Located southwest of Marysville, the Bald Butte Mill processed ore beginning from the nearby Devon/Sterling and Albion Mines, commonly referred to as the “Bald Butte Mines”. [1]
Author: Lark
Trip to Helena
Entry from Journal #1: November 7, 1930
Mrs. Bertha Haley, Mrs. Lizzie Korting & myself M.G.S., also Ernest Korting & Joe Color, motored to Helena and visited at Mrs. Carl Baumbauer’s, Mrs. Chas. Lehman’s & Mrs. Geo. Korkler’s. We had lots of fun & it was a happy day. Mrs. Mary Chilholm got badly hurt by an auto in Helena on Benton Ave.
“Compliments of Mrs. E. Rumping”
The little card above, dated December 25, 1899, was among Mary’s belongings. It must have accompanied a Christmas gift from Mary’s mother Eva to George. A letter between George and Mary dated almost two years earlier seems to indicate Mrs. Rumping had some reservations about George. I guess she must have decided he was a good guy after all – or perhaps she realized there was no sense fighting the inevitable.
And it turns out she was right. Mary and George were still courting at the time this gift was given but they eventually married on August 29, 1900.
“My heart was hurt . . .”
Entry from Journal #1: November 2, 1930
My heart was hurt by Mr. Strap taking Christie‘s car as no one of us had a dollar or work to make the last payment of $62.
Some information regarding life in Montana prior to and during the Great Depression:
Even prior to the Great Depression, Montana was experiencing some rough times. Farmers all over Montana were affected when a ten-year drought began in 1917. And although the economy everywhere was boosted during World War I, the military canceled purchases of copper, lumber and wheat when the war ended. And then in 1918, five thousand Montanans died from the influenza epidemic that raged across the entire country. And on a personal note, Mary’s husband and Christie’s father George, had died in 1915 from tuberculosis.