Logo designed for Johnson County by Pamela R. Cresswell

Where the Sun First Rises in Tennessee & Tennessee History Begins

Editor's notes are in italics.

Robert Nathan (Bob) Donnelly was born in Johnson County, Tennessee, May 4, 1866 died 7 Sept. 1933 in San Pedro, California. His father [James Carter Donnelly] fought with the 4th Tennessee Infantry USA during the civil war. Bob was a republican. Mary Floy Elliott was born at Sutherland, Ashe County, North Carolina February, 10,1869 died April 15, 1954 in Whittier, California. Her father [Julius A. Elliott] fought with the 49th North Carolina Infantry, Confederate Army. He was wounded and was captured at the battle of Shiloh. (His military records show he was captured at Drewery's Bluff/Fort Darling, Virginia. According to the history of the regiment, they weren't at Shiloh, but he did fight in the 2nd Battle of Manassas/Bullrun, Fredericksburg and Antetiem/Sharpsburg, Maryland.) He spent the remainder of the war as a prisoner, the last year was spent in the infamous prison at Elmira, N.Y. Mary Floy was a democrat. Robert and Mary Floy were united in marriage August 21, 1890 in Sutherland, Ashe Co., NC at the home of her parents. Over the years they had ten children--five boys and five girls. The first born was a son named, Scates followed by Roy, James, Margaret, Elizabeth, Virginia, Nora, Mary, Robert Nathaniel (Nat) and Mark. Scates died of scarlet fever at 2 years of age. All the rest of the children lived to adulthood.

When a young man Bob Donnelly spent a year riding the range in Montana. While living in Johnson County, Term, he was engaged at various times in lumbering, R.R. construction, farming, merchandising, law enforcement and at one time he and my mother operated the hotel in Mountain City, Tenn. Mary Floy taught school before her marriage.

During the early 1900 s there was much publicity given to the opening of land in the western United States for homesteading. In 1910 some of our relatives, the Romingers: John, Press, Ora and their mother and father, whom we called Dad and Granny Rominger, migrated to Montana. They homesteaded just south and a little east of Floweree. Glowing reports of Montana and the opportunities presented there was sent back to Tennessee, and my mother who was anxious to get her family out of the hills in NE Tennessee encouraged my father to migrate also. She felt there would be much more opportunity for the children in the west.

In early 1912 Dad took the two older boys, Roy and Jim, and took the train to Floweree. He filed on a half section (320 acres) of land that was located about 3 miles south of Floweree. It was located across Huntley coulee from Floweree and was situated on a flat between Huntley and Ryan coulees. Together with the two boys they erected a three room tar-paper shack close to the edge of Ryan coulee. A large cellar had first been dug and the house was bui t so that the kitchen was over the cellar. The house consisted of a kitchen which was on the west end, a small room in the middle, that we called the parlor, was next to the kitchen and on the east end was a larger bedroom. At the N.E. corner of the house they dug and cemented a cistern. When the house was completed about the middle of 1912 he sent for my mother and the rest of the family.

My mother soon got things in order and prepared to leave with the children, five girls ranging in age from 14 to 31/2 years of age and the baby, me, Nat, who was barely a year old. They had to take the train to Chicago and then transfer to the Great Northern R.R. The distance between the stations was some 2 miles or more. They had no berths but would have to sit up the entire way, some 6 days. She had prepared and packed food to last the entire trip. Just as we were preparing to board the train my grandfather Donnelly happened to ask my mother if she had any money. She replied yes. Re asked her how much and she replied ten cents. He gave her five dollars and I think that when she arrived in Floweree that she still had three dollars remaining. When she was asked later how she ever expected to get from one R.R. station to another, a distance of same two or more miles, she replied that she did not know but that she would have managed somehow and there is no doubt that she would if had become nescessary. That must have been some trip. I was just barely one year old at the time and still nursing. Once when she was so tired that she fell asleep she awoke to find me in her lap and that I had managed to get one of her breasts out and was happily nursing away.

When we arrived in Floweree, Dad met us and took us to the Romingers first. John and Press lived only about 1/4 mile from the depot. Then he took us by wagon to our new home on the prairie. To get to our place from Floweree by wagon you had to cross over the R.R. tracks and go somewhat S.E. around the upper end of Huntley coulee and then easterly across the R.R. tracks and on down a distance of about three miles to our homestead. It was a total distance of about 7 miles by wagon. It was only about 3 miles directly across Huntley coulee to our place but the coulee there was deep and steep and to go that way was either on foot or horseback. There was a trail of sorts through the coulee at the Hauer place, that joined us on the N.W., that you might get a light buggy or sled over but when we first moved there we were not welcome to go through their place.

I can well imagine my mothers feelings when she arrived at her new home with its barren surroundings. It must have been grim indeed after having lived up until that time in one of the garden spots of the U.S. where there was trees, flowers and greenery of all kinds and loads of water everywhere. I know she expected it to be rough but had no idea of just how rough it was going to be. She was equal to the challenge, however, and she didn t dare complain too much because it was due mostly to her urging that we were there. It must have been a real shock to the older girls.

Their house and family in Mountain City, Tennessee

Our home consisted of 3 rooms and a cellar. The kitchen was on the west end of the house and the cellar was located under it. There was an outside entrance to the cellar on the west that consisted of double doors. There was also a trapdoor in the floor of the kitchen that gave us inside access to the cellar. It was a dirt cellar that had been shored up to keep the walls from caving in and the walls were lined with shelves to store canned goods and other supplies. The kitchen had a large wood and coal range used for cooking and heating the kitchen. There was a rough table and some chairs and in one corner there was a bed for my mother and father. Along some of the walls there was open shelves for dishes and cooking utensils. There was a bin for flour and a few drawers that was used for various purposes. In the small roon next to the kitchen, that we called our par1or, there was a pot-bellied wood and coal stove, some bare furniture and a few book shelves. Next to the parlor on the east end of the house was a bed room for we children with several beds that were homemade.

Left to right: Horses, Ben and Prince; Bob Donnelly; Floy Donnelly holding baby Mark; Virginia; Mary and Nat. Behind Nat was Myrtle Canavan Donnelly, Nora (my mother in the red knit cap), Margaret and Elizabeth.

When we first went there we slept on straw ticks but these were gradually replaced with feather ticks that my mother made from the down that she saved from the various fowl that we killed. My brothers, Roy and Jim had built a one room dug-out in a draw just a short distance below our house. It was dug in to the side of a bill and consisted of one small room with dirt walls and floor and a sod roof. It had a front of wood. As I remember it was furnished with a bed, a rough table and a bench. There was no stove.

Our cistern was located at the N.E. corner of the house and we had to haul water in a tank wagon from some lakes or reservoir of some kind that was about 7 miles N.W. of us. I can remember going with my father with the tank wagon. It was equiped with a hand pump that my father used to fill the wagon. We would then haul it home and empty it in to the cistern by gravity. It was a fairly large cistern and it would take several loads to fill it. Our roof was equiped with gutters and we would run the rain water and melting snow water in to the cistern after first letting the first rain wash off the roof. In the winter we would melt snow to help save on water. Water was very precious and we were taught to not waste a drop of it. We had a pail with a rope attached to it that we used to bail water up from the cistern through a trap door on the center as we needed it for drinking, cooking, washing dishes or clothes, bathing or whatever. There was always water heating on the stove in tea kettles, pots and for washing clothes or bathing we heated it in a wash boiler. My mother had to wash clothes by hand using a galvanized tub and a scrub board and usually with home made soap. Flat irons were heated on the stove and used for ironing. Our lighting was with coal oil lamps in the house and with lanterns when needed outside. They had to be constantly cleaned and the wicks trimmed to keep them from smoking but we made do with them. As a rule we got baths once a week, usually on Saturday night. This was done in a galvanized tub on the floor, starting out with the smallest and cleanest and working up to the largest or dirtiest and using the same water as long as possible. When it got too dirty it would be changed, but reluctantly. The dirty water was used to pour on our garden or flowers if we should have any - none ever went to waste. How our mother ever did it I will never know but we always seemed to have clean clothes, clean bedding, a clean house and be kept reasonably clean our selves. She always said "Cleanliness is next to Godliness" and believe me she practiced it.

Our home was only about a mile from the Missouri river, but it was almost straight down. It was impossible to haul water up from there even on a sled. However our livestock could water there at times and also there usually was water in the bottoms of both Huntley and Ryan coulees where they could drink. We had a stock cistern about 75 yards west of the house where we could water the working stock. Many times in the winter when it was so cold that everything was frozen, Dad would take an axe and walk down to the river and chop holes in the ice so the stock could drink. Sometimes in the summer my mother would take a sled with our old horse (Kid) hitched to it and go down to the river to wash clothes. There was a small draw in front of our house and my father had built a dam across it, using a scraper with horses, to catch and hold water but it didn't last long after the snow melted in the spring.

We had a root cellar, an out-house and a chicken house east of the house. In the winter we had a large chamber-pot or what we called a "slop-jar", that we used at night or when it was too cold to go to the out-house. We raised chickens, turkeys, and sometimes some ducks and geese and they furnished us with about all the fresh meat we had during the hot weather. Occasionally we had a jack rabbit or cotton tail and sometimes a prairie chicken. Dad would butcher a hog now and then and he would cure the hams and bacon and make sausage which my mother would can. We usually shared a hog with the Hauers because it had to be eaten up pretty quick or it would spoil. The Hauers always wanted the blood to make blood sausage with. They used the small intestines for casings. It sure was good. In the winter time when it was cold Dad could butcher a beef and hang it in the granary where it would freeze and we could have beef all during the cold weather. We never had any ice or any way of keeping things cool besides putting it in the cellar or hanging it in the cistern which was only slightly cooler than outside.

Our first barn was a dug-out sort of an affair that was dug in to the side of the draw just below the dam. Dad had dug most of this with a scraper when he built the dam. He had built up the sides somewhat and the roof as I remember it was mostly of sod and straw. He soon built a new barn about 125 yards or so north of the house. It was located on a small rise. This barn was built by erecting an inner and an outer wooden frame and then filling the space (about 3 feet) with straw left from threshing wheat. This straw was also piled over the roof and it made a good warm barn. There was a small tac-room near the door where we hung our harness, saddle, etc. There was mangers where we stalled and fed the work stock when we were working them. A granary, built of lumber, was located next to the barn.

Across from the front (south) of the house, at the upper end of the draws was our pig-pen where we kept the hogs. In front of the pig-pen was a pasture for the hogs that had been fenced hog- tight. A barb-wire fence had been built around our house and all our immediate outbuildings. This served a dual purpose. It kept the live stock away from- the house and it also kept us from wandering out on the praire during poor visibility and getting lost. Sometimes during a blizzard visibility was so bad that it was dangerous to try to go to the barn. There was also a small wooden building just west of the house that, I think could be used as a reserve granary. I remember that it had a wooden floor so it must have been intended for use as a granary. That then was our home on the prairie.

When we homesteaded in 1912 on what was known to some as "Prosperity Flat" there were only four families besides our own living there. There was also a couple of single women homesteading there. Joining us on the west was a family by the name of Klus. I do not remember very much about them because they moved away shortly after we moved there. I think they had a 1/4 section. They had built a sod house and beneath it they had dug a very deep well that never produced any water. I remember that after they moved away that we used to go there and drop stones down the well and sometimes we would light paper and let it drop down the well. It was a very dangerous situation because if any one should ever fall in there was no way to get out. My Dad knocked down what was left of the sod house and filled in the well.

Just north of the Klus place was the Hauers. I think they also had but one 1/4 section. Their house and outbuildings were located on the edge of Huntley coulee. Mr. Hauer was a baker by trade and worked in Great Falls. He would come home most Saturday evenings and go back generally on Sunday evening. He would take the train to Floweree and then walk across Huntley coulee to their place. They had five children. There was two girls who lived away from home. The three boys lived at home with their mother. The oldest was Albert, then Fred and the youngest was Henry. Henry was about 3 years older than me. Mrs. Hauer was very short and fat and very unfriendly when we first moved there. They were of old German stock and very suspicious of strangers. This all changed in time and we became very good friends and neighbors eventually. Mrs. Hauer made very good home brew and it was a real treat to get a glass of her beer.

To the west of the Hauers was a large open prairie. It ran along the upper end of Huntley coulee to the Oeleis place. I can t remember for sure whether the two single women were homesteading on this open prairie or if they were located just east of the Days. I seem to remember that they were north of the Days and that would have put them between the Hauers and the Oeleis place. Tom Oeleis and his family lived toward the upper end of the flat and up toward the G.N. R.R. tracks. They were a large family and what they did for a living was always a question. They never seemed to farm as I remember. They had a few horses and a buggy and lots of children. I seem to remember that the Strain family of Great Falls sponsored them more or less.

To the south and east of the Oeleis place was the Day place. It was located toward the upper end of Ryan coulee. They were also a very large family. I think that there were 11 or 12 children all told but some of the older ones had left home before we arrived. When we moved there they lived in a log cabin or house built of logs that they had hauled there from somewhere up around Great Falls. They also had built a barn out of 12 x 12 timbers that they had also hauled from the same source. A good sized corral joined the barn. They also had a well with a windmill that was quite a novelty at that time. The well produced water fit only for livestock however. They raised a lot of beef cattle besides dry farming. They were old time pioneers and pretty rugged stock. Good horsemen, cattlemen and good farmers. We eventually went to school with a lot of the younger children and they were good neighbors.

That leaves just the two women homesteaders and they lived just north or just east of the Days in a small one room shack. One of the women's name was Forsythe and I can't remember the name of the other. They did not live there long after our arrival.

When we settled there, there was little or no farming. There was no modern farm machinery or method of farming. Hauers raised a few acres of wheat. It was cut with a hand scythe and it was threshed by walking a horse around over the grain that had been scattered on a wood floor. There was no school and some of the people wanted it to stay that way. My mother had taught school before her marriage and the second year we were there Dad made some crude benches and Mother taught school in the little one room affair that was just west of our house. Of course school could only be taught in the summer or during warm weather but at least it was a start. Besides our own young children some of the Days children, and I think some of the Klus children also attended. She taught school there in 1913 and also In 1914.

Dad went to work to get us in to the Cascade County school district and was helped by Mr. Klus and also some of the people from Portage helped. He was successful and in 1915, after a site that was centrally located was decided upon and was obtained, a one room school was built. It was located on a hill between the Day and Klus homesteads. It consisted of one room with a cloak room at the entrance. The windows were on the east side. A cistern was dug at the SE corner and an outhouse was located just south of the school. A small one-room cabin was built to be used as a teacherage and was located just east of the school. This was for the teacher to live in. Most of the labor of building the school and teacherage was donated by neighbors and various other people. Dad was a pretty good carpenter and did a very large part of the work.

Donnelly School in Floweree, Montana

The school was furnished with about 25 desks that were in rows of 5 or 6 and parallel to the windows. In the back of the room was a large pot-bellied stove. In the front of the room was the teachers desk and behind her on the south wall was the blackboard. The teacherage was equipped with a small cook stove that was used to cook and heat the one small room. There was a bed, a table and a few chairs. The school was completed and the first classes began in the fall of 1915. Our first teacher was Mrs. John (Cora) Rominger and she was a good one. Because of the work of organizing and building the school that had been donated by our father the school was named "The Donnelly-School". I started school there in the fall of 1916 somewhat by accident. When school started that fall I went as a visitor on the first day with some of my sisters. There was no first grade class that fall and no prospects for any the next fall except me only so Mrs. Rominger decided to start me in the first grade at that time. She put me through the first and second grades that first year and in the fall of 1917 I entered the third grade with the other students. As a result I was able to complete the available eight grades of school in seven years. The school was now well attended by all the neighbor children.

Because I was so young at the time I can not remember much about the breaking of the sod for the first time. However ours was done by a plow pulled by horses. We had a walking plow and also a riding plow. Dad had to do this with the help of the two older boys who were still at home at that time. How dad ever acquired all the machinery to farm with I don t know but we had a plow, disc, harrow, drill, binder and later a header and what else was needed. All of our work was done with horses. My dad was a pretty good judge of horses and we gradually acquired 8 or 10 work horses. I can remember him working 4, 5, or 6 horses pulling the various machinery. The ground had to be plowed, then disced, and then harrowed before it was seeded. and this meant work from early light to dark.

When the grain was ripe, usually early in August, we cut it with a binder. The binder cut the grain and bound it in bundles with binder twine and dumped it on the ground. These bundles were then picked up and put in what we called shocks in the field and then when the threshing machine and crew came to do the threshing it was picked up with what we called pick-up wagons and hauled to the thresher for threshing. Later on the binder was replaced by headers which could be used to cut much shorter grain. If the grain was not of sufficient height the binder could not bind it in to bundles. With the header the grain was cut while the thresher was operating. As the grain was cut it went back onto a revolving belt affair that carried it to the header wagons that was pulled alongside of the header. These header wagons were built with a low side and a high side. The low side was next to the header and as the wagon filled, the grain was pushed back toward the high side until the wagon was full and then it pulled away and hauled it to the thresher. It was replaced by a following wagon and so the process went on until all the grain was cut. As the wheat was threshed the grain was run in to a waiting grain wagon and the straw came out a high large pipe and was blown into straw stacks. The grain was either hauled directly to the grain elevators in Floweree or Portage or was hauled to our granary where it had to be shoveled, with large "scoop shovels", into the granary for storage and for sale later. A round trip to Floweree or Portage with a grain wagon was a total distance of about 14 miles and would require most of the day. If you were lucky and could unload with little or no wait at the elevator, sometimes you could make two trips in a day.

Harvest time was a very exciting time, especially for us children. The thresher would be pulled in by the steam engine and setup in the field. There were extra header wagons, grain wagons, livestock, usually a cook shack and all the necessary equipment to get the job done. There was always a large crew that accompanied and operated the outfit. A cook shack usually came along, although I can remember that at times my mother, with the help of my sisters would cook for and feed the crew. Many times there would be an equipment breakdown and then every thing would come to a halt until necessary repairs could be made. The crew brought along their own bedrolls and would sleep in the out buildings or in the straw stacks. Every one worked hard and they had to be fed good. It was always a special treat for them if we had some home brew which we managed at times. Later, but a long time after we left Montana, the farmers started using combines to do the harvesting. These were self-propelled and used like a binder or header they cut and threshed the grain in one operation. This greatly reduced the need for manpower and was a much more efficient way of harvesting. Combines had been used somewhat in past years but they were big and bulky and had to be pulled by horses or mules with sometimes as many as 30 or more, hitched two abreast and in tandem. A single animal was used as a lead animal and control was done with what was called a jerk line. It was one line only and was controlled from the driver up on the front of the combine. Needless to say this man had to be a well qualified mule skinner. This type of combine was too bulky and inefficient and was soon abandoned in favor of the binder and later the header.

We had a number of milk cows, a few head of beef, hogs and of course horses. We also had chickens, turkeys and a few times we raised some geese and some ducks. In later years we also raised domestic rabbits. All of the fields were fenced. Our cattle and the horses that we were not working we usually pastured down in the coulees. We usually milked 8 or 10 cows during the summer or good weather. This was usually a job for the children, but if Mother or Dad had the time they would help. At first we had no cream seperator so the milk would be put in pans and kept in the cellar. As the cream would rise it would be skimmed off the top and Mother would churn it and make butter. The skimmed milk was fed to the hogs and chickens and also the buttermilk that was left over from churning was fed to the hogs. Mother also made lots of cottage cheese. Later on we acquired a cream seperator and this greatly facilitated this process. Mother made sweet butter from sweet cream and boy was it ever good. Some of the butter that was made in that area was so strong and rancid that it would almost take the top of your head off if you attempted to eat it.

In the morning after the cows were milked we would turn the cows out to pasture in the coulees and there was generally water in the bottoms for them to drink also. In the afternoon we would saddle a horse, take the dog, and go drive them home. Sometimes this would a very difficult job, especially if some of them were in heat and had other ideas. This of course was in the summer and during good weather. In the winter we usually kept up a cow or two that we would milk and use just for our own use. The rest of them we would turn out with the rest of the livestock.

The hogs we kept penned up except when there was stubble or some other available pasture for them to feed on. Then they were turned out and it was up to my sister, Mary, and me to keep them herded out of the grain, the garden and such. If you think herding sheep or cattle can be a difficult job just try herding hogs sometime. Our beef stock, dry milk cows and the horses that we were not working we let run in the pastures or down in the coulees.

In the spring we would gather up the horses that we were going to work. After work they would be fed and watered and turned out to pasture during the night. We would either keep up a horse that we could ride to round them up in the morning or sometimes we would hobble one of the horses that we could ride and turn it out with the others to pasture. In the morning we would catch the hobbled horse, get a bridle on it and then we would have to lead it over to a fence so we could climb up a post to get on its back. We were too small to climb up on its back in the field. We rode bareback most of the time but even with a saddle, at first, we were too small to climb aboard with out help of some kind. We didn't have a good saddle horse for quite a while, but we could ride some of the horses that we worked. In the winter time we usually kept up one team that we could use to pull the buggy or wagon if they could be used or to pull the sled if not. The rest of the horses we would turn out to run in the pasture or generally down in the coulees with the rest of the livestock to forage as best they could until spring. If the weather was real bad and the feed short, as it often was, we would have to supplement them with hay or straw left over from harvest.

The kids on the saddle horse. Left to right: Mary Carter Donnelly, holding an unidentified baby, then Nat, Mark, Lois and Walter Donnelly.

After harvest the ground would have to be readied for planting. It would have to be plowed, disced and then harrowed and seeded using a drill. We planted mostly winter wheat. It was the crop of choice and was planted in late fall. Sometimes we would plant some spring wheat and that was planted in the spring. We usually planted some oats for use as horse feed and sometimes we would raise some hay. Hay did not do very well however, and we generally had to buy most of our hay.

When the harvest and fall planting was over it was generally an easier time for Dad. There was always chores and things to repair but not as much work as the rest of the year. There was no let up for mother, however. If any thing her work would increase in the winter. Cooking, canning, sewing and cleaning was an endless job 365 days of the year. Practically nothing was ever thrown away. Flour and sugar sacks were all saved and she would make our underwear out of them. In the winter we wore long johns and they were store bought. Bolts of cloth would be purchased and she would cut out and make our shirts and dresses for the girls. Lots of our pants and other clothes she made also. Socks had to be darned and clothes patched. All these things to take care of and still find time to see that the children (and later two grandchildren) received all the love and attention that growing children needed. As busy as she was I can never remember a time that we went to her with a problen or a question that she didn't take the time to try and help or listen to our problems. If she didn t know the answer to some of our questions she would always try to find the answer one way or another. If she thought we deserved it she would whale us good but as a rule we would get a good lecture and that would be it. We were taught to show respect to both our parents. We knew and respected discipline but we also knew love. Besides all this work my mother taught school in the little granary by our house and this was done with out any compensation. After our school was completed and a regular teacher hired she no longer had this job to do. She did teach the first two summers. After the school was completed it was pretty well attended by most of the children there on the flat that were of school age. Probably. the most that ever attended at any one time would have been 17 or 18.

All of the children walked to school unless the weather was extremely bad. We had probably just a little over a mile to walk sometimes we would frostbite our ears, nose or feet and the teacher would have to take a pan of snow and thaw them. If the weather was real bad, Dad would take us in a buggy or a sled. The teacher would have to go over to the school in the morning and start a fire in the stove so it would be warm for us when we arrived. We used coal for fuel almost exclusively because there was no wood available there on the barren flats. We would be lucky to have a little wood to use for kindling to just start the fire.

Every one brought their lunch. Most of us brought it in old karo syrup buckets or old tobacco tins. We had a short recess in the morning and one in the afternoon. When the weather permitted we would play outside. In the spring and fall we could run just over the hill and snare gophers with a piece of string. We would play "Annie Annie Over", or maybe "One-a-Cat" or what ever we could dream up. Our ball always was made of rolled up string or rags and our bat was usually just a stick of some kind, I can remember our ball was always coming unraveled and we would have to stop the game and patch it up. In the winter time we would build snow forts and have snow-ball fights and at times they would get a little out of hand and the teacher would have to take a hand.

When weather permitted the teacher would generally go home Friday after school and return Sunday afternoon or early on Monday morning. The teacher I remember best was Mrs. Cora Rominger. She taught the first two years that the school existed and also the last which was the year 1922-23. A Mrs. Ficke taught us a couple of years. Her husband was a preacher and I remember she was very strict. Mrs. Press Rominger also taught us a year or two. I am not sure of the names of the other teachers but the name Mink and Glass seems to ring a bell somewhere. We had discipline and no foolishness was tolerated during school. The teachers had to be pretty good because when you completed the eighth grade you had to pass an examination given by the state before you received your eight grade diploma.

I remember sometimes we would have parties or what we called "Socials" and they would generally be held at the school. Sometimes there would be box socials where the women would bring a box lunch and the menfolks would bid on the boxes: and then eat with the one who had brought the lunch. Sometimes the teacher would put on programs with the students and we would have to recite poetry or such for the parents. We always had a Christmas party. Dad would usually find a tree of some kind down by the river or down in the coulee and bring it up to the school. We would decorate it with strings of popcorn, colored ribbons and any kind of ornament that we could scrounge up or we could improvise. We used candles for lights and at the party they would be lit and it would be a very exciting time. There were always buckets of water handy in case the tree caught fire which sometimes happened. At the party we children would generally receive a small bag of candy and maybe an apole or orange as a present.

Sometimes after the party at school dad would take the tree home and put it up at our house for Christmas. Usually, however, we would just hang our stockings up and hope that Santa would leave something in them for us. We usually got a small bag of candy in them and a few nuts and maybe an orange or an apple or if we were lucky both. We generally got some cheap little toy of some kind and maybe some well needed clothing. I remember one year I got a small inexpensive steel runner sled and that probably was the best present we ever had. We used it to pull each other all over the place and to slide down the hills and we even made a harness for our dog and used him to pull us around if he would cooperate. Our sleds were usually homemade with wooden runners and were pretty clumsy. We also had tobogans that was made from corrugated sheet iron that we generally found close to the R.R. tracks where they had blown off of freight cars. Sometimes we would get together with the Hauers or other neighbors and have sleigh parties and we would slide down the bigger hills and sometimes have an open fire to warm by. We loved to have these parties on nice moonlight nights and did we ever enjoy ourselves.

During the winter when the weather was not too severe we children would spend most of the day outside playing with the dogs, oats, colts, calves or what ever. We would make snowmen, snow- forts and have snow ball fights. We could generally find something to do. We also had our chores that we had to do. We would have to carry in coal, clean the barn and chicken house, empty the slop jar and what ever needed to be done we did. Our evenings were generally spent inside. After dinner and things were cleaned up we would read or sometimes Mother or Dad would read to us or we would have some game that we could play. Dad would sometimes tell us stories about hunting in Tennessee days. That was always a treat. I can remember standing around the pot-bellied stove on real cold evenings with the side next to the stove burning up and the side away from the stove freezing. When It was time for bed we would all run and jump into bed together and snuggle up to get warm.

We had bed-bugs. Every body had bed-bugs but no one would admit they had bed bugs. Mother fought them tooth and nail. I can still see her going around with a tea kettle of scalding hot water pouring it in cracks or any place that she thuught they might be lurking. She would take the beds apart and search for them. Sometimes we would fumigate for them, but all to no avail. We probably had less bed-bugs than anyone but we had bed-bugs arid so did every one else.

As winter would run in to spring the chinook winds would start to blow and the snow would start to melt and we would have water and mud every where. The water would run down the ravines and into the coulees. Snow on the roof would melt and we would run it in to our cistern. Gradually things would dry out and work would begin. We would gather in the work horses and as the cows came fresh we would bring them in and start milking more of them. We would have to gather up the horses and milk the cows before school and after school we would have to milk the cows again, feed the bogs and chickens and do what ever was necessary. It was a busy time. Soon school would be out and summer would be on us.

Dad seemed blessed with a green thumb. He always planted a large garden. In the spring he would prepare a good sized piece of ground, get it all worked up and then plant all kinds of vegetables. He would plant potatoes, beets, turnips, rutabagas, parsnips, carrots, beans, peas, cabbage, tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet corn, onions and just about anything that we could sell or use. As it began to come up and grow it was usually up to we children to hoe and pull weeds and to pick the potato bugs off the potatoes. He would cultivate as it needed, using a one-horse cultivator. When the garden began to produce we would harvest a load of whatever was ready late on Friday afternoon and load it on to a spring-wagon along with what ever else that we had to sell or trade. When the sweet corn was picked it was picked last and wet down to keep it fresh. Mother would have sweet butter, sweet cream and fresh eggs to send and sometimes she would send in chickens that had just been killed, plucked and dressed. Dad would leave just before daylight for the 4 or 5 hour drive to Great Falls. He would be at the market early in the morning and as a rule his goods sold out pretty fast. There would be standing orders for my mothers butter, and his golden bantam sweet corn always went fast.

When everything was sold and disposed of he would then go shopping for the things we needed at home. He would bring flour, sugar and the staples that we needed. If fresh fruit was available, and we could afford it, he would bring boxes of it home for my mother to can. Generally he would arrive back at home well after dark. Most of the time be would take some of us children with him and that was a real adventure for us. By the time we got home, however, we would be a tired lot. While he was gone it would be up to Mother and the remaining children to do the milking and other chores.

Mother would be busy canning all summer as the vegetables came out of the garden. She would can green beans, peas, corn, tomatoes, beets and just about anything out of the garden that we could use. If Dad had brought fruit home that would be canned also. We loved green beans and she would can dozens and dozens of quart and half gallon mason jars. Why we never died from botulism poisoning from those green beans is a miracle. Green beans were an alkaline food and a perfect media for botulism to grow in. Every now and then we would hear of some one who had died of ptomaine poisoning from eating home canned food. Ptomaine usually was botulism which was deadly if consumed. I suppose that we escaped mainly because she was so clean and careful with her canning. By fall all the shelves in the cellar would be full of canned goods. There would also be a barrel of sauerkraut and a barrel of dill pickles down there.

Our root cellar would be loaded with potatoes, turnips, rutabagas, beets, parsnips, onions and just about every kind of root vegetable that we were fortunate enough to raise. They would keep real good all winter long, but to be on the safe side we would go through them periodically and pick out and eliminate any that started to spoil.

We ate good. Our food was plain and not fancy but It was good and it was nourishing. Every morning my mother would make baking-powder biscuits . We would have biscuits and white gravy, usually ham, bacon or sausage, eggs, jam or jelly of some kind, that my mother had canned and, of course coffee and milk. The hens didn't lay eggs during the winter months but we would put eggs down in regular table salt and they would keep for long periods of time and we would have them for most of the winter. It seems that I remember that we would sometimes preserve eggs by dipping them in sodium silicate. In any event I remember we generally had eggs.

During the summer we had lots of fresh vegetables from our garden. Green string beans was one of our favorites and mother would cook them southern style. She would cook them all day with some salt pork, ham or bacon. Sometimes she would cook them in such large amounts that she would use a small wash tub to cook them in. Lots of times she would peel and quarter potatoes and put them in on top of the beans to cook in the steam. Fresh sweet corn was another of our favorites. We ate lots of chicken. During the summer it was usually young fryers that we ate. Fried chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy was a favorite for Sunday dinner or when we had company. I can remember my mother would see company come over the hill up by the school house, she would run out grab up 2 or 3 fryers, ring their necks, scald, pluck the feathers, clean and disjoint them and have them frying on the big griddle by the time the company reached our yard. During the winter we ate lots of chicken and dumplings and we used up our old stewing hens. In winter dad would butcher a beef or a veal and hang it up in the granary to freeze and we could have beef or veal to eat until spring. I can t remember any one going hungry.

Sometimes when work was caught up we would go on picnics down to the river. We couldn't get a wagon down there but we would take it as far as we could and go the rest of the way on foot and pack our baskets of food with us. One of our favorite places to go was at the mouth of Ryan coulee right across the river from Highwood creek where Lewis and Clark had made camp as they made their way up the river in 1804. There was a large slough there that the men would catch fish in using a seine made of gunny sacks. The river was very dangerous to swim in because of the treacherous currents and eddies. I remember one time at one of these picnics when a very good swimmer from Great falls swam the river and then swam back. He would start way up stream and the current would carry him way down stream before be would reach the opposite shore. Some times some one would swim a horse across. Sometimes the older boys would make a raft out of drift logs and lumber and paddle out on the river. I remember one time that some of them took my older sister, Virginia, and me clear across the river and back. My parents would have killed them if they had known.

These picnics were made lots of times with the Hauers or the Days. Now and then there would be picnics or get togethers at Floweree or Portage and we would get to go. Sometimes there would be games for the children, foot races, horse races and many times there would be baseball games and there would be great fun. I can remember my first ice cream cone ever that my Dad bought me at one of these affairs. It was at Portage and it was so wonderful that I have never forgotten it.

We didn't go to church or Sunday school very often. A church was finally built at Floweree and there would be services about every two weeks. We didn't go very often as I remember. Sometimes we would walk across the coulee to go to Sunday school or church or both. Some times Dad would take us in the buggy or spring wagon and we would visit the Romingers or other friends. Mother would read to us from her bible and could most always preach a pretty good sermon herself.

Our mail came to Floweree and we would try and go for it 2 or 3 three times a week In good weather and a lot less in bad weather. We would go on foot or horseback and it would usually take about an hour each way.

In the summer or during good weather we children would often play down in the coulees. There were lots of magpies there and we would climb the cottonwood trees and rob their nests of their eggs or their young. There were lots of cottonwoods then in the lower coulees and down by the river. There were lots of good trails made by the livestock and we would go on foot or horse back. There were lots of choke cherries down by the river and also buffalo berries and sometimes we would take buckets with us and pick them and bring home for mother to make jam or jelly. There was gophers most everywhere and we would trap them or use snares, that we made out of good strong string, and would snare them. There were lots of badgers down in the coulees and some of the people would trap them and sell their fur. There were lots of rattlesnakes especially down by the river and we had to be on constant guard for them. It seemed that we killed one or two every few days during hot weather. There were lots of coyotes and they were always after our chickens. We had to watch very carefully for them especially just before daylight or just at dark. Chicken hawks also were a nuisance and were always after the baby chicks or the smaller chickens. Every now and then a weasel would get in the chicken house and kill a bunch of chickens. It was one animal that seemed to kill just for the joy of it.

There was not much in the way of wild game. There were a few antelope that we would see now and then, but they were protected and we could not kill them. We had lots of jack rabbits and some cotton tails and some prairie chickens and we would hunt them sometimes. At that time there were no deer at all on our side of the river. There were lots of wild horses running, mainly down in the breaks by the river. They were kept pretty much out of the flats by the barb wire fences that had been built. They were beautiful to see and generally ran in bands of 10 or l5. They could not run near as fast as a good saddle horse, but when they got down in the breaks they were something else. They would go full speed up and down those bluffs where a mountain goat would be at home. I can t remember that they ever caused us much trouble. Sometimes our horses would get mixed up with them but we never had much trouble cutting them out when we wanted them.

My older brothers, Roy and Jim, weren't around very long. When they were home they helped out with the work but they were soon out working for some one else and were not home much except to visit. Roy filed on a 1/4 section that joined us on the east arid was down toward the bluffs along the river. He never was much of a farmer. Dad farmed part of it and we used the rest for pasture. In 1915 Roy married Myrtle Canavan from Portage. He built a two room shack on his place and he and Myrtle lived there, off and on, for 2 or 3 years. They had a son, Walter, born in 1916 and about a year later a girl, Lois, was born. Myrtle had contracted tuberculosis and did not live long after Lois was born. My mother and dad brought them home to live with us and they were raised just as one of our family. We never thought of them as anything except as brother and sister. They lived with us all the rest of the time we were in Montana and for some time afterward too.

Jim filed on a 1/4 section up above the Oeleis place toward the R.R. tracks. It was not much good for anything except pasture. He built a small one room shack on it, but he never spent much time there. He was out working around the country and when war was declared he enlisted in the army. He was in training down toward Helena and when they were to be shipped overseas my mother took me, and we went down to visit him. I can remember that camp like yesterday. There were thousands and thousands of tents all in rows. There was lots of revelry among the dough boys as they got ready to leave for France. They were not in France long before armistice was declared. His outfit saw little or no action before they were sent home.

The older girls soon were out working too and I cannot remember Margaret or Elizabeth being around very long. They would work at just about anything that they could find. A lot of it was for just room and board as I remember. Virginia, who was eight years older than me, was there longer, but she too, eventually left and went to work. The ones that I can remember being at home, as I grew older, was Nora, Mary, Mark, who was born in 1915, and Walter and Lois. The older ones came back home to visit often and of course we were always happy to have them, Mark was born In June of 1915. My mother was 46 years old at the time. He was the only child born In Montana. He was born in Great Falls and our doctor was Dr. Titus. She was gone from home for about two weeks and I stayed with Dad and Granny Rominger. They treated me real good but I remember that I was so homesick that I could hardly stand it. When dad brought mother home with the baby and they came for me, I can remember walking across the coulee and I don t think there ever was a more happy four year old boy.

At one time dad ran the general store in Floweree for the Ainleys. I can't remember just how long he ran it but he was running it when Mark was born. He would walk home across the coulee on Saturday night and would always bring us a bag of goodies of some kind. I can remember waiting for him to arrive and how good he smelled and how good those things in the bag were. The Ainleys sold the store and he did not work there after that.

Bob Donnelly on the left. The man on the right is unidentified.

I can not remember much about the early years that we spent there on the farm. I guess that the years 1915 through 1918 were pretty good years for that part of the country. Some of the people made a lot of money with their farming and raising livestock. The Days ran a lot of livestock arid farmed too and they must have done very well because they built a large home just a little north of their old place. It was quite elaborate for that part of the country at that time. It had a full basement, 3 bedrooms, a parlor, a dining room, a large kitchen, a pantry and even a room that they called a bathroom. Of course a bathroom then did not include an inside toilet. I think we were all a little envious of them. I think they built this home about 1916 or 1917. They bought a piano, and Mrs. Ficke gave some of the girls piano lessons. They bought a Model-T ford. The first that was owned there on the flat. The boom didn't last long however.

The winter of 1918-19 was very cold and dry. The winter wheat that was planted in the fall of 1918 didn't even come up in the spring. It was very hot and dry all summer and nothing grew. There was no harvest in the fall. Pasture was almost non-existent that summer and fall. Hay had to be purchased at an exorbitant price to feed the livestock. Many of those that had been turned out to forage for themselves perished. And to make matters worse a lot of the horses died of arsenic poisoning that was caused from pollution from the smelter in Great Falls. It was in the smoke from the smelter and was spread over the country by the winds. There was no crops in 1919 and very little In 1920 either. We had terrific wind storms, with blowing dust so thick that you couldn't even see across the yard. I can remember seeing the tumble weeds, some unbelievably large, come tumbling across the prairie in the wind. They would blow up against the fences and hang up there, and the dust would blow up against them and pile up until, at times, the fence would disappear under the accumulated dust.

Besides the winds and dust, we would sometimes, have terrific thunder storms accompanied by lightning and hail, that at times, would be as large as hens eggs. I can remember the horses running crazy in the hail storms, and one time they ran right through the barbed wire fence. I can remember entire fields of wheat being laid flat on the ground from the hail. And if that wasn't enough we had grasshoppers. They seemed to run in cycles. Some years there would be very few and other years they just seemed to take over. They could go through a field of grain and cut it down just as if a mowing machine had gone through it. When the hail or hopper did their damage the only thing we could do was to let the livestock run in the fields and try to salvage what we could. In addition to the hoppers we sometimes had cut worms and they would do their damage.

The Days didn't live very long in their new home until they had to leave. They moved back up around Great Falls somewhere. After they moved dad rented their place and we moved up to their big fancy place. Dad farmed up there for one year and then we moved back down to our home place. When we moved back to our place dad moved Roy's two room house up to our place and tied it in to our house at the north west corner and we now had five rooms of our own. We managed to hang on, I think mainly, by borrowing additionally from the banks. It was rough times and people tried to work out and make enough money to put a little food on the table and buy a little coal. There was very little work to be had and many just couldn't make it. Some would have sales and salvage what they could. Others would load what they could on a wagon or a model-T, if they had one, and leave. About the time that the Days left, the Oeleis family was dispossessed and they had to move. That left just the Hauers, and a family by the name of Riphenberg, that had moved in up above the Hauers, and our family, on the flat. The Riphenbergs had only one or two children, as I remember it. The years 1920-21 were a little better and it was about then, I think, when we were able to get a telephone line in and we had a telephone for the first time. It wasn't much of a telephone, but to us it seemed that we had just been connected to the rest of the world. It was a little better but still a struggle.

All the work in our area was still being done with horses. There was a few tractors starting to be used in some areas, but not ours. Along about 1922 Dad bought a second-hand Model-T, and that was even greater than the telephone. Now if we could get it started we could go to Great Falls in a little over an hour and it seemed like we were flying. It was pretty cantankerous, however, and in the winter it was mostly useless. Dad never did learn to drive the Model-T very well. He could do just about anything else that had to be done, but until his dying day, he really never mastered the automobile. He was a good carpenter, he could paint, hang wallpaper, do cement work, lay bricks, repair machinery and harness, shoe horses, and was a pretty good butcher. He cut our hair, pulled our teeth, half soled our shoes and repaired them, and if need be he could be a pretty good cook. Although he got by, the automobile was not one of his great accom1ishments. We continued to struggle on, but it really was a struggle. In 1922, my oldest sister, Margaret, who was married and living in San Pedro, California sent my mother a R.R. ticket so she could pay her a visit. When mother returned from California she began to encourage Dad to move to California. Dad was now 56 years old and he wanted to hang on and hoped for things to improve. Mother kept after him and it was finally decided to make the move to California. Margaret was going to have a baby late in the spring of 1923 and she wanted mother to be with her at the time. It was decided that she would go on before the rest of us and that as soon as school was out he would send us children to join her. He would stay until he got the crops off and then he would join us in California. My sister, Nora, was living in Great Falls and was in her last year of high school. As soon as her school was out she would come out and live with dad and do the cooking and housework for him and then would come with him when he came to us later in the year. In the mean time both Roy and Jim had located in San Pedro so that was an added incentive for us to move there. Virginia was working away from home, I believe for the Archie Robertsons, and was engaged to be married that fall to Guy Galloway. Guy was a station agent for the Great Northern RR. and was stationed in Carter at the time. She would take charge of we children when we went by train to California when we were ready to go.

That was a really exciting spring for us. There was still five of we Donnelly children, including the two grandchildren, going to the Donnelly school. Mary and I were finishing the eighth grade along with Henry Hauer.. The remaining children in the school were Mark, Walter, Lois and one or two Riphenberg children. This was the last year that school would be taught in the "Donnelly" school. Cora Rominger was our teacher that final year. She taught the first two years of the school, the last year, and a year or two in between.

When school was out, Dad got us ready, loaded us in the old Model T and took us to Floweree to catch the train. I remember our farewell with the Hauers, with little, short and very fat Mrs. Hauer crying like a baby. We spent the night In Floweree at the hotel. The hotel was operated at that time by Dad and Granny Rominger. I remember a lot of people came to tell us goodbye. Next morning, we five young ones, in charge of Virginia, boarded the train and we were on our way to Southern California.

About the time we left Montana the tractor began to replace the horse. It gradually improved in efficiency and reliability and eventually one man could now farm what ten or more farmed before. Methods of farming improved. New insecticides, herbicides and fertilizers greatly increased yields. It wasn't easy, especially during the depression years, but many of those who hung on and toughed it out became quite prosperous. Hauers hung on and eventually they owned and farmed that entire area. They were the only remaining family there. Fred and Henry, the two youngest boys, farmed and lived there until they died. They continued to live in their old home place, there on the edge of Huntley coulee. At the present time their old home is the only building left standing in that whole area. It is now owned by Sid and June Rominger. Sid now owns and farms a large part of that area.

Dad and Nora joined us in the fall and now all of our family, with the exception of Elizabeth, who was married and lived in Spokane, Washington, lived in and around San Pedro, California. Virginia stayed and worked there that summer. Guy came down in the fall. They were married and returned to Montana to live. They lived there until 1933 or 1934 when Guy retired and they, too, moved to Southern Calif.

The eleven years that we spent there on the prairie must have been very hard on our father and mother. They endured many hardships, but I can remember very little complaining. To we younger ones, that never knew anything different, it was just a normal existence. Although we had many responsibilities, we enjoyed life. I have many fond memories of our life there. For some of the older children, especially the older girls, it must have been difficult. However, I can't remember much complaining from them either. Fortunately we were blessed with a fine father and a wonderful mother, whose hard work and many sacrifices made It a ll easier for the rest of us. It was to them that we owed so much.

Now, in 1923, we started a new life in Southern California. It was, by far, a much easier life than we had experienced in Montana, but it was no bed of roses either. That however is another story.

As Remembered and Told
by
Robert Nathaniel (Nat) Donnelly
July 1987

Children of Robert Nathan and Mary Floy Elliott Donnelly

Additions and/or clarifications by Mary Floy Katzman are in italics.

Pamela R. Cresswell

Copyright © 2001 Mary Floy Katzman