
Hope you had a nice time and a happy and Jolly New Year.
Later on that year, Luella and Anna, another niece of mine who was a year older than me, stopped at the ranch. The Coopers had gone to the World Fair in St. Louis and then on to Mississippi to visit Jack’s sister. Luella brought Mamma some pretty salt and pepper shakers from the World Fair.
That winter, Mamma, Joe who was about 21, Bessie, Tooie and I went over to Fergus County for Christmas. Luella was living at Whiskey Gulch near Gilt Edge. I don’t remember how we got to Harlowton – perhaps on the stage from Melville, but I do remember that we rode on the “Jawbone” railroad from Harlowton to Lewiston. This was the railroad built by Richard Harlow without adequate backing of money – just talk, thus the name “Jawbone.” (He had to mortgage the line with James Hill the Great Northern magnate; however, in order to the lines available, Milwaukee Railroad paid off Harlow’s mortgage in 1910.)
From Lewistown we took a stage to Gilt Edge which was a mile or so from the mining camp up Whiskey Gulch. Jack met us and took us to their small log cabin where we stayed for a couple of weeks. Don’t ask me to explain how all of us managed – I suppose that Jack and Joe slept at the boarding house or someplace else. Jack was working in the Big Six mine. (In 1957, Anna Cooper Doore and her daughter Kathryn and I went back to the old place, and we found remains of the old cabin where they lived. The camp is mostly gone and only a few places could be recognized.)
The big social event while we were there was a masquerade at Gilt Edge. I was so taken with the grocery boy, Dick Blake, who was dressed as a woman with a blue dress trimmed with popcorn, I don’t remember anyone else. Luella was masked, but I don’t remember what she wore. We had Christmas at the boarding house which Mrs. Mershon operated. Mrs. Mershon had a son, Joab, who was about 10 or twelve, and a little girl named Sarah Rebecca. A woman named Mrs. Limbaugh gave each one of us girls a silver thimble. I still have mine. Tooie lost hers. A little girl that lived up the hill gave me a tin doll head. Later Bessie made a body for it out of a rag and stuffed it with goat hair.
One of our family’s favorite traditional dishes to serve at Christmas and other family gatherings is Noodles & Tomatoes. Oh, it’s not just noodles in a bag like you buy in the store, it’s homemade noodles. They are really simple to make and ohhhhh so good. I always use home canned tomatoes – it makes a huge difference.
This year we aren’t celebrating with a big crowd of family gathered in the kitchen and scattered throughout the house. I bet that some of the nieces and nephews are serving noodles and tomatoes in their homes this Christmas!
Beat eggs with fork. Stir in salt. Add enough flour to make a very stiff dough. Roll dough out very thin on a floured surface. Roll dough up (like a crepe) and cut with a knife in 1/2″ strips. Unroll each strip and place on a towel or paper towels. Allow to dry. Cook noodles in salted boiling water about 10 minutes. Drain. Pour 1 quart (or more) home canned tomatoes over this and add 2 Tablespoons butter (or more). Season with pepper.
You might like to try it! Who knows, you might start you own new family tradition!
The “Dirty Thirties” blew in more than prairie dust storms, drought, and depression. Those years also blew in death and brought mourning to the Brannin family in Sweet Grass Canyon. You’ve heard it said that deaths come in threes, but those depression years demanded more, claiming five lives from the heart of the Crazy Mountains.
Orval Briner, born in the spring of 1911, was the first-born son of Bessie Brannin Briner. They lived in Indiana though Bessie longed to be with her family in the Crazy Mountains. Every summer, she took the kids back to the Montana ranch. They lived there during the war. Bessie died shortly after, leaving behind three small children and a large family to mourn. The kids were still able to spend some time at the ranch. When the Brannin brothers transformed it into a Dude Ranch, Bill Briner brought the family out to stay and helped build the lodge.
It seemed fitting that “Ollie” was there. After all, he bore the first name of Bessie’s favorite brother, Richard, known as “Uncle Dick.” Ollie learned how to ride horses and bulls. He went hunting and fishing. Surely, he got extra attention from his namesake though none of the slew of kids who found their way to the canyon suffered from lack of love, care, or good-natured ribbing. Many of them spent part of their growing up years there.
At the age of eighteen, Ollie went to work on the ranch with the uncles. He was also employed by other ranchers in Melville. The 1930 census lists him as a “lodger” in the household of the Tronruds. He broke horses and was trail guide for the dudes. The teacher of the cabin school, Miss Egland, caught his eye, though Ollie did have a bit of competition from a youngster, cousin Buck, who nursed his first teacher crush. Ollie wore a black leather jacket and tamed Leo, the big bay gelding, to impress the teacher. Those years of youth, hard work, fond memories, and puppy love were soon overshadowed by dark clouds of death.
Granny Brannin was the first to go in the spring of 1930. She left behind an overwhelming legacy and generations who continue to retell her story. Maybe it’s fitting that she would soon be joined by others. She thrived in the company of her family, her arms always ready to embrace them in her circle of love. It was only three short months when her oldest son, Dolph, the most affectionate of her boys, joined her. I imagine when they reunited, he swept her across the dance floor. They both loved to dance and since his wife didn’t, mother and son were dance partners.
Orval seated left; Jack standing far right
The fall of 1931, fourteen-year-old Jack joined his Grandmother and Uncle Dolph. He had been diagnosed with an inoperable Pontine brain tumor in 1929. It was the egg money given to Jack’s mother that provided funds for their travel to the Mayo Clinic for treatment and prolonged his life longer than expected. Granny Brannin must have greeted him with open arms and introduced him to Uncle Joe and Aunt Bessie.
Dolph
A year later, another was added to the number. Orval, age 21, and a buddy of his, Orie Ortenson, went deer hunting on Porcupine Butte. They split up to track their game. When Orie saw movement in the bushes, he shot, not knowing that Orval had changed direction. Orval was struck in the back. Orie ran for help but when he got back with Stanley Lavold, Orval was already dead. That was November 5, 1932. The newspaper stated, “The Ostenson boy, in a pitiable condition from the shock and grief, is being watched carefully that he may do no harm to himself.”
In 1932, when the whole country wept from depression, there were tears flowing from the heart of the mountains. Grandfather Ward also joined the ranks of death that year. It was a bad year, but Jack’s Mama said that good things happen even in bad years. Sometimes you just have to wait to find the good that comes from such times. Jack’s little brother, Buck, thought maybe his Mama was right. Brownie, his Teddy Bear, fell in the outhouse in 1932. But his Mama pulled him out.
Winds of depression, sickness and heartache may blow across the parched land and we may think that nothing good can come of it. Sometimes you just have to wait…
A Tale of a Horse Trade – as told by my guest author, my Granddad, of his “batchin’ days.”
John Sherod and I got hold of some pretty good flat land in the eastern part of Montana and decided to put it into wheat. We had a fourteen inch gang plow and four work horses for their summer fallow work. This wasn’t enough horsepower to break up eighty acres of new ground. But luck came our way. My brother, Buster, was looking for a pasture for a herd of horses. Buster’s horses were not notoriously gentle when they were broke. Most of these were unbroken. John and I tied into breaking horses. We were breaking rigging too. Finally we created two teams of eight horses each. These included our own horses.
Dust raised over the prairie. John plowed half a day in the morning. I took the afternoon shift. Some horses worked out good, but a few stayed green around the edges. One, on John’s string, was a mean eyed, Roman nosed booger. “Geeraff” John called him. Geeraff was a long legged horse who was short on disposition. He was tough and had harness marks, but he was difficult to handle. We took to harnessing Geeraff in the chute. He kicked and fought and raised cane, but we fastened him in the middle of the eight horse team. After being dragged a few times he gave up laying down and got on his feet and pulled like a gentleman. But, by golly, you had to watch him. He was always ready to make trouble.
Some old timers believed that for every tough horse there was someone who could train him. Claude Gray was one such a fellow. Gray had another flatland farm. His was a prosperous place complete with a wife and a poultry yard which contained a goose to provide down for the lady’s pillows. One day Gray came by when Geeraff was in the chute being outfitted.
“How long you been doing that?” Gray asked.
“Too damn long,” John replied.
“Why I could have him working in two weeks.”
“Give me a trade and you can have him,” Sherod challenged. He was midday cook and wanted a break. “I saw a goose on your place. I’ll let you have Geeraff for a goose. Just have your wife cook the goose for dinner and Geeraff is yours.”
A horse for a goose dinner was a good trade for a couple of fellows who were batching. It was especially a good trade when the horse was Geeraff and belonged to another fellow. A couple of weeks later we went to collect our dinner. The meal lasted all afternoon.
“That was a fine dinner,” I said. “But tell us, how is old Geeraff working out?”
“He’s just like the goose ‑ eat up. Couldn’t do anything with the long legged outlaw, so I fed him to the hogs.”
Gray shook his head. “Run me out of my own corral, and when I lost my hat the son of a gun grabbed it with his teeth. Then he stomped it into the ground. Lucky I wasn’t in it.”
I don’t know what Geeraff did for the hogs. But with him out of the way we finished the job in jig time. I made the final round and headed for the barnyard. My eight horses were hooked to the plow and a thirty foot drag log with stub limbs was fastened behind the plow for leveling the ground.
When I went to open the wire gate, one of the horses spooked. The others took the challenge. They stampeded through the gate with the tree drag chasing them. The corral and barn were ahead. A log outhouse was to one side. When the horses flew by the corral the drag log was getting airborne. As they rounded the barn on the way back the drag swung wide, hit the outhouse and sent logs flying though the air like match sticks. The horses ended up in a glorious wreck ‑ plow, logs, match sticks, and harness.
I had one tame horse. He was on the bottom of the pile.
We were most of the afternoon cutting the horses out, and the next day we started sewing the harness back together. The field was plowed. I asked John, “Now what shall we do?”
“Head west,” came the reply.
We hitched up our horses and headed for the mountains. We reached the Big Hole Basin two weeks before haying time. Rainbow welcomed us. “Glad you came early,” he said. “I’ve got some green horses that I need to break so we can get in the hay fields.”
John had spent several winters working in the Big Hole Basin for Rainbow. This was on a big cattle and hay operation. Someone in Seattle owned this. Rainbow was the ranch manager. His wife, Blanche, was a good manager herself. She’d borrow me for her special chores. Sometimes mowing Blanche’s orchard took precedence over the nut grass in the meadows.
Blanche had an old horse that was full of miseries and on his last legs. One of my special tasks was putting the old horse out of his miseries.
(Note: Sometimes Mr. Bee speaks of this ranch as the Huntley ranch)
Going through Daddy’s books can be a bit overwhelming, but it also offers its rewards.
I pulled some books off the shelves (that no one seemed to want) to donate to a ministry. The rule when going through Daddy’s things is to look for notes. He kept scraps of paper and a pen in his pocket just in case something struck his fancy. Whether at church, riding in the car, sitting on the bench at the store, or relaxing in his chair at home, he pulled the paper and pen from his pocket and scribbled notes often accompanied with a giggle.
Before I placed the books in boxes, I first thumbed through the pages. I found bookmarks, a piece of fabric, a few photos, bulletins, notes, a piece of cardboard, a wedding invitation, an obituary, a letter or two, a note from the couple that housed Mama when she was teaching school, and a bunch of scribbled on scraps of paper that are pretty much illegible. The oldest dated paper was from 1964.
In the process, I found a word of wisdom: “We never get too old to learn some new way of being stupid.”
I also found this little jewel:
Mama, Mama, can you see A stripped chipmunk by that tree?
Sonny, Sonny, are you drunk That’s not a chipmunk, that’s a skunk.
A skunk mama? How can you tell? Some folks know him by his smell.
Opening a book can transport you to anywhere. You have the world at your fingertips and can experience places you’ve never been, visit unknown worlds, learn great truths, or step back in time. Who knows, you might just uncover a hidden jewel not written on the pages of the book, but on a random scrap of paper stuck between the leaves for whatever reason.
If the early settlers in New Mexico Territory thought they would conquer that beautiful, harsh, wild land, they were mistaken. Many were killed or run out of the country by Indians who defended their homes from the invasion of the white men. As Indians were driven from their lands, another wave of settlers made their way into the territory.
The new settlers were a different class of people. They brought in small herds of cattle and started farming or ranching on a small scale until they could increase their herds. With more and more Indians removed to reservations, the settlers no longer had a common foe. The small-time ranchers quickly tired of one another. They displayed their own savagery as they increased their herds at the expense of others, stealing cattle and killing neighbors who got in the way of their enterprise. That time of lawlessness was one of the driving forces for the Brannin family’s move to the tamer wilds of Montana.
Brothers by the name of Grudgings moved into the area and built a cabin in 1885 near the Gila cliff dwellings. The Grudgings brothers were known cattle rustlers and flashed their weapons with little conscience. Tom Woods, a former peace officer turned prospector, ranched on the Middle Fork of the Gila River northwest of the Grudgings ranch. He was aware of their rustling. The Grudgings boys were afraid he would inform the local ranchers so decided to do away with him.
Tom Woods, a pioneer who came west from Iowa, generally made a trip by way of the Gila Hot Springs to Pinos Altos or Silver City to get supplies. On the morning of October 5, 1892, instead of Tom going for supplies, he sent his fifteen-year-old son Charley accompanied by Francisco Diaz, who had been living at the ranch and helping hew logs for a barn. The trail that followed the ridges and curvature of the Black Range was not an easy one. It was not a quick jaunt to town, but rather a journey that took several days. On their return trip from Silver City on October 10, they passed close to the Grudgings cabin in the evening. The Grudgings brothers watched the two pass by with their five burros loaded with supplies and knew the travelers would camp in Grave Canyon just west of the Zig-Zag trail. The brothers followed.
Grudgings cabin built 1885, located near Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument (burned in 1991)
That night, after Charley Woods and Diaz laid down to sleep, they were shot to death. The Grudgings brothers mistakenly thought they killed Tom Woods. Charley suffered gun shots to the head and hands, possibly as the hands tried to shield the barrage of gunfire. There was also indication of blows to the head. The bodies were discovered the morning of October 11.
At first, the crime was said to have been the work of Indians or Mexicans. That was quickly dismissed because nothing in the camp was disturbed. All the supplies, the wagon, burros, guns and ammunition were still there, and the camp was completely intact. That meant one thing, it was a deliberate cold-blooded act. Rain in the night “destroyed all signs and trails.” When Tom Woods walked into the camp, he took in the scene, then recovered the single action model Colt .45 he had given to Charley. Tom Woods believed he would find enough evidence to take matters into his own hands. And he did – one year later.
The same night Charley was murdered, he made a “visit” to the Brannin ranch on Sapillo Creek forty miles from Grave Canyon. Charley was a friend and occasional guest at the Brannin ranch. Whenever Charley was there for an overnight visit, he slept in the barn with the Brannin boys. He always slid down the pole that leaned from the loft to the ground. On that particular night, the night of October 10, Dick, age 11, and Gus, age 6, slept in the hayloft in the barn. Normally Joe was with them, but that night he had an earache and stayed in the cabin. In the middle of the night, the boys woke up to see someone in the loft with them who struck a sulphur match on the pole and slid down. It was Charley. The next morning, they wondered about Charley’s visit. Both of the boys swore they saw the “person” and there was the mark from a sulphur match on the pole. It didn’t take long before word spread to Sapillo Creek that their friend Charley had been murdered that same night. As the story of Charley’s ghost has been retold through the years, captivated listeners experience cold chills running down their spines.
Gravestone of William Grudgings
That is not the end of the story. A year later, on October 8, 1893, Tom Woods lay in wait for the Grudgings boys in a willow thicket below the Grudgings cabin. The brothers came riding up the trail beside the old rail fence. Woods shot and killed William Grudgings instantly. Tom Grudgings ducked down on the side of his horse and hid behind the rails. Woods shot but missed his moving target.
Tom Woods gave himself up to officers at Cooney and confessed he killed William Grudgings in retaliation of his son’s murder. Though many thought he administered justice, he was found guilty of murder and committed to Socorro County jail without bail. While being escorted to jail, he escaped. The story is that a man by the name of Barrett who accompanied Deputy Fred Golden, went with Woods up the creek for a nature call and was told to “light a shuck,” which Woods did. He wasn’t seen again for some time.
With his Colt on his hip, he trailed Tom Grudgings all the way to Louisiana and determined that a man by that description would cross the river at daylight in a canoe. Woods hid in a canebrake near the canoe early and sure enough, a man appeared. Tom Grudgings had a front tooth out and it was his habit of spitting through the gap. The man spit as he neared the canoe. Woods immediately recognized him and said, “Hello, Tom.” Grudgings swirled around to see the Colt leveled on him. Woods shot him in his belt buckle. Apparently, he was not killed, for records indicate he died in What Cheer, Iowa in 1946 at the age of 75.
After two years of the murder of William Grudgings, Tom Woods was acquitted. The Las Vegas Daily Optic, Las Vegas, New Mexico, dated June 2, 1896, states, “Tom Woods was acquitted of the charge of murder, for the killing of William Grudgings, near Gila Hot Springs, Grant County, four years ago.”
Stanton Brannin’s letter to the editor October 31, 1893, Southwest Sentinel
If you happen to find yourself at the old Brannin Ranch site on Sapillo Creek and hear a rustling from a breeze in the old apple tree and smell the faint odor of sulphur, you might just see a faint wisp of a fifteen-year-old boy by the name of Charley Woods.
The Grudgings cabin was near present day Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument. The cabin was a tourist attraction for many years until it burned in 1991. Visitors still visit the grave site of William Grudgings whose tomb stone is inscribed, “Waylayed and murdered by Tom Woods Oct. 8 1893”
Before Tom Woods died in 1925 he showed 14 notches on his gun. He said he wanted to get 15 notches on his gun but never got to do that.
