Garber agribusiness 8 27 16 with red

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MEMORIES OF THE WILLITS/GARBER FAMILIES Bighorn, Wyoming

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Compiled by Sue Castaneda Personal Historian Cheyenne, Wyoming

Memoirs of the Willits/Garber Families – Bighorn, Wyoming 2016 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the author or Victor Garber, Douglas, Wyoming or who? Or is this a worry?

Printed by PBR (Print by Request) – Cheyenne, Wyoming 2016

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Table of Contents Chapter 1 –In the Beginning ............................................................ 5 Chapter 2 –William and Vashti Drury .............................................. 7 Chapter 3 –Remembrances of Vie Willits Garber ......................... 12 Chapter 4 –The West – A Cure for Tuberculosis .......................... 17 Chapter 5 –The Move to Wyoming ................................................ 20 Chapter 6 –Life in Wyoming .......................................................... 23 Chapter 7 –Guy and Nellie Wood .................................................. 29 Chapter 8 –Alvin LaRoy Garber .................................................... 32 Chapter 9 –Changing Times ......................................................... 41 Chapter 10 –Badger Clark ............................................................. 45 Chapter 11 –Orr Willits Garber ..................................................... 48 Chapter 12 –Victor Garber ............................................................ 52 Chapter 13 –Eugene Garber ......................................................... 61 Chapter 14 –Expansion of Garber Agribusiness ........................... 67 Chapter 15 –Appendix ................................................................... 73

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Chapter One In the Beginning “Do you know the muffin man?

The muffin man, the muffin man.

Do you know the muffin man Who lives on Drury Lane?”

--Popular nursery rhyme circa. 1820*

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escendants of the Mercer County Drurys carry stories in the family that their ancestor was the one that Drury Lane –as in “The Muffin Man” -- was named for. This smacks

of the genealogies that were "sold" in the late 1800’s connecting people to famous names or places that may have just been tall tales. It may or may not be true – but who knows? It could be true!

What is known is that William Drury, a Quaker, came to Philadelphia as a lawyer’s copyist. He was married there and he and his wife went first to live in Pickering County, Ohio and then to Wayne County, Indiana.

William’s son, Edward Drury, was born in Philadelphia and served as a soldier in the War of 1812. The Edward Drury found in the 1806 tax list in Fairfield County, Ohio, married Jane Burns in Ohio.

The children of Edward and Jane Burns Drury were: Harriett Drury born approximately in 1806 in Ohio; William Drury born 9/17/1809, in Ohio; Clarinda Drury born 7/28/1811, in Wayne County, Indiana; Chariah Drury, born 1814, Indiana; Cecelia Drury, born 1816 and died 1822, Indiana; Margaret, born 1818 and died 1832, Indiana; Courtney Drury, born 11/23/1820, Indiana; Maria, born 1823 and died 1833, Indiana; Nancy Theresa, born about 1825, Indiana; and Edward

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Drury, born 12/21/1827, Indiana. The will of Edward Drury, written 11/2/1829, in Wayne County, Indiana naming all of the children except Cecelia, who was deceased.

Apparently, after Edward’s death, Jane Burns Drury married William Willits as his third wife on 3/4/1832 in Wayne County, Indiana. She died 7/16/1878 in Mercer County and is buried in New Boston Cemetery.

Several of the Edward and Jane Burns Drury children above also married into the Willits family. In the land records of Wayne County, Indiana, Isaac Willets and Edward Drury bought adjoining parcels of land on October 24, 1811. It is possible then that the Willits and Drurys may have come together to Indiana from Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Daughter Harriett married Eli Willits, son of Jesse and Sarah Van Horn Willits, on 4/13/1826 in Wayne County, Indiana. She died in 1851. Her husband’s nephew Levi, who had married her sister Clarinda, raised her children.

This is where the story of a longtime Wyoming family begins – the marriage of Harriet Drury and Eli Willits—but it is important to remember the success of Harriet’s brother William, as he figures prominently in the Willits/Garber family history.

*Drury Lane is a street on the eastern boundary of the Covent Garden area of London, running between Aldwych and High Holborn. The lane led to the house built by Sir William Drury, Knight of the Garater in Queen Elizabeth’s reign. Drury House, with a coach yard in front and a garden in back, was a scene of the intrigues that led to the ill-fated rebellion of the Queen’s favorite, the Earl of Essex. In the 17th century it was the London house of the Earl of Craven, then a public house under the sign of his reputed mistress, the Queen of Bohemia, but by the 18th century Drury Lane had become one of the worst slums in London, dominated by prostitution and gin palaces. The name of the street is often used to refer to the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, which has in different incarnations has been located in Drury Lane since the 17th century, even though today the main entrance is on Catherine Street. The street Drury Lane is also where the “Muffin Man” lives as mentioned in the popular nursery rhyme. It is not known whether the song refers to Drury Lane in London or another town. The rhyme is first recorded in a British manuscript of around 1820 preserved in the Bodleian Library with lyrics very similar to those used today.

Victorian households had many of their fresh foods delivered; muffins would be delivered door-todoor by a muffin man. The "muffin" in question was the bread product known in the U.S.A. as English muffins, not the much sweeter cupcake-shaped American variety. The rhyme and game appear to have spread to other countries in the mid-nineteenth century, particularly the USA and the Netherlands. As with many traditional songs, there are regional variations in wording. Another popular version substitutes "Dorset Lane" for Drury Lane. -- Wikipedia

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CHAPTER TW0 William and Vashti Drury

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on William Drury did quite well for himself. According to the History of Mercer County, 1882, "In 1833, Mr. Drury came to Illinois to look at the country -- and for the first time saw real prairie land -- quite a curiosity to one who has been reared in a

wooded country. Drury was determined to make this his home.

In 1834, he returned and made a claim and settled down at the foot of the bluffs. Through his influence, several other families came with him. It was rumored they grew so tired of him speaking in praise of the country that they threatened a dissolution of friendship with him if he “didn’t shut up.”

Numbered among the voters in the first election of Mercer County in 1835 were William Drury, Silas Drury, Isaac Drury, and Eli Reynolds (this list is taken from the actual poll book, so it is proof these men were in Mercer County in 1835). When the court convened in April 1835, it included Commissioner Isaac Drury and Sheriff Silas Drury. Among the grand jurors selected were Isaac Drury, William Drury, John Reynolds, Robert Reynolds, Eli Reynolds, John P. Reynolds, and one Drury Reynolds (son of William and Sarah Drury).

William Drury filled the office of county recorder for a number of years. At the first regular court term on June 1, 1835, William Drury was appointed a clerk and served until October 1837. His signature on legal documents was made with a characteristic flourish.

A legend has it that his successor was found one day sitting barefoot trying to imitate Drury's flourish for his signature in the sand.

In 1836, he commenced a small trade in dry goods and groceries in partnership with Levi Willits, under the firm name of Drury and Willits. They bought pork, grain, and other products, and shipped them to St. Louis and did the first pork packing in the county.

In 1850, Drury set up a small cash store, which he conducted until 1853, when, on account of failing health, he sold out his interest and gave his attention to the importation and raising of fine stock.

In 1871, in partnership with other wealthy men of the county, he assisted in organizing a Farmer's National Bank, at Keithsburg, of which he was a large stockholder and president.

Drury was quoted as saying he “has made it a practice all his life, that “at the end of each year 7

his income shall be greater than his expenses. He was said to believe that this accounted for his large estate, and not to any mental gift, a fact he would recommend to all young men starting in life.�

In 1840, Drury married Vashti Lewis, daughter of Caleb and Mary Willits Lewis. Together they purchased an estate known as “Verdurette� -- 130,000 acres of fine farming land in Illinois.

Verdurette was an elegant Gothic mansion east of New Boston* surrounded with a park filled with buffalo, elk, and deer.

*New Boston is a city in Mercer County Illinois. The population was 683 at the 2010 census, up from 632 at the 2000 census.

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(L to R) – Eugene Garber, Vic Garber and Steve Willits (son of William Willits) returned to New Boston, Illinois in 2012 to visit the Verdurette House, which is now an historical society. In 2013, it received its exempt organization status from the IRS and now brings in $41,558 in annual income.

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In his will, William Drury provided that all of his property should be held during the lifetime of his wife Vashti for her benefit. Upon her death, the property was to be converted into money for the establishment of an institution of learning, which was to be named William and Vashti College (1908-1918) and established in Mercer County.

The city of Aledo, having offered more than any other locality in the county, secured the school. Drury’s vision was a non-denominational school where the student could not only secure a complete classical or scientific education but where he could also secure such practical instruction as would fit him for some particular employment. A campus of about 16 acres was acquired, and the main college building, a boy’s dormitory, a gymnasium, a heating plant and residence for the president were erected.

The attendance steadily increased to about 300 students enrolled in all departments. A preparatory course was run in connection with the college and under the same management. “The students of the college are provided with all that goes to make college life desirable and profitable. The customary literary societies flourish, a Young Men's and Young Women's

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Christian Association, the glee club, the oratorical societies and the press club are all well attended and excite a lively interest.” – Past and Present of Mercer County, Ill. – 1914.

The campus and buildings were purchased and used by the Roosevelt Military Academy from 1924 to 1973. The Administration Building was torn down, and the spot was used for a nursing home. The remaining two RMA buildings, Niles Hall, and North Hall, are unused.

“The baseball team for the coming year promises to be as good as, if not better, than any in the history of the school, which considering the triumphs of the teams in the past, is speaking well for it. This year the baseball team will meet such teams as Augustana, Lombard, Hedding, Bradley, Illinois Wesleyan, Millikin and Illinois. The athletic spirit in the college is of the best and the slogan has always been, "Honorable defeat is preferable to stolen victory." – Past and Present of Mercer County, Ill –1914.

The “Billashti” – the college yearbook of 1912.

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CHAPTER THREE Remembrances of Vie Willits Garber As told to grandson Roy Garber

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Vie Willits Garber illiam Drury died in 1927, just three years before I visited his widow Vashti. She lived at their beautiful home – Verdurette – and always had “open house” for all relatives and visitors every Sunday afternoon and evening. I got to be there and

meet other Drury people.

Interesting to me was the fact that I was always introduced as Hattie (Hattie was a nickname for Harriet Elizabeth) Orr’s daughter because there were so many Drurys’ and so many Willits’ in that community that it seemed everyone was designated by the first names of their parents.

When I was born, Papa named me “Vie” for the nickname he had always called his sister Elvira. He said, “Remember, your name is Vie, which means to “strive for the highest.”

My papa “J.O. Willits” was born the son of Harriet Drury and Ely Willits in Indiana in 1846.

When he was only four years of age, his mother died of consumption. His next older sister soon 12

died. That worried his remaining sisters. Aunt Clarinda Willits – Clarinda Drury, the sister of Ely Willits—came back to Indiana and took Papa and his next older sister Elvira back out to Illinois to take care of them.

Growing up, my father was James Leslie Willits, but a neighbor cousin was “Leslie Willits.” Of course, the two Leslies got their grades in schools and their love letters mixed up. My father was determined to change his name and took the name “Orr.” That was how he became to be “James Orr Willits” the rest of his life While going to school, he lived and worked in the uncle’s store in Keithsburg, Illinois, which was a general merchandise business. He learned to keep books and to write a very splendid business hand. He had learned from the time he had to stand on a bench behind the counter.

But, growing weary of that and the Civil War having started, he decided to go west. In 1860, at the age of 14, he ran away from home and was hired to drive a Wells Fargo oxen train with two freighter wagons in tow from St. Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California. Each evening, while the oxen rested and grazed, J.O. told that they ate fresh meat daily. At first, it was jackrabbit and then it was a rattlesnake. Then when they got to the Humboldt River, it was mountain trout. He said you absolutely could not tell the difference between rattlesnake meat and mountain trout.

You cooked it the same way. If it was big, you fileted it. If it was small, you ate it full length. The bone structure was very similar, and the meat was identical.

Upon arrival after the five-month journey, he took a job working for the Wells Fargo offices in both San Francisco and Sacramento and found himself right back in a store 13

In 1852, Henry Wells and William Fargo founded Wells, Fargo & Co. to serve the West.

They offered banking (buying gold, and selling paper bank drafts as good as gold) - and express (rapid delivery of the gold and anything else valuable). In the boom and bust economy of the 1850s, Wells Fargo earned a reputation of trust by dealing rapidly and responsibly with people’s money. In the 1860s, it earned everlasting fame - and its corporate symbol - with the grand adventure of the overland stagecoach line. – History of Wells Fargo

most of the time doing all the things from which he had run away.

Four years later, in 1864, he decided it was time to go home. J.O. jumped on a freighter in San Francisco and headed down the west coast for the Isthmus of Panama with the intent of sailing around America to get to New York City.

The Panama Canal Railway was built across the Isthmus of Panama in 1846 but was not completed until 1855. Conservative with his money, J.O. walked the railroad tracks rather than paying for train fare. According to son Victor, J.O. said there were pack mules available to “carry what needed to be carried.” (Amazingly, he avoided contracting malaria while in Panama!)

On the east coast of the Gulf, J.O. caught another freighter and took it all the way to New York City. He then “rode the rail” all the way back home to New Boston on the Mississippi River.

All along the journey, J.O. kept the $4,000 in the gold dust he had saved from his wages hidden in the made-to-order hollow heels of his boots. (In later years, when Uncle Vic Garber could wear the boots, he wore them completely out. He wishes he had known their history and kept them.)

My father kept a diary of his return but unfortunately, I never read it, and it was destroyed after my mother’s death. (One year, the family held a bonfire in the driveway between the garage and the stone house. Unfortunately, the diary was stored in the rafters, and it was accidentally burned.)

Back at home once again in Illinois, J.O. attended Iowa Wesleyan University in Mount Pleasant, Iowa where one of his favorite cousins –Edna Drury Cole—was attending. It was she who introduced him to Mama who was one of her very good friends.

Upon meeting Hattie Clark, she did not make over him like all the other girls had because he was just fresh back from California. She just said, “How do you do, Orr Willits?” and went about her work. He had no dates with her until her senior year in 1869. She stayed out of school and taught at a country school because her parents were not well to do. She taught to be sure she had money enough to get her graduation clothes and the necessary expenses. She studied hard and took examinations on the classes she was missing.

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While she was out there in the country, she received a letter from him (Orr Willits) asking if he could come there and visit, which, of course, she granted, and he did. It was then that he first asked her if she would be engaged to him.

I don’t think she was altogether cordial about it and kept him worrying a good deal, but I’m sure she was very much impressed in being asked. Anyway, they were not openly engaged until after she had graduated in ’69.

He went back to work in New Boston, Illinois with his brother, Wells Willits, into the grain buying, milling, and stock-fattening business. He built a house, which was right there at the edge of the town of New Boston near where his brother Wells lived.

They (Papa and Mama) married in Mount Pleasant, Iowa on July 21, 1870. Then they went on a train to Burlington on the Mississippi River. From there, they took a boat for their wedding trip up the Mississippi River to the head of navigation. On returning, they got off in New Boston and walked into town to his brother’s house just in time for Sunday dinner.

Of course, Mama wanted immediately to help her new sister-in-law with the dishes, but Papa said, “No, we are going to take a walk. I have to show you where some friends live.”

He took her across to some heavy oak tree timbers to their new house. To her astonishment, he pulled out the key, unlocked the door and ushered her in. They lived there for the next ten years and my brother Paul and sister Nellie were born there.

Papa worked with his brothers in their milling business and used any grain they got that wouldn’t make the highest class flour for stock feeding. In connection with that stock business, they operated a farm in Iowa across the river.

Papa went almost daily over to that farm, always rowing a skiff in the summer, and in winter skating across the ice. He held a single and double rowing championship across the Mississippi.

For safety, he always carried a long, very slender hickory pole. It was about ten feet long in case the ice should break. How I know that fact is that my mother had a carpet fork that was made to fasten to the end of that pole. In my childhood, after they had brought it to Wyoming and I was old enough to be useful, I always hung on the end of it pushing a carpet to be tacked, using it for a carpet stretcher.

After ten years, his health became poor “due to having overworked heart by excessive exercise.” When his brother sold out his portion of their milling and cattle feeding business and moved to Nebraska, Mama and Papa, with their two children, spent the next summer out in 15

Colorado around Denver deciding where to move and determining if their health would be better there. They certainly enjoyed it and were much better off.

All that summer of 1880, the hotels and rooming houses in Denver were full of tourists. Not tourism as we speak of it today in 1970, but health resorts – especially for those suffering from tuberculosis—many of them had come with doctors orders to benefit from the dry air and sunshine. There were so many cases of tuberculosis that it was not allowed for anyone to spit on the sidewalk or the street. There was even an ordinance that anyone suffering from tuberculosis should carry a disinfectant cup to retain his or her spittle. They were so afraid of spreading the disease further.

Papa and Mama had many jolly friends their own age. One time, when they were with a group with whom they associated often, someone started the idea of each one telling why they were ill, what was the matter and what would they do if they had their lives to live over again.

Mama said, “I would certainly marry a doctor.” Papa spoke up and said, “Well, I would certainly study medicine!”

One old maid in the crowd clapped her hands and cheered and said, “Oh, I knew he’d say something sweet, he always does!”

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CHAPTER FOUR The West – a Cure for Tuberculosis

Many present-day hospitals had their start as sanitariums, including Swedish Medical Center and Craig, Lutheran, National Jewish, Porter and St. Anthony hospitals. This picture of a men’s tuberculosis ward at Denver General Hospital – now Denver Health Medical Center – was taken in the early 1940’s.--Source: The Denver Post. Photo courtesy of Denver Public Library.

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ational Jewish Health began serving patients in 1899 in response to the great number of destitute individuals suffering from tuberculosis (then known as consumption) who flocked to Denver for the climate's supposed beneficial effect on respiratory diseases.

At the time, no institution in Denver would admit penniless consumptives, and many poor victims of the disease lived and died on the city's streets.

It was the vision of Frances Wisebart Jacobs that made Denver a center for the organized treatment of tuberculosis in the United States. The daughter of immigrants from Bavaria, Frances Wisebart, was born in Harrodsburg, Kentucky in 1843. At age 20, she married Abraham Jacobs, 17

and the couple moved to Colorado. In 1872, Jacobs launched her first foray into organized Jewish charitable relief by forming the Denver Hebrew Ladies’ Relief Society, which assisted Denver’s small population of needy Jewish residents.

Jacobs left her most enduring mark in the area of tuberculosis relief. Hundreds of TB victims from the industrial Northeast, Jewish and non-Jewish, who made their way to Denver in search of a cure found that "no facilities existed to give them treatment or even shelter." Even worse, "Most of the Denver community ignored those who roamed the city coughing or hemorrhaging."

Unafraid to touch the ill, Jacobs would help them when they fell on the street, get them to a physician and pay for treatment. However, as there was no place for tubercular individuals to stay during treatment, many were transported to the local jail.

Jacobs insisted that the Denver community face the reality that the city was attracting needy tuberculosis victims. According to a Denver journalist at the time, "Everyone put down his pencil to hear her tell of the crucial need for a hospital. Although she could move any hardboiled editor, the response was always the same – ‘What you say is true, but this is the Queen City of the Plains, and we can’t blacken the name of the city’" by making it a TB refuge.

Jacobs found an ally in the newly appointed rabbi of Denver’s Temple Emanuel, William S. Friedman. In 1889, Friedman argued from his pulpit in favor of Jacobs’s plan to build a Jewishsponsored tuberculosis hospital. In April of 1890, Denver’s Jewish Hospital Association was incorporated and, in October, a hospital cornerstone was laid. A month later, Frances Jacobs contracted pneumonia while visiting among the city’s poor. In early November, she died at the age of 49. The hospital’s trustees voted to name the hospital for her, and construction was completed in 1893.

In Colorado’s state capitol, there are 16 stained glass windows depicting important state pioneers. The only woman represented there is Frances Wisebart Jacobs.

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CHAPTER FIVE The Move to Wyoming

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ith her health improved, Mama and Papa determined to move west in 1881.

They returned to Illinois to New Boston to sell their property and get ready to go West early in the spring. They soon got a very good chance to sell their house and so began to make preparations to get all the business closed up.

As soon as the weather turned warm at the end of March, Papa took the train and went out to Cheyenne. He wrote Mama a long letter each Sunday reporting just what he had done during the week and what he had seen and all the details of his trip down to Fort Collins to talk to some cattlemen.

He bought a horse in Fort Collins and a saddle and rifle in Cheyenne. Traveling north until he hit the Bozeman Trail up toward Fort Laramie and continued on across Wyoming.

In the letters that he wrote to Mama, he gave details of what he saw and how people lived. He talked of the conditions – the dead

cattle that had died and work oxen that had starved in the winter along the trails – all the time accumulating the facts about what to do and what not to do. He rode, as the letters tell, all the way to Fort Custer on the mouth of the Little Horn River on the Big Horn in Montana to his most northern destination – the mouth of the Big Horn on the Yellowstone River at Pease Landing.

J.O. Willit’s rifle, gun and saddle

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J.O. decided that the nicest and most livable was the Little Goose Valley near Big Horn, Wyoming. He wrote to Mama that he would leave the horse in Big Horn with Mr. W.E. Jackson at Big Horn City and take the stagecoach back to Cheyenne to save time in order to quickly return to Illinois. He did so, and together, he explained, they could get started west with the emigrant car sooner.

He returned to Illinois where his wife and children were ready to move upon his arrival.

They shipped their

household goods, along with some farm machinery and some teams and wagons by freight across the Union Pacific Railroad to Cheyenne.

Mama and Papa started north in the wagons on the last day of June and they were three weeks coming up the trail

J.O. Willits XXXX

from Cheyenne to Little Goose Creek with the help of a hired man.

My mother kept bread and food prepared ahead so that on some nights, camp could be made without water or fire when time could be saved by watering the horses in the afternoon and driving several miles farther before sundown.

After reaching the land Papa had staked out south of O.P. Hanna claim, they found a large cold spring on the west forty. They lived in tents while they constructed a log house with bedrooms upstairs, a shingled roof and planed floors.

Papa plowed about ten acres of sod for the next two years seeding. They used all the wire they had to fence in part of the 40 acres. In October, he took one wagon back to Cheyenne to retrieve the rest of the things left in storage. One item was an upright piano, which is still in the family (1958) now after 75 years.

He said knew that he couldn’t go in the cattle business in a big enough way to pay without having partners or putting more money into it than he could with what he possessed. He decided, instead, that he would go into the horse raising business in a small way. He ran horses on the land that is now Jackson Creek Valley just west of Little Goose until he moved into southern Montana.

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BIG HORN CITY – Photo taken from Sackett’s hill, 1893. Smoke southwest of College rising from brick kiln as bricks were being made to build the Church, now the Community Center.

Then he established a horse ranch on the head of Rosebud Creek in the Wolf Mountains in southern Montana and kept a horseman there throughout the year. Broncobusters worked each winter at the home place where three to five head of Percheron stallions wintered. At last, one carload of large draft horses was trained and broken for spring sales.

As soon as the Northern Pacific Railroad came west across Montana, Papa would drive the shipment herd to Rosebud Station and car them to Chicago. They were all trying to eat from nosebags, and this feeding was continued on the trip East, just enough to keep them used to being handled.

While Papa was shipping, the hired horseman would round up the herd at the camp and lead the stallions tied "head to tail" from Big Horn to the Rosebud Ranch. One wagon and one man on horseback would be at the Rosebud Station in time to get whatever new machines, stock, 21

tools, goods and whatever else Papa had shipped back with him in a freight car for the camp in Montana and the home ranch. This horse routine ended when trolley cars took over in the cities in 1892.

In September, word came that over in Rock Creek, a sawmill was being put in that was equipped to make shingles. Papa decided that he would put on a few more logs on the walls and make an upstairs with three bedrooms and wait for the shingles instead of putting on a dirt roof.

It was then that Mama and Nellie and Paul continued to live in the tent in the yard while Papa and Henry (Chattard?) went back to Cheyenne to get the piano and the rest of the things that had been left in storage.

J.O.’s Willet’s business card -- J.O.’’s brand was the “open top eight” in territorial times. When Montana territory became a state in 1890, he had this brand recorded in the Yellowstone Journal. There is a copy of this original registration in Montana. In 1924, J.O. had a Buick touring car with a license plate featuring the “open top eight” license plate. Since 1950, our family has had this open top brand registered in Custer County Montana for horses, cattle and sheep. Even now, Eugene Garber’s car at his ranch Montana ranch sports the open top eight license plate. As well, a pickup truck is plated “open 8-2” and a 1929 Model A Ford is licensed as “open 8-3.

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CHAPTER SIX Life in Wyoming

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hey got back so that everything was in order; the shingles were on the home and the family moved in in comfort before any

severe weather in December. What year?

Mama did a beautiful job of making tinted whitewash on the log walls to match the calico curtains on the windows and closet doors. In fact, all of the partitions upstairs were just white muslin on wooden frames, as Papa feared that the rafters were not strong enough to hold up the weight of wooden partitions.

The chimney holes from the downstairs stove in the big kitchen and sitting room were put in the chimney in the upstairs so that the stovepipes went up through the floors in five-gallon kerosene oilcans to warm the upper part. As heat always rises, the upstairs was really very comfortable. In fact, our house really was comfortable and pleasant.

Hattie Clark Willits

There, sister Aureli (nicknamed Areli”) was born in 1885 and Vie – me -- in 1884.

Mama’s mother – Grandmother (Sarah C. Stantial) Clark – had moved with Grandfather Henry Clark and two of Mama’s brothers –Frank Henry Clark and Charles Badger Clark.-- out into eastern Dakota soon after Papa and Mama came to Wyoming. But now, Grandfather Clark had died. As soon as the Northern Pacific Railroad came into Montana and up the Yellowstone Valley almost to Billings, Grandmother Clark arrived at our home by rail at the Rosebud Station.

Papa met her there with a spring wagon and team and brought her to live with us. She was a wonderful, happy, jolly soul. Really, as I remember it, she tended to us little girls, baked the bread, always gave us our baths, blacked our shoes and always got us ready for Sunday school,

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which Big Horn had at the schoolhouse or wherever there was a place for public meetings from the time I can first remember.

Five years later, Grandmother Clark went back the same way – Papa taking her to Rosebud Station – then putting her on the train that would take her back to Dakota. Uncle Paul wanted to go east to school. The Burlington Railroad was building east to Sheridan by 1892, and the passenger train had gotten as far as Arvada when Paul went by stage to meet the train in the fall of 1892 to attend Business College in Valparaiso, Indiana.

Then the railroad came to Sheridan. The celebration of that, the coming of the passenger train was held in ’92 with a big ball at the Sheridan Inn to which Papa took Nellie. They stayed all in

Vie Willits Garber was born on July 18, 1884 to J.O. and Hattie Willits.

town with our friends the Coffeens who had moved their store from Big Horn to Sheridan several years before. Mr. Coffeen said that it wasn’t fair that Areli and Vie hadn’t gotten to see a passenger train and made Papa promise to let us see one, which he did the next week. He took us into town to stay all night at the Coffeens. Mr. Coffeen took us out on his back porch from his residence on Coffeen Avenue. By the way, his was the only house on Coffeen Avenue and all that part of Sheridan was horse pasture where he pastured his horses for his delivery wagon.

In Sheridan, we saw the passenger train come down the track. I’ll never forget that weird feeling from the string of lights in the darkness when the train came out of the cut east of town and down to the depot.

Nellie, who has been practicing piano throughout her girlhood, planned to go to Boston in the fall of 1893 to continue her musical education. But that winter, she was called home by the news of Areli’s death. There was a typhoid fever epidemic. It was rampant in this community, and Areli died in October. Nellie did not go to Boston again until the next fall. She stayed the next

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two years, not even coming home in the summer, but teaching music and staying with some of Mama’s relatives in Massachusetts. Her education in a tuning course gave her the opportunity to tune many pianos for friends. Later, she taught music at Big Horn College in the fall of 1896.

The Spanish-American War came that spring. My brother Paul went in Company E of Torrey’s Roughriders. (See appendix) Company E spent the summer in Cheyenne training and then went to Florida by railroad train. A wreck caused an injury to Col. Torrey’s foot. The company was detained and never got beyond Jacksonville, Florida.

The exposition in Omaha was in progress in the fall and the Burlington offered a round-trip ticket excursion to Omaha and back from Sheridan for $14. Mama sent me to meet Paul in Omaha and attend the exposition and come home together, which was my first traveling experience.

Papa was getting ready to build a new, permanent stone house and planned everything possible to make money to pay for it. He was feeding and fattening sheep to make enough money to build. He sold four heavy draft teams to a freighter, John Fordyce, to

The Trans-Mississippi Exposition, held in Omaha, Nebraska, from June 1, - October 31, 1898, was held to showcase the economic, cultural and artistic achievements of the individuals who lived in the region.

pay to deliver the stones to the yard. It was four years before that order was completed.

He rented the hay and grain lands from all his neighbors on both sides of the lane that ran west of the homestead – a two-mile stretch – to get grain and hay enough ahead. This meant hiring a lot of hired men in the summer time with Mama feeding everyone including that hay crew. Papa also had to oversee the men he hired to irrigate the grain and hay land. The project increased year by year because he kept buying more lambs in the fall. He would almost always get a good strong lamb contracted in September for December delivery at approximately one 25

dollar a head and they were near enough in Southern Montana that he could drive them home to the ranch

during

December.

He

managed to get them on to feed the last week in December. The plan was always to keep them on grain for three months. The sheep were Chicago

generally the

shipped

week

to

following

Easter, which usually brought the highest price for fat mutton.

He made the feed yards at the east end of the yard on Little Goose under the steep creek bank, which made a great deal of protection with heavy growth of brush and trees. Almost all of the fencing under the creek bank was done with brush fences, as there was very little woven wire to hold it in place. He built log granaries to hold the grain and fed the grain with a heavy handcart that he could pull loaded with grain astride the feed troughs. Everything he could, he built himself for efficiency to keep expenses down. He always stayed there in person for three months during grain feeding. Hired men, of course, hauled the hay in hay wagons. Papa attended to the grain feeding in person and never had any illness or bad luck in that respect.

Finally, in the spring of 1900, he had increased the number being fed up to 2,000 and he went out with that flock so beautifully fattened with corn on the cob that the Rosenbaum Commission Company bought the entire bunch and shipped them from Clearmont, Wyoming to New York and across the ocean as live ballast on a cargo vessel to Liverpool, England. That pleased Papa very much because he had fattened cattle in the days of milling and cattle feeding with his brothers in Illinois and some sufficiently fattened steers had gone live ballast across the ocean.

Papa was satisfied. He had accomplished his purpose. Going over his books proved that he had netted better than $5 a head and he now had the cash in the bank to pay the stonemasons to

26

build the new house that he contracted. He put in a hydraulic ram to pump the water from the spring up into a barrel in the yard for the mortar man –the constant use of the mortar man.

In August of that same year, when the hay crew finished the second crop, they tore down the original log homestead house, enlarged the cellar to fit the specification of the basement for the new structure and hauled in all the piles of boulders that Papa had accumulated at the sides of fields during previous years and brought them to be used as a three-foot wall to support the stone house.

The family was camping in tents and cooking in a cook shack for the carpenters who stayed on the job continuously, seldom driving to their homes in Sheridan or farther away. When the stone wall was pretty well up, the contractor came to my mother and said that since some of the walls were only one story high and some two stories, he couldn’t see how he was going to roof it. Mama said, “Don’t worry. I will show you.” That was at suppertime.

The next morning when he came to breakfast in the cook shack, a model of the roof was made of pasteboard all sewed together at the gutters and the valleys. A complete model was made to scale of one-fourth of an inch to the foot, just as Mama and I had made the floor plans of the house.

My mother’s (Hattie Clark Willits) father (Henry Clark, Vie Willits Garber’s grandfather) had been a contractor and she had played in his shop all her childhood so that she really knew what she was doing and could plan things far better than most men. The stonework was done and the roof was on and the plastering was done having covered the floors with heavy papers – there were no false floors put in. That was done by Thanksgiving time. The family moved into the basement for living quarters and used two of the rooms above as some bedrooms. There was no glass in the windows yet, those all of the frames and doors were ordered.

At that time, Papa decided that although he had everybody paid up to that point that the carpenter work was running far above his expectation in cost, so he himself would put in his winter doing the inside finishing work. The worst handicap was the lack of light. As fast at they could, they would get the glass in the various rooms but in the meantime, Mama held kerosene lamps for Papa to see by. He had had some experience with carpenter work and was very handy with a miter box and tools. So, we went through the winter with Papa working to complete the house.

27

During the 1880s before Sheridan County came into being, Papa had taken time to serve on the school board, to be a commissioner of Johnson County before Sheridan County came into being, a member of the church board at Big Horn, and secretary of the ditch companies from which he had acquired water rights for the new lands he had filed upon. (See appendix for Willits Reservoir water rights). He sang in a deep bass voice in community quartets; conducted family prayers at the breakfast table and once for the funeral of a neighbor’s dead baby for which Mama had made a casket by covering a small wooden box with soft white cloth.

To fulfill the law for a desert claim, he bought water from the Big Goose and Beaver Creek ditch and constructed seven miles of ditch to carry it to his land. He realized that success in cattle meant winter-feeding and that necessitated more irrigation. He began to rent the ploughlands of nearby neighbors and thus acquired grain and hay for fattening lambs. His feedlots were under the shelter of the creek bank with a gateway bridge joining the pens on each side of the creek. He cleared out underbrush and supplied the fences, poles and hay feeding racks.

Next, Papa started scientific drying wheat farming on his higher land and put all else possible into alfalfa for cattle feed and secured mountain summer range from the forest reserve. His last major project was the building of an 80-acre-foot reservoir high in the Big Horn Mountains during the summers of 1913 to 1915.

The Stone House – 1901 (Note the similarity to the Drury House in New Boston, Illinois)

28

CHAPTER SEVEN Guy and Nellie Wood

N

ellie married Guy Wood in old log house in April of 1897 who was employed by Malcolm Moncrieffe to break and train polo horses. He had a large immediate family and the log house was full, so they set up housekeeping on a ranch in lower Soldier

Creek while Nellie continued to teach music classes in Sheridan.

That fall, when she was offered a teaching position at the primary room at the Big Horn School, she and Guy moved back to Big Horn and lived in the Hannah house where Guy fed cattle throughout the winter with Lou Burgess.

Daughter Iris was born April 13, 1900 in what was known as the Warren Austin Homestead House just above the Moncrieffe brothers’ home. A year and a half later on October 23, 1901, Kennally was born at the ranch house on the JC Bar Ranch, which soon became known as the Moncrieffe Polo Ranch house north of the Malcolm Moncrieffe residence, now the Malcolm Wallop home.

By the fall of 1902, Guy was disappointed in the renters on a ranch that he owned on Soldier Creek when they gave notice they were leaving. Afraid he would not get anyone else to rent the property, he began to make preparations to move his own family there. He camped a few weeks at a time in two different houses in Sheridan and by the time he moved the family out to Soldier Creek, the children had been exposed to typhoid fever. Kennally was a victim of the disease and it was a long pull to save his life during which time Nellie entirely overdid herself and began to break seriously.

By Christmas, the children were exposed to chickenpox as well and all went through a siege of that. A kindly neighbor came to visit and sympathize with Nellie and brought a child who had the whooping cough. Weeks and months of whooping cough followed. By March, Nellie was feeling very run down herself and Mama (Hattie) Willits took the little girls Beth and Iris, home with her and kept them thereafter.

Nellie did not regain strength as spring came on and by May, Papa began to be very worried.

The Sheridan doctors were apparently not helping Nellie. She was not gaining strength Papa sent for me to come home from prep school in Laramie. I helped nursed Nellie on through the end of July. As the situation became more hopeless, we were greatly advised to take Nellie to Battle 29

Creek, Michigan, so she was taken there. Within three weeks after going, she died August 11, 1903. Nellie was buried on the 15th of August in the Big Horn cemetery, August 1903.

Of course, Grandma Willits had had Kennally too since May and the poor child was still having some coughing spells.

Papa continued running the ranch himself with hired help and all the time became more aware of the need for a greater amount of irrigating water. He was able to buy a water right in the Big Goose and Beaver ditch and bring it seven miles to the ranch and in that way, prove up on a desert claim at the west end of his timber claim property.

About that time, Jim Glascow, who was now a man with a family of growing boys asked if he could have employment as he wished to move back from Kansas. He had worked for Papa when he was a young man first married in the 1880s. Before his three-year contract with Papa was up, Jim took on severe pneumonia and died in April of 1910. Papa was left with no one on whom he could depend to go on with the ranch, which included a lot of cattle as well as a herd of 20 or more horses. Papa also had a lot of dry farming, doing so on an experimental basis and making a success of it.

Papa had worked well progressing on the reservoir on top of the mountain. It was named the Willits Reservoir and was filled by water from Willits Creek, a small tributary high on top and then southeast drainage of Little Goose. Neither the creek water, which filled the reservoir, nor the place the dam was built had been named hitherto and then been mapped as Willits Creek and Willits Reservoir. Papa finished that as fast as he could. It is interesting to recall that all work was done with horse and scraper and all the dirt for the dam transported by a heavy cart pulled by one strong horse.

In later years, Grandma Vie would recall that as a child, “rogue” Indians would leave the nearby reservations during the summertime to hunt. “They would come to the back door and beg for food, still wearing their breech cloths. My mother gave them homemade bread and jelly. The “buck” Indians would lick all of the butter and jelly off the bread and give the plain bread to their squaws who were hiding in the bushes.”

30

Makinley Guy Wood Family –This photograph was probably taken in 1901. Pictured are left to right: Guy holding Iris, Beth and “Chip” sitting on Nellie’s lap. Nellie passed away on August 11, 1903 leaving the three young children to be raised by her parents J.O. and Hattie Willits. Guy trained polo phonies for Malcolm Moncrieffe and the young family lived on the Moncrieffe ranch.

31

CHAPTER EIGHT Alvin LaRoy Garber

Alvin LaRoy “Roy” Garber

O

n the family tree, The Garber family name appears in connection with Hessian soldiers, who were hired and sent to America to fight in the Revolutionary War. Father Garber’s (David Garber) mother’s father was named Paith. He was a

Hessian who did not go back to Germany after the Revolution was over but stayed in Pennsylvania. Mother Garber’s (Magdalina Kinsinger) father’s name was John Kinsinger and he was from the Black Forest in Germany.

Grandfather Garber (John Garber) worked at the brick factory in Peoria, Illinois.

Mother Garber (Magdalina Kinsinger) was the eldest of seven children and kept house for her father when her mother died. She did not marry our grandfather Garber until after her father 32

married a second wife when the first children were quite well grown. Then, he had another family of children.

Alvin LaRoy “Roy” Garber was born in Missouri on December 30, 1879.

In 1901, Roy and his sister Lina came west from Golden City, Missouri where their folks had lived ever since they had moved there from Illinois. They believed that one could always come west and get a good job if “you were capable in any line of work.”

Lina came to teach at the Lone Star School in the Big Horn district, which was just west of what we now speak of as the Brinton barns. Roy came west to work as a camp tender for a large sheep operation in the Broadus, Montana area. Then he worked for the Beckton Stock Farm sheep operation and later as a general ranch hand for the Moncreiffe Ranch.

It was on September 11, 1901 that Roy and I first met at Chessamon Spear’s birthday party.

Mrs. Spear was noted for the delightful parties she gave to the young people in the community at her large ranch home. Roy Garber was one of the guests at this party having been invited to come along with his sister Lina. I think it must have been love at first sight for we always found plenty of excuses to meet in the months following.

Before spring, Roy had transferred from the Beckton stock farm on Big Goose to the Moncrieffe Brothers--the farm and ranch at Big Horn--where we found many occasions to attend the same parties or take many horseback rides.

That was the fall that our house was being

built at the Moncrieffe Brothers Ranch. Fred Tollman was foreman. He had formally worked for Papa Willits and so the families were well acquainted and often visited together.

In years to come, the Tollmans decided to homestead in Nebraska near several of their relatives. Their friendship with the Garber/Willits family continued whenever they came to Yellowstone Park or across this part of the country. I even stopped at the Tollmans several times when I went by their home on the train going to or from Laramie. In later years, after Roy and I were engaged, he was going to school and we would deliberately plan to stop to visit Susie and Fred Tollman at Belmont for a day or two. One time, we stayed a day or two longer than we expected because we were all talking so earnestly that we drove too slowly and missed the train.

The family never got over teasing us about that.

When the Tollmans moved away, their daughter Amy (Uncle Vic Garber’s mother-in-law) was just a baby old enough to walk around. They brought her back here several times on trips to Yellowstone Park. It was perfectly natural when Amy married Glen Miller. He brought her in 33

their car back to visit the Willits and Garbers on their wedding trip. A year after that, the Millers sent a birth card of their daughter Phyllis congratulating them and said they hoped they would rear one of their sons fit to be her husband. (In XXX, Phyllis married Roy and Vie’s son Victor.)

I went away to the preparatory school at the University of Wyoming and Roy stayed on and worked at the Moncreiffe ranch. Later, he worked for Dan Woods who had taken up as a desert claim the land below the foot of the red grade on the section that is now known as Valley View Subdivision.

Many years later when Orr and Victor Garber bought that land along with some other acreage in that locality, Lina made the trip to Yellowstone Park on a camping trip with Mr. and Mrs. Dan Wood. While there, she met Noble Gregory who happened to be clerk of the school board. He told her he was looking for a teacher. Lina stayed and taught school at Moran, Wyoming and by the next spring was engaged to him. They settled down in sight of Jackson Lake for her married life.

Roy was here and gathered up the rest of Lina’s things that were at the Woods’ home and sent them to her. She needed new clothes that he purchased at the Stevens-Fryberger that we used to call the “New York” store in Sheridan.

Roy had gone, induced by Mr. Speer, to drive the stage from Arvada to Moorehead, Montana. While doing that, he got homestead fever and filed on a claim near Broadus, Montana.

Later, his brother Eugene from (Carthage) Missouri came out and filed near him.

It was then that Roy and I renewed our friendship of our younger days and became engaged.

Papa Willits had asked Roy to come and do the fall plowing and put in the winter wheat before he went to school in the fall.

34

Roy and I were married on the 18th of July 1911. Mama planned a small wedding inviting only those to whom she owed such courtesy through the years past. It turned out that there were invited.

The wedding was at 10 o’clock in the morning with a sumptuous wedding breakfast to be served. Nel Skinner came to the rescue and visited for several days beforehand. They concocted everything Mama planned to have it all just right. The menu consisted of chicken croquettes made in the form of little hams—the bone being furnished by a stick of cooked macaroni. There was raspberry shortcake, Boston brown bread…well, I can’t remember exactly, but it was a heaping plateful of breakfast--each article--a specialty in its own right.

I remember distinctly that I got up at 4 o’clock in the morning and made a huge, three-decker shortcake and had it baked before breakfast. Papa brought home a case of raspberries from the largest store in Sheridan without specifying just how many were in a case. They were beautiful berries in perfect condition, but even serving the 80 people at the breakfast they were not all consumed. After the guests were all gone, Grandmother Wood, Guy’s mother, who was there and was one of the guests remaining at the house, began to worry that those raspberries were going to spoil. So, I, in true country style, made them all up into raspberry jam on the afternoon of my wedding day. The visiting girls and the ranch cook, hired for that summer, washed up all the dishes, many of which had been borrowed from neighbors, and got them all packed up ready to take home. That evening, Roy and I were going on our wedding trip. We took the horse and buggy and returned the dishes to the neighbors north and south of the west lane. So, thus ended our wedding day with lots of jollity and many ridiculous things having had happened.

One of the things that had caused the young people much merriment was that we took the hoop skirt that my mother had worn at her wedding, covered it with white cotton batting and gathered wild clematis vines and covered it until it was completely covered with the white blossoms, which were just in profusion at that time. Also, the girls made me an arm bouquet that trailed almost to the floor – the white clematis blossoms tied with little bows with baby ribbon, white. Dear old Grandmother Perry, the oldest person at 80 years old in the community and one of our dearest family friends, was my matron of honor. She could not stand alone, but sat beside me and held my bouquet while we were married under the clematis bell made of the hoop skirt.

That hoop skirt has remained on through the family and has showed up on various dress occasions but now is going to go in my mother’s trunk in the attic in the old stone house.

35

After we were married, Roy and I continued to live at the stone house with Grandma Hattie and Grandpa J.O. Willits and manage the ranch properties.

Beth and Iris and Kennally Wood (Nellie’s children) were away at school very often – some—or all of the winter until after a few years when the girls were teaching school themselves.

We built a small cabin just north to the Willits’ Stone House where Orr and Victor were born. A larger home was built in 1924 where Eugene was born.

When we built our cabin, Roy did all the work himself. He was so proud of his notching of logs for corners and did a splendid job of laying good big logs. I think the room was 14 x 18 feet. He used shiplap for flooring and we had a composition roll paper roof over the sheeting so the expense was very small and $100 cash paid for all of the materials that went into it.

Roy, who was very anxious at the first specifications, said, “Let’s get the door big enough.”

He had experience trying to get a cook stove out of a burning cabin where the stove was wider than the doorframe. He measured and put in a three-foot door just to his own liking. Low and behold, the day he went to hang the door, he had made the frame just two inches bigger than the door itself. We laughed until we cried. He said, “Never mind, I’ll fix it.” The next time I went back to look, he had gotten the hinges on securely and on we went, he and I looking at each other and bursting into grins and giggling every time we went through that door the rest of our lives.

The cabin was furnished for a bedroom, which was Orr’s birthplace. The next year, we built a large room to the north with two bedrooms above that large room so that we had ample space.

The space between the two cabins was roofed over and floored so that it was our washhouse and separating room. It kept a great deal of dirty work out of the kitchen and made for a very pleasant way to live from then on.

Victor was born in September of 1919. This cabin that Roy built himself became the nucleus for he now “rustic” residence …summer residence of the Kelly Howie family.

In September of 1921, Beth and Iris were both teaching at home down the railroad track east of Sheridan when Grandmother Willits had a stroke. After a few days, she died of a coma.

Papa Willits continued to live alone in their house except when the girls came home on the weekends but he did all of his meals with us.

In ’23, the price of wheat was high. Roy said that was a splendid time to try to put in wheat acreage, which he did. He planted a hundred acres to get money enough to build a good frame 36

house on a 22-acre tract on the west side of the county road. He had just purchased the property from Grandpa Willits using the money he had received from selling his homestead down on Powder River. That building was accomplished and the house was completed so that we moved out the cabin completely and into the new frame house on the 17th of December in ’23.

But wheat, which had been ready early and well stacked -- when it came to be thrashed late in December – was badly molded and rotten and very little percentage of it was good commercial crop. But, Papa Willits asked the bank to stand beside us, which they did gladly and everyone went on rejoicing. A year later on September 21st, 1924, Eugene was born.

In later years, Mother Magdalina and Father David Garber came west and spent considerable time here with Roy and I.

Originally they lived with Manual, their oldest son, who had

organized a sheep company up in Montana. Father had never used his homestead rights and there in his old age, he proved up on a homestead in Montana.

Roy’s sister Lina, who had introduced us, had spent all of her married life in Yellowstone Park with five children. The youngest one was not even old enough to be in school when Lina found out from a “tourist” doctor that she was stricken with scattered cancer and would not live long. It was then that she asked to be taken back to Bighorn for me to take care of her and to be buried here. She asked her sister Lily, who lived in Colorado, to take the children and finish putting them through school, which she did. Lily, too, requested to be buried here and was upon her passing. David and Magdalina Garber had always said they wanted to be buried in Missouri because they had a child buried there, but when Lina died, they changed their minds. They wanted to be buried here beside Lina and they were. But first, they lived with us for quite a long time. Father lived until we had been in the new house for two years or so before he passed.

Mother lived for another eight years after that. Roy’s brother Eugene (Eugene Garber – 18831966) asked if he could be buried here beside his brother and he was.

Some of Lina’s children went back and lived in Yellowstone with their own father and finished school. And now, after being scattered hither and yon, they now are living there all right there in Jackson working together at a service station and tourist business. Lois has a musical and entertainment business in Jackson operating very successfully, happily and financially successful right now.

37

At left, Roy Garber’s brother Eugene Garber (1883-1966) with Roy.

Parents David and Magdalina Garber came to live with Roy and Vie in 1919. They were married in 1859 and had 11 children. David passed away in 1925, just two months prior to the couple’s 66th wedding anniversary.

38

Vie and Baby XXX in 19XX.

39

Roy, Vie and Victor Garber

Grandpa Roy was an exceptional horse hand and incredible with a rope. As the horses circled the corral, he would stand and swing a backward loop over his head creating a figure eight on the ground.

The rope would pick up an unbroken horse’s feet and lay it on the ground. If a horse were broken, he would lasso its neck.

40

CHAPTER NINE Changing Times

I

ris was tutoring at the time with the Gallatin family. Their son, who always went away to a boy’s private school when the family was ready to

go east for the winter, needed tutoring at the ranch until they were ready to go.

Iris told us that she had consented to marry a young man she had known when she attended the University of Wyoming.

On October 24th, 1924, Iris married Joseph

Harold Hix, a West Point lieutenant who had been courting her for several years.

Beth was teaching in Sheridan, continuing with her music and keeping house for Grandpa Willits until October 24, 1926, when she married Rodney S. Dunlap, an attorney from Fremont, Nebraska with the understanding that Grandpa would go and live with them in the winters. Papa would

J.O. Willits and granddaughter Iris Wood

come back and live at the ranch in the summer and Rodney would be with them during whatever time he could have for vacation.

We celebrated Papa’s 80th birthday in July 1926 along with a gathering of friends, including 12 who had been former neighbors 45 years before.

Grandpa Willits closed his house and went to Fremont to be with Beth and Rodney at Thanksgiving. The first week in January, Beth wrote in detail that he had caught a cold and was not feeling well. A few days later, she sent for me to come. I went down on the train and on the 14th of January 1927, he died. I was thankful to have been his nurse and to have been able to take care of him myself with my own hands those last few days.

After his death, it was found that his will arranged for a gift of $3000 to the University of Wyoming. Each year the interest from the sum is used as a first and as a second prize for an 41

essay on his side ethical subject. “The Ethics of Segregation” was the topic in 1957. (See appendix).

Papa always believed, “Put all you can into every young life,” and “Get used to thinking.”

My brother Paul came home for Papa’s funeral. He had not left his railroad work to come at the time of Mama’s death, but now, he seemed to want to stay nearer home and did. He had spent most of his year in railroad work of one sort and another. That year, after Papa’s death, he never went back to railroading again but had taken fence contract work out at the NX Bar and down the Powder River. He even had married a little girl – a friend of a friend of his in Sheridan – but just before his death, he told me they were divorced. They had not found their married life compatible, and she had gone back to her home in Nebraska.

He came to visit us because Mrs. Mary Glascow was here from California. He picked the wash boiler full of peonies and other beautiful flowers from the yard and together, they spent Sunday afternoon strolling over Bighorn cemetery placing flowers on the graves of everyone they had known from their childhoods.

The next Friday, Dr. Johnson phoned me from Sheridan to tell me that Paul was very ill. He said Paul's heart was in terrible condition and that he could not live long. Paul wanted to come home.

I went and got him and took care of him that last few days myself, for which I am very thankful I was able to do. Death came early Sunday morning June 27th, 1937. The funeral was very simple under the direction of the Veterans of Sheridan.

The flag, which they folded and handed to me from his casket, is one of the keepsakes in the trunk in the attic.

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Paul Willits, J.O. Willit’s son and Grandmother Garber’s brother.

43

Vie and Roy Garber – 19 XX

Vie and Roy Garber WHAT YEAR?

44

CHAPTER TEN Badger Clark

B

adger Clark was Mama’s (Hattie Clark Willits’) nephew. His father, the reverend, C.B. Clark, was Mama’s brother. (See appendix for more about C.B Clark). They came out here and visited several times and Badger had even come out on a

bicycle in his boyhood days.

Cousin Badger was about three years older than I and was born in Iowa just before his folks moved to South Dakota. He was a lad almost ready for high school when his father was made superintendent of the Methodist Church in the Black Hills area.

Later, he spent much time in Arizona because he was threatened with TB (tuberculosis), which was a disease his own mother had died from many years before Uncle Charlie married Anna Morris. Anna Morris was really the inspiration to Badger’s writing.

It was she who pushed him and got him over the brink to doing it. It was to her that he sent the first of his poems when he was in the southwest living in Arizona for his health and she got them published. That gave him the idea that he could do something that people would buy and put him into the poetic world market.

His poetry was published in a western magazine and much of it was copyrighted.

His father was feeble and pretty well housebound the last few years of his life. A dutiful son, Badger stayed right there at home and helped Aunt Anna take care of Uncle Charlie to the end.

Then he went up to Custer, South Dakota and picked out a place that he loved and got permission to build a cabin, a very nice pleasant home he called “Badger Hole” near Legion Lake.

Then he really settled down to write and had many poems published. He did a lot of lecture touring and gave the commencement addresses at ever so many high school commencement exercises in South Dakota. He was really well known among the young folks going to college in 45

South Dakota and was appointed “Poet Laureate” of South Dakota in 1937 and remained so until the time of his death and those are the words on his tombstone – “Poet Laureate of South Dakota.”

A Cowboy's Prayer (Written for Mother) Oh Lord, I've never lived where churches grow.

I love creation better as it stood That day You finished it so long ago And looked upon Your work and called it good.

I know that others find You in the light That's sifted down through tinted window panes, And yet I seem to feel You near tonight In this dim, quiet starlight on the plains.

I thank You, Lord, that I am placed so well, That You have made my freedom so complete; That I'm no slave of whistle, clock or bell, Nor weak-eyed prisoner of wall and street.

Just let me live my life as I've begun And give me work that's open to the sky; Make me a pardner of the wind and sun, And I won't ask a life that's soft or high.

Let me be easy on the man that's down; Let me be square and generous with all.

I'm careless sometimes, Lord, when I'm in town, But never let 'em say I'm mean or small!

Make me as big and open as the plains, As honest as the hawse between my knees, 46

Clean as the wind that blows behind the rains, Free as the hawk that circles down the breeze!

Forgive me, Lord, if sometimes I forget.

You know about the reasons that are hid.

You understand the things that gall and fret; You know me better than my mother did.

Just keep an eye on all that's done and said And right me, sometimes, when I turn aside, And guide me on the long, dim, trail ahead That stretches upward toward the Great Divide.

Badger Clark, from Sun and Saddle Leather, 1922 This poem is in the public domain and does not require permission for use.

As one of the first and best of American poets to write and perform poetry about cowboy life, Clark is imitated today by hundreds of poets before audiences all over the nation.

47

The Reverend C.B. Clark, Vie Willit’s uncle, performed the burial services for Calamity Jane because no one else would.

Calamity Jane was buried at Mount Moriah Cemetery, South Dakota, next to Wild Bill Hickok. Four of the men who planned her funeral (Frank Ankeney, Jim Carson, Anson Higby, and Albert Malter) later stated that since Wild Bill Hickok had "absolutely no use" for Jane while he was alive, they decided to play a posthumous joke on Hickok by giving Calamity an eternal resting place by his side.

Another account states: "in compliance with Jane's dying requests, the Society of Black Hills Pioneers took charge of her funeral and burial in Mount Moriah Cemetery beside Wild Bill. Not just old friends, but the morbidly curious and many who would not have acknowledged Calamity Jane when she was alive, overflowed the First Methodist Church for the funeral services on August 4 and followed the hearse up the steep winding road to Deadwood’s boot hill".

48

CHAPTER TEN ORR WILLITS GARBER

Back Row: Richard Story Garber, James Willits Garberdeceased 1981. Second row: Orr Willits Garber Jr-deceased 1991., Dad, Orr Willits Garber Deceased 1961 Susan Clare Garber ( Malyurek). Front row: Thomas Victor Garber. This picture was taken approximately three years before Orr was killed.

49

O

rr Willits Garber, the oldest son of Alva LaRoy Garber and Vie Willits Garber, was born on June 18, 1914.

He attended the Big Horn Public School and Sheridan High School during the years when Big Horn was not maintaining a high school, graduating with the class of 1932.

His college years were spent at the University of Wyoming and Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa, using a two-year track scholarship there before returning to the University of Wyoming and graduating in 1938 with WHAT DEGREE? Orr Garber carried on his grandfather J.O. Willit’s fervor for developing water resources in the mountains and was dedicated to agricultural water development in Sheridan County.

Widely known for his work in soil conservation, he too served with many community groups to further these goals. He was a past director of the National Association of Soil Conservation District from Area V (Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas); had served continuously since 1948 as a supervisor of the Cloud Peak Soil and Water Conservation District and was district chairman from 1948-53 and was chairman of the public lands committee of the Wyoming Association of Soil Conservation District.

He was appointed to the Wyoming Natural Resource Board in February of 1959, for a term running through January 5, 1965.

The Garbers have long understood the necessity of water in their agriculture operation. Located in the Bighorn Mountains, the Cross Creek Reservoir was originally built in the 1950's by Orr and Victor Garber. The family later doubled its capacity to 800 acre-feet, and still uses it for irrigation purposes today.

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D

ad was a taskmaster, but he was a good father. He taught us how to work hard and how to have fun. He was a family man but work was what it was all about.

I had a good relationship with him but I think it was because I had more patience with him. He could get pretty unhappy, but somehow I understood just where the threshold was with him.

He met my mother – Marguerite Claire Story – while working at the Gallitan ranch where her father also worked. They married on December 17, 1938 and in time had five children: James Willits Garber, Richard Story Garber, Thomas Victor Garber, Susan Claire Garber and Orr Willits Garber, Jr., During the war years, our family grew crops – mostly potatoes -- that were sold to the Veteran’s Administration and to the schools. There was probably some resentment in the community because so many other sons went to war but Dad and Uncle Vic stayed here to help raise the crops that were sold to the government.

Once we got more and more into the business of developing our own water for our ranching business, we ended up with so much machinery that we took on a three-year project doing contract work for ???

Dad was killed two days after Christmas in 1961 in the potato cellar that we used as a shop by a ten-ton piece of earthmoving machinery.

It was about 6:00 p.m. and we were working on this machine when it fell off blocks on top of him. Crushed underneath it, he knew he was going to die. He gave my older brother James and me directions on how to free him from underneath the massive machine. All the while, he also gave us instructions on how to carry on without him and told us to take care of mom. That was a real matter fact lesson in life to me –here he was telling me what to do with the rest of my life – all the while knowing he wasn’t going to live much longer.

Only 47, he was dead on arrival at the Sheridan County Memorial Hospital.

After he was killed, the cattle and sheep ranching partnership with Uncle Vic was dissolved. Three of my brothers and I got into the construction business doing roadwork for cities and counties. Together, we also ranched 140 acres but in time we all went our separate ways.

Brother Jim was killed in a car accident in 1981; brother Orr Jr. (Chip) entered into the greenhouse business and was working in a coal mine when he was killed in a mining accident in 1991. Considering Dad died in 1961, we worry about the years that end in a “1”.

I worked for the John Deere Company for 30 years with dealerships in Sheridan and Gillette. However, we found ourselves caught up in two bank failures as most of customers dealt with those banks. I then went to work for an independent group in Kansas that owned ten stores.

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It helped that I had grown up with John Deere tractors. I knew what the customers needed and how the equipment worked on a first hand basis.

My wife Elaine was a university professor (WHERE AND HOW LONG) but now enjoys her work as a publisher of two magazines for international clay artists – “Ceramics, Art and Perception/Technical” and “XXXX.” Dad was an active pilot and aviation still runs deep in our family. I have a commercial pilot’s license and my own airplane. My son Bruce is a realtor and I help him with aerial photography. My sister Susan married Tom Malyurek, also a pilot. They live in Sheridan.

When I think about my father, I think about how hard he worked. He taught us all to work hard. His plan was to run for governor in the late 60s and I think he would have made it!

You can’t help but imagine what might have been. – Richard Story Garber

Marguerite Claire Story Garber

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CHAPTER TWELVE Victor Garber

Little Vic Garber with parents Alvin LaRoy Garber and Vie Willits Garber – circa 1923-25.

School Days in Big Horn, Wyoming

I

very clearly remember my first day of school.

My parents told me that I had been born tongue tied and had to have what ever it is

under your tongue shortened or clipped prior to my first day of school. I can remember distinctly thinking, “Oh goodie. I get to go to school.”

I walked from the white house that my folks had built in the 1920’s down to Grandfather

Willit’s house at the Stone House. We got into his old Buick Touring car and he drove me to 53

Sheridan. We went up to the second story office of Dr. Johnson. I remember it was on the west side of Main Street. I think it was in the vicinity of where Golden Crown is now. It was upstairs in that building but I’m not sure of the location.

Dr. Johnson was waiting for me because I still had a “baby lisp” because of my tongue problem. I can remember that he reached over into like a letter carrier and pulled out a little curved pair of scissors. He flipped his necktie up and rubbed the clippers with the end of his necktie, took ahold of the end of my tongue and did whatever he did and told me not to spit for a while. Grandpa Willits and I went and got back into the old Buick and he dropped me off at Big Horn School.

The school building was the old college building. It was a two-story building that sat on a hill right where the present-day school sits. In fact, that building sat approximately where the gymnasium that is being used today is. It was two-story and the bricks had been formed and fired on the Jackson Ranch, which today is known as “Helvey’s Place.” The bricks that were in that school building are the same bricks as in the brick church building in Big Horn. Those are all from the same source. They were all hand-fired on Jackson Creek.

In later years, the several times that I walked to school cross-country through the Darlington place, I used to cross Jackson Creek right where those bricks were fired. There were still pits there where they had dug out the clay.

As I recall, the building had a large auditorium on the second floor and two smaller classrooms and an office on the south side of the building. The auditorium was on the northwest corner of the building. The stairway went up under the bell tower. Downstairs, there was one large classroom on the northwest corner of the building and two or three small classrooms on the southeast corner of the building. It had a wooden fire escape from the second floor that went down sloping from the center of the auditorium upstairs to the southwest corner of the brick building. The brick building sat approximately on the compass with the north side of the building parallel to the road that goes west from Big Horn.

There were two white frame buildings –just large one room buildings on either side of the school -- setting back slightly to the west of the front line of the building. One was used for home economics and one for manual training. There was one well on the place with one deep well pump and it took several strokes of the pump to bring the water to the surface. It was a very

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sanitary drinking arrangement. There was a tin cup on a light chain and the tin cup just hung there so it was well sterilized with wind, sand and sun.

If you got dirty or got ink on you or anything, you had the extreme pleasure of going out and pumping cold water on yourself and washing. There were no towels. The pump sat on a masonry pedestal and it had good drainage – but not good enough that in the winter time if you splashed any water, it got icy. If very many people washed or spilled too much water while they were drinking, it got slick so you fell off with a good solid thump.

There were two outhouses, of course. They had nice windbreaks around them about six feet high. Those windbreaks were very efficient. They managed on a “blizzardly” day to put a snowdrift right in front of the outhouse and it challenged you as to whether you really needed to go or not.

Good school behavior was rewarded – you got to ring the bell. The bell, as I remember, rang at 8:30 in the morning. Somebody – a teacher or the custodian – or somebody rang the bell several times at 8:30. At 9:00 a.m., when classes were to start, the bell rang once. That meant that if you were in the halls or anyway, on the playground or wherever, you were to get to your classroom. At noon, the bell rang twelve times. At 1:00 p.m., it rang once. I don’t remember if it rang any other time during the school day.

But, if there was a funeral or somebody had passed away, quite often, the bell was rung at the time of this person’s burial service, as many times as the person’s age. I remember several occasions when the classroom would all stand up and bow their heads in memory of or reverence of whoever had passed away. The most memorable time was when Aunt Jenny Davis passed away. Aunt Jenny Davis was a grandmother of the Davis’ that Hillman family descended from – Bear Davis.

Big Horn, at that time, had a two-year high school at the time I started to school and clear up until 1934. Big Horn only had a two-year high school. After that, you had to go to Sheridan or somewhere else to finish.

When I started to school, there were absolutely no cars that ever came on to the school ground. Not even the teachers drove cars on the school ground. They parked down at the foot of the hill. There was a wooden stile over the fence along the east side of the schoolyard. The rest of the schoolyard was fenced with a barbed wire fence and there was a gate at the northwest corner wide enough for wagons, buggies and an occasional car or something and a smaller gate 55

for pedestrians and saddle horses. There was a large gate in the west fence out in to the Jackson property and I don’t know why that gate was there but it was a good wide barbed wire gate just east end of the two horse barns that were on the grounds. The majority of the students walked to school but those from outlying areas rode horseback. I think they could accommodate 25 horses in those two barns if you kept them tied tight so they couldn’t quarrel among themselves.

When I started to school, there wasn’t room in the two barns for all of the horses. Orr and I rode Shetland ponies to school. I had a Shetland pony by the name of Friskie and he had a larger pony by the name of Peggy. Of course, we rode bareback because it was warmer, easier and faster. We kept our horses in a low-roofed log barn by Aunt Jenny Davis’ house. She always made us welcome there and I’m sure my parents gave her a little something for the use of the barn but she said she was happy to have the horses there so she had the fertilizer for her garden.

In real cold weather, some of the rancher fathers would bring their children to school and neighbor’s children to school in a wagon with a high box. In those days, how high the box was was whether it had one, two or three grain sideboards on it. A three-high grain wagon made a nice comfortable place where the children could sit on a stall on the bottom with a tarp on them and the only person who was out in the weather was the person driving the team of horses. At one time, there was a family at the Polo Ranch. I think that family’s name was Graham. That father cut a couple of diamond willow logs with a nice curve in them. He bolted a wagon box to those curved logs. Moncrieffe Owens always had good powerful draft horses and kept them shod with good horseshoes so they could pull on packed snow and ice. As long as there was snow on the ground, the horses could pull that vehicle. They rode in there and just one of the boys drove.

If the weather was warm and people were mischievous and we felt good, we would cut chokecherry poles about twelve-feet long, we would have lance fights from our saddle horses. I remember one time I did something I probably shouldn’t have done. Somebody got their lance underneath my coattail and I wound up in that wagon box with that load of kids. They were unhappy about having her tarp knocked down on me and they beat the stuffing out of me, which I probably deserved.

My first grade teacher was Miss McPhillamy. She was one of the daughters of the McPhillamys that homesteaded the land that lies just to the south of where Highway 87 crosses Little Goose just after you leave the junction on the road to Banner and Story.

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My second grade teacher was Ruth Dire (sp), the daughter of the Dire family that homesteaded the land that is adjacent to the Fort Phil Kearny State Historical Site over on Piney Creek. She taught there one year and then married John Rice and they put together the Wrench Ranch north of Sheridan that was known for many years for its fine polled Herefords. Later in life, Ruth Dire Rice was a very capable county commissioner. In fact, I think she was the first lady county commissioner Sheridan County has ever had.

My third grade teacher was Dorothy Sackett, who later married Bert Cave. Dorothy Sackett was the daughter of the Sackett’s who were Sackett and Skinner Freighters that played a very prominent role in the development of Big Horn and the area in the early and mid-1880s and 1890s.

We had shoulder bags made out of light canvas or heavy denim that went over

your…rested on your shoulder… and the bag could be turned either way so you could hold it against your body with one elbow or the other when you rode your horse bareback. Whatever books or things we had to carry and our lunches. Nobody ever thought of a hot lunch at the time I went to school in Big Horn and I have a whole lot of memories about lunches at school. One year, we had a teacher who didn’t want the lunches in the room where it was warm because they didn’t smell good. We tried leaving them in the cloakroom, which was under the bell tower.

After a couple of days, we discovered that that was just a haven for the town dogs to come up and eat our lunches. One day, Orr and I took a hammer and pocketful of nails and drove nails high enough up that the dogs couldn’t each the lunches of the kids who brought them. But, you know there is really nothing worse to eat than a frozen peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It’s a taste that you will never forget and don’t want to repeat.

The next year we had a teacher who was a doll but I can’t remember her name. She was so good to us. She boarded with the Vic Parker family. They had a dairy and were selling cream and lots of skimmed milk. At about 11 a.m. on cold weather days, she would bring a covered milk pail and set that up on the potbellied stove to get it good and warm so that we would have hot cocoa with our lunches. I wish I could remember her name. She was really good to us.

Every one of the rooms in that old two-story building had some kind of a potbelly stove that you would start with wood and then put a lump of coal into it. When the fire was going good, you would get real warm up next to it. In the far corner, the inkwells never thawed all day if it was really cold weather.

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We had a janitor--we called him “Dr. Lammie.” I don’t know why we call him Dr. he was a kindly old gentleman and took personal interest in all of the students that he got close to. He was just really a wonderful guy! I felt sorry for him last few years that we went to school in that building because in cold weather he was just overwhelmed with carrying coal, splitting kindling and getting the ashes out with not making a mess. Mr. Lammie lived in the big two-story white house that is on the main street in Big Horn. I don’t know if he had operated it or his predecessor but at that time my parents called his house “the creamery.” Somebody that live there had built a wooden box in the upper West side ditch and use that to cool the milk in and had run some kind of creamery and cheese factory for a time but of course, that hadn’t been operating any time in my memory.

In my memory, Big Horn school it was operated in three different locations. At one time, it was operated at two locations at the same time. I am hesitant to say which times those were. I can remember riding behind my father to a school they called the “Lone Star Schoolhouse” which was a two-story framed building which sat on the west side of Little Goose straight west of the Bradford Brinton Memorial building up there on that dry, barren flat. I don’t know how many years that schoolhouse had operated there but it had succeeded a Lone Star school that had two different buildings on the Roy Benton ranch. The first Lone Star School was on the land where David and Judy Garber now live. Roy Benton took me to the location of that building and told me it had been a log building built with rather large pine logs, dirt floor and two windows and a door. The school only operated for about three months in the warm weather months. I don’t know who all went to school there, but at that time, there were several homesteads on Jackson Creek and Hannah creek that had school-age children. Later the school district built a one-room schoolhouse to the southeast across the tributary of Hannah Creek from this first school building. Roy Benton also told me that first log building had a dirt roof. It never had any glass in the windows-they just used burlap or canvas or something to close the windowsotherwise it would’ve just been open air all the time. He said it did have a door, but he emphasized that there was no floor. At the time he showed me the location, there were no cornerstones under it so I am sure that was correct.

When they built the frame building across the creek, they dug an oak barrel and that was the water supply. Up until just two or three years ago, you could still see remnants of one of the frame toilet where a brush patch had grown up around it.

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At the time I was going to grade school and Big Horn, the school district hired somebody with a truck that had wooden wheels but rubber tires. They jacked that school building up and put it on the trailer and brought it across the Roy Benton place to the Milton McCoy place. The Milton McCoy ranch is the place where Victor and Phyllis lived most of their married lives.

They then took it out onto the red grade road approximately west of the Hidden Valley entrance and took it to Big Horn just south of the Big Horn school and that became a “teacherage.” In the early months of 2005, the Big Horn fire department used that school building for a practice burn for a fire or two. I think that some of the firemen knew the history of the building.

The other lone star building that I mentioned before that was on the bank west of the Bradford Brinton Memorial Museum--I can vaguely remember my father telling me about it—I did see it being skidded. They put it on big logs and skidded it to Big Horn and parked it where there is a vacant lot now where the road goes up to Big Horn. The buildings sat there for several years in my memory. I don’t ever remember that it was never used for a schoolhouse there but I remember sitting in front of it in a wagon one time when my parents went in there to vote. Later the building was move back south of Big Horn just across Little Goose Creek and was the core building for the house that Leroy and Bessie Sackett lived in for nearly all of their married lives.

In the Early 1930s, the school district had the old college building taken down and they built a new school with a gymnasium and very adequate classrooms and central hot water heat in it. It was really a very nice building –a very functional building in every way. There was no place for the bell in the new school building so the community got together and raised some funds and built a frame bell tower just south of the building and put the bell there. Everybody was real happy to have the bell so that it could be rung for school. Once in awhile, before we had a fire department, if there was a fire, somebody would run up there and ring the bell. That even happened in the old school house. Everybody would get on the old hand crank telephones and gather to do whatever needed to be done in the time of the emergency.

Times have changed in many ways during my lifetime –some for the better and some I am not so sure. As I get older, I think that people have lost the ability for self-reliance and social things have maybe made us softer, maybe have made us better -- I don’t know. I do have a memory of the school situation, which I don’t think could have reoccurred today. At one recess the boys were playing real rough and I was on the ground and Legerski (sp) jumped on me with his knees and the ground was real hard. He broke my left arm just above the wrist. One of the 59

teachers looked at it and said, “I think you had better go home.” I got on my saddle horse and rode to and a half miles home. When I got there, my wrist bone was just about ready to come out through the flesh. I don’t think a school situation today would’ve been quite like that.

Over a lifetime, you remember quite a few things about various teachers. Miss Sackett taught in Big Horn for two or three years and was my second and third grade teacher. When I moved to the fourth grade she moved and Todd fourth and fifth grade. Somewhere in those years, she had given us a test and I hadn’t done my homework and I put down some answers they were absolutely asinine and she kept me after class. The gist of the conversation was, “Victor, I am ashamed of you. You are a disgrace to your parents and especially to your mother. I am going to excuse you this time but you were going to do better.” And by gosh I did! The subject that I flubbed up so bad was a combination of history and geography. Now, my history isn’t too good but I pride myself on my geography today. I have kept abreast of many, many things and world events and national events and how they are keyed to the geographic location of where they occurred.

All in all, the teaching in Big Horn schools has really been quite good to those that wanted to apply themselves. Most of the students did and Big Horn has educated people that I’ve gone out into the world and have done a lot of things. I could list a lot of them but they are pretty well recorded in the community history. Just prior to and after the new school building was built in Big Horn some of the students started driving to school. A couple of families I recall--the older members of their family drove the younger siblings and a few neighborhood children to school.

The Kruses were one family and the Legerskis were another that. Together, when the roads were passable, one of the older siblings would drive a whole carload of students to school. The student drivers were always very conscious of their responsibilities-it worked out fine. At no time that I attended the Big Horn School was there ever a I did not graduate from big horn high school. I went to California for my senior year. The year that I went to California, Big Horn did buy a used school bus school bus and it brought students from over on Goose Creek. I do not know who was the driver. And about that time, big worm school started having a hot lunch. At no time that I ever attended Big Horn schools did I ever have a hot lunch.

I hate to put this on tape, but there are certain people who insist that this is part of my educational history. I have the dubious-whatever you might want to call it- for riding my saddle

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horse through the second story of both schools that I attended in Big Horn. Some people don’t appreciate good horsemanship-didn’t then-and still don’t. But, I think it is rather unique!

Earlier in this tape I mentioned that there were two framed buildings that I started to school in. One of those buildings – the women’s club bought it and put it on the lot right where the new Big Horn Fire Department is. -- Recorded by members of the Garber family – Big Horn, Wyoming.

Victor Garber and his three sons have run what is today Garber AgriBusiness Inc. as a partnership since the 1960s. His daughter Pat chose to leave the ranch and get her doctorate degree, and is currently the Vice President of Student Affairs and Dean of Students at the Black Hills School of Mines. The Garber family contributes much of their success in ranching to their ability to work together as a family.

Pictured from left to right are: Pat Mahon, David Garber, Victor Garber, Roy Garber and Paul Garber.

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CHAPTER THIRTEEN Eugene Garber

I

was reared in a ranching and farming family that had closely observed the increasing

“winds of war” in Europe. Our family was overcoming the depression and great drought of the “Dirty 30s” in Wyoming. By 1938, the agricultural economy was improving, and our family was producing sugar beets, dry beans, corn, potatoes, hay and grain as well as cattle and sheep. When Hitler began to march in Europe, we were producing food and fiber for the United States of America.

After I graduated from high school in the spring of 1941, we were all absorbed in agribusiness. However, I entered college at Salina, Kansas that fall and on December 7,

the Japanese Pearl Harbor attack came during church service, ending my school attendance at semester's end. I had only two choices--either join up or produce agribusiness on the home front.

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With the great shortage of manpower, our family furnished agribusiness produce for an Army base at Casper, Wyoming.

By early 1944, three of my high school classmates had been killed in action, and I made the decision to join the Navy. (By the end of the ware in 1946, five classmates had been killed.)

Our local draft board was not happy with this decision to join the Navy, but in May was I inducted into the Navy reserves. Six weeks of basic training at Farragut, Idaho was a piece of cake as I gained 10 pounds in weight and caught up on needed sleep. After boot camp leave, I reported to the Naval Firefighting School in Bremerton, Washington and was then assigned to the firefighting department of the Seattle Naval Air Station. Their kind of duty was not what I had in mind at volunteer enlistment-so requesting sea duty, little did I realize how soon my home would be the USS Oconto APA – 187. The “APA” stands for “assault personnel Attack and it was an amphibious force. Not many fires aboard the mighty "O" but there was a need for a yeoman in the amphibious attachment. I had to volunteer for this second assignment, which included telephone communications watch on the bridge of the ship and also my general quarters battle station.

For me, this was a great opportunity to repeat all commands given from the captain, the officer of the deck, and the pilot to the ship's station. This was truly a great Naval education. I served in this capacity with esprit de corps in campaigns of the Marianas, Marshall’s, Philippines, Okinawa, Japan and the northern island of Hokkaido and west to Tientsin, China.

The climax of this duty was during passage of Panama Canal for the decommissioning of the Oconto at Norfolk, Virginia. Other duties included B Tlingit the ship’s log, court reporting, ship’s inspection, seaman’s service records, liberty cards, duty roster, watch schedules and LCI and LCM D-Day landing operations.

While in Okinawa, as members of a ship, any letters we wrote home were censored so that the only thing we could say was, “We love you and hope to see you again.” But, I could receive letters from my parents in Wyoming and I was told that Harold Stambaugh, a boy who was in my class in high school, was killed on Okinawa.

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The USS Oconto made three openings bringing more men to fight the battle at Okinawa. On the second trip there, I went to the grave site were Harold Stan Moore had been killed-he was in the Marines-I went right to his grave site and with the rosaries said a prayer over him.

While in Tokyo Bay, I acquired a Japanese long barrel NAMBU rifle with bayonet and an abacus. They also had a short barrel model and machine gun, all with 31 calibers. At decommissioned day -May 22, 1946, the Oconto had carried some 20,000 troops, 2003 repatriated prisoners of war, 8000 tons of cargo and 15,000 sacks of mail while steaming approximately at 100,000 miles and had transferred troops and supplies on 24 foreign beaches.

In the fall of 1946, with the G.I. Bill of Rights, I enrolled at the University of Wyoming, including their flight-training program.

The next May, I married a displaced elegant girl from Belgium—Fernande P. D’Haeyer -who had gone to work under German occupation at age 14. She had suffered starvation and deprivation of total war and experienced her brother and other close family members incarcerated in Germany. One was a member with the Belgian underground for four years.

When I graduated from the University of Wyoming, I went home for a few months before I came to this ranch in Montana. I mention this because of Harold Stambaugh, the boy who was killed on Okinawa. In 1949, his parents had his body interred from the gravesite in Okinawa to Sheridan Wyoming and buried there in the cemetery – only nine miles from where we were both born and reared. My wife and I attended that memorial burial. I think it was a rather unusual situation to be both where Harold was killed in Okinawa and then to be where his final resting place was in Sheridan, Wyoming.

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After graduation from college, Fernande and I owned and operated a livestock ranch in Montana for 24 years until her passing in 2012. We raised a family of six children, which has expanded to 15 great grandchildren. Today, the ranch continues to thrive under the successful hand of my ??

We enjoyed our wonderful United States of America and have attended all Oconto reunions, beginning in 1993 at Norfolk, Virginia. During the Memorial Day

reunion

in

1995

at

Oconto,

Wisconsin, Wisconsin County seat, we were honored with a red carpet event bringing tears to our eyes.

On September 11, 2003, a reunion was held

on

the

2001

terrorist

attack

anniversary in Washington, DC. The U.S. Navy Memorial foundation honored our reunion group and the USS Oconto APA-187 by dedicating and placing our Oconto plaque on the commemorative wall. I appreciate being in this Navy log and also being a charter member with log entry at the D-Day Museum in New Orleans Louisiana and lifetime charter member national World War II, number 003-5876.

Be it known that auxiliary personnel assault ships were named for counties of the United States. 225 were constructed only after 1943, having the carrying capacity of 1,400 troops, being essential to land mass amounts of occupying force to overwhelm the enemy. The Oconto carried 25 Higgins craft for beach assault.

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In closing, my very pleasing experience was in 1995 to complete an around-the-world tour by going east on the trans-Siberian railroad to Eastern Siberia in the same time zone as Tientsin, China.

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This photo of Eugene Garber was used in a national advertisement for New York Life Insurance. The ad was featured in three major magazines including “Life.�

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World War II Causes a Revolution in Farming he decade began with calls for farmers to increase production to support the war

T

effort and for urban dwellers to plant their own mini-­‐farms, known as “Victory Gardens.” Farmers grew more with less human help available, and even had the energy to try new crops like soybeans.

World War II, like all wars, was a time of tremendous challenge. Farmers were as important to the war effort as defense workers or, even, soldiers. Somebody had

to feed all these people! In meeting the challenges of World War II, American farmers developed incredible new technologies in crops and livestock.

The Garber family of Big Horn answered the government’s call and produced potatoes.

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CHAPTER THIRTEEN The Expansion of Garber Agribusiness

F

or more than 130 years, the Garber family made their living in agriculture south of Big Horn, Wyoming. Over time, they adapted, changed, diversified and always worked together to survive and thrive in the changing world of ranching.

Originally, J.O. Willits capitalized on using the hundreds of free-roaming horses in the area as a result of the Indians being moved onto the reservation and the U.S. cavalry being greatly reduced.

He set up one corral in southern Montana and another closer to home, and would trap those horses, then sort out the mares. He brought them home and bred the good ones to light draft horses, and turned out matched lighter draft teams for the the trolley cars. That went on until someone invented an electric trolley car.

J.O. later set up a facility to buy local lambs and feed them out on hay and grain. When finished, the lambs would be trailed out to railroad station and shipped to market. At one point in time, some of those lambs went to the Great Lakes on the railroad, then were put aboard a ship and ended up in England, as live lambs.

Beginning in 1907, J.O. Willits built an irrigation reservoir in the Bighorn Mountains that bears his name and has been maintained and improved by generations of Garbers. In the 1950s, grandsons Orr and Victor Garber built Cross Creek Reservoir to provide water for agriculture.

“My grandparent’s generation stayed in the ranching industry, which my father (Victor) and his brothers kept going,” said David Garber. “The business evolved into a partnership of my father and his brother Orr, and that partnership lasted until my uncle’s death in 1961.”

“Since that time, we have been a closed family corporation consisting of my father, brothers Paul and Roy and me,” David said.

In the 1970s the Garber family doubled its capacity to 800 acre-feet storage capacity. This reservoir provided the water for their feedlot operation and expanded hay production.

The family primarily ran sheep until 1971, when the ban of 10-80 and resulting changes in predator control combined with the increased difficulty in finding and keeping a reliable herder cause them to go strictly to cattle.

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"We had to take a hard look around that time. We knew we couldn't all stay in agriculture because we just didn't have the land base or anything else. Within a few months, we picked up one ranch that was a foreclosure, and another neighboring ranch that was run by an old bachelor.

We reached an understanding with him that we would help him for long as he wanted to ranch with the stipulation that he would sell to us when he was finished. Those things gave us enough of a land base to stay mostly in agriculture of the time. We also changed our operation’s name to Garber Agri-Business Inc. in 1973.

Shortly thereafter, David’s brother Paul chose to branch out and start an earthmoving construction business on the side, following his great-grandfather’s footsteps of repairing and building irrigation systems and reservoirs.

When the housing boom hit in Sheridan County, we got into a lot of dirt moving related to that—business and roads--that type of construction. Streambed restoration work was also added.

Over time, that part of our business has outgrown the agriculture part and is very successful. But, we’re still a cow-calf operation too.

A 1000-head back grounding feedlot was also part of the operation from 1973 until 2005 and was used primarily to develop heifer and bull calves from neighboring operations. When the price of fuel and corn made it uneconomical to continue, the Garber’s reclaimed the land back into their hay base.

“That hay comes in handy during winter months and provides a cash crop,” David explained “I always put up more hay than we need, and I keep enough in reserve to ensure the cows are well fed regardless of the weather.”

We’re very blessed to have running water everywhere in small streams. We don’t own a windmill and have to develop very few springs. We also have good grass in our location. But, along with the perks of ranching in a well-watered location come the challenges. Among the worst is the influx of the public on the Garber’s summer mountain leases, which David said they will no longer be using.

“For three generations, we’ve put up with the Forest Service and the public and everything else. The part of the mountain we graze has gone through a major shift from ag use and timber harvest to recreation. In the summer of 2011, I would go up there and find dozens of fourwheelers happily roaming our permit and not one gate closed behind them,” David said. “This was a daily occurrence and I finally got to the point where it was enough: the cows don't need the 70

harassment or the dust and I don't need that kind of fun. We are walking away from the mountain permit and in the future plan to lease grass elsewhere, possibly closer to home.”

Adapting to change is just another part of staying in the business. Everyone is currently challenged with maintaining herd numbers, keeping their operations economically viable and being smart enough to control expenses and make it work.

In addition to their commitment to the operation, the Garbers also maintain a tradition of community involvement by serving on numerous boards and in various elected and appointed positions.

“My father Victor Garber served in the Wyoming Legislature for several terms; was on the Sheridan College Board and was appointed serve on the Wyoming Employment Security Commission, which oversaw the guidelines for workman’s compensation on the state level for many years.”

David Garber served on the Wyoming Farm Bureau Board for many years and was the last president of the Bighorn Forest Permittees Association prior to the Guardians of the Range group taking over that responsibility.

Brother Paul Garber, in conjunction with his construction work, served in various capacities in the Land Improvement Contractors association, both at the state and national level. Brother Roy Garber spent many years on the local school board and serves as a trustee of Whitney Benefits.

While each family member enjoys their individual pursuits and interests, they have all loved the livestock side of things and putting up hay on the ranch. “The entire family has always worked together to get the job done,” David said. “One big positive for me is working with my family. My brothers and I all have very different personalities, but we’ve all worked well together and will continue to do so. From the beginning my family has always worked together, and been pretty progressive, which I believe are both keys to our survival” -- an edited version of an article printed Tri-State Livestock News, Billings, Montana –April 6, 2013 – written by Heather Hamilton

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The Willits Reservoir was engineered and built by J.O. Willits starting in 1907 in the Bighorn Mountains for irrigation use, and the family still uses the small but reliable reservoir today. David Garber noted that being progressive and willing to recognize what might work, then implement it, are things that have enabled his family to thrive in the ranching business for the last 130 years.

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The Garber family has been running their diversified agriculture operation south of Big Horn, WY, for more than 130 years. This 1,000 head feedlot was part of the ranch from 1973 until 2005, when the increased cost of fuel and corn made it uneconomical to keep in production. Since 2005, the family has completely reclaimed this land into their hay base, which serves as both a feed source and cash crop.

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APPENDIX Additional photos and documents

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APPENDIX CHAPTER 2 Drury Family History William Drury and his wife Vashti Lewis, early settlers and prominent citizens of Mercer County. William Drury's will provided that all of his property should be held during the lifetime of his wife for her benefit, she to have the income thereof until her death, and thereupon the property should all be converted into money for the establishment of an institution of learning which was to be named William and Vashti College, to be established in the town of Mercer County which would subscribe the largest amount for its location and support.

Aledo made a cash bid or bonus of $6,210 and the William E. Marsh collection of geological and paleantological specimens. At once a building to cost about forty thousand dollars was planned and a site for the institution was sought. The Hammond block was finally decided on, the price being $5,000. Four acres adjoining were purchased of Horace Bigelow for $1,200. A brick residence standing on the property was remodeled and made suitable for a residence for the school officials. In March, 1907, the contract for the college building was let to Harney Brothers, at $39,525, the structure to be 65 by 107 feet and to be built of brick and stone. The cost of the finished building alone was about forty-five thousand dollars.

On September 16, 1908, the institution was duly opened with an enrollment of sixty students. In 1909 Drury Academy was established as a preparatory school for the students who designed to enter the college.

The Mercer County jail building was given to the college, and the part of it which contained the cells was demolished and rebuilt, and used as the girls' dormitory. The building erected by the county for county officers was also transferred to William and Vashti College, and was situated on the block known as North Park or Monument Park in Aledo.

Soon it was seen that the endowment was not sufficient for the needs, expansion and success of the college. In January, 1911, meetings were held to devise ways and means of increasing the permanent endowment and hence the annual income. It was decided to try to raise $200,000 for this purpose and at once earnest and persistent efforts were made toward this end by organized bodies of both men and women. The Woman's College Federation organized and commenced active work. So effective was the work that by November, 1911, Mercer Township's donation to this endowment fund amounted alone to a little over one hundred thousand dollars. About twenty thousand dollars was obtained from other sources.

The following were some of the costs: College building $58,606.27, Gymnasium $4,291.22, Dormitory $29,188.54, Boiler house $2,204.73, Tunnel $883.56, Grounds $9,873.70, Residence $2,473.93 The school closed following the end of the first World War. The decreased enrollment and lack of finances proved to be too much. For several years the campus was unused with the exception of the administration building that was used by the local high school. The campus and buildings were then purchased and used by the Roosevelt Military Academy from 1924 - 1973.

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Since 1973 the Administration Building has been torn down and the spot was used for a retirement home called 'Vashti Village'. The remaining two RMA buildings (Niles Hall and North Barracks) are unused and in poor shape. 'North Barracks' was originally the men's dormitory of W&V. From 'Past and Present of Mercer County, Illinois' October, 1914: Since the opening of the school the trustees have acquired a building for the conservatory of music, and during the coming summer it is proposed to erect a girls' dormitory, the plans for its erection being now under way.

Carrying out the idea of Mr. Drury, in addition to the regular college course, which is equal to that found in any small college, there has been established a department of music, a business department, a department of agriculture and a normal department. In addition to these there will be instituted next year a course in domestic science.

The attendance has steadily increased since the opening of the school until now there are about 300 students enrolled in all departments. A preparatory course is run in connection with the college and under the same management.

The students of the college are provided with all that goes to make college life desirable and profitable. The customary literary societies flourish, a Young Men's and Young Women's Christian association, the glee club, the oratorical societies and the press club are all well attended and excite a lively interest.

The institution is justly proud of the record it has made in athletics, not only because of the victories it has won, but because of the fact that its athletics have always been conducted on the highest possible plane, and the standard of eligibility for participation in athletic contests is of the highest. In order to participate in any intercollegiate contest a student must carry at least 12 hours of college work and be in good standing in all the work carried. From the first, athletics have been encouraged and the faculty has had close oversight and supervision of all the teams, one of the professors having charge of football, one of baseball and track and one of basketball. Athletic relations have been sustained with such schools as Augustana, Hedding, Lombard, Knox, Monmouth, Bradlev, Illinois Wesleyan, Iowa Wesleyan, Millikin, Illinois college, Shurtleff, Lake Forest, Armour institute, etc., and the showing which has been made is one in which every friend of the school may take pride. The success of the school on the athletic field is particularly gratifying for the reason that many of the best athletes who have represented the school have been boys who were born and raised in Mercer county, and many of them would have been unable to attend college and thus have an opportunity of participating in college athletics were it not for the fact that this school is located in Mercer county.

The athletic teams for the present year have all been strong. This is especially true of the football team which played eight games and won them all by decisive scores, thus acquiring the undisputed title of state champions. The prospect for football for the coming year is very encouraging. In basketball the team captured six out of ten games of the regular schedule, winning all of the games on the home floor.

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The baseball team for the coming year promises to be as good as, if not better, than any in the history of the school, which considering the triumphs of the teams in the past, is speaking well for it. This year the baseball team will meet such teams as Augustana, Lombard, Hedding, Bradley, Illinois Wesleyan, Millikin and Illinois.

Many individual stars have been developed in track work in the past and some unusual work is expected from among the 300 students enrolled this year. Track meets will be held this year with Augustana at Rock Island, Bradley at Peoria, and the state meet at Peoria, May 24. The athletic spirit in the college is of the best and the slogan has always been, "Honorable defeat is preferable to stolen victory."

The athletic field on the campus is well drained and has a splendid baseball diamond and football field and a one-fifth mile track with 120-yard straightaway. The gymnasium is equipped with physical apparatus, baseball cage and a basketball floor 45x74 feet of playing space with a 22foot ceiling. These facilities together with tennis courts afford the best there is in the way of recreation and physical exercises.

One proof of the unusual success which William and Vashti college has attained is the way in which it is regarded by the other small colleges of Illinois and adjoining states. At the time of the opening of the school in 1908, and for some time thereafter, William and Vashti was regarded by its sister colleges with indifference. No attention whatever was paid to the college and no comment was made concerning its work except to conjecture as to how long it would be able to eke out an existence. Its athletic triumphs first attracted attention and then it demonstrated its prowess along educational lines by splendid showings in competitive debates and oratorical contests. Before the school was two years old it was attracting marked attention from other colleges and was being observed somewhat more critically. Now it is regarded by all of the small colleges as a real rival in every sphere of action.

William & Vashti College Location Aledo, IL Active 1908–1918 Type Private Religious none affiliation Nickname no official nickname Yearbook Billashti Verdurette (named after William Drury's elegant Gothic mansion east Newspaper of New Boston, IL) Colors Red & Gray

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APPENDIX CHAPTER 3 Letters from J.O. Willits to Hattie

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Cheyenne, Wyoming

April 22, 1981

Dear Hattie, I reached this place yesterday at 3 p.m. after a not unpleasant, but monotonous rid feeling quite well, yet lonesome and unsettled.

I was delayed in ventral Iowa some six hours by the burning of some trestle work to a bridge and did not make the noon train out of Omaha. The emigrant train goes out at 6:10 p.m. and as I wanted to stop at Kearney Junction and could make some six hours by it, I took this last train. I rode in the conductor's car, had a good hair cushion for a bed and rested all night. It cost me $22 from Omaha here. The emigrant fare is $20.

The bottom at and below Council Bluffs is now and has been nearly all under water for miles. The CB&Q track was washed out of shape; fences all gone and, much of the way, the grade of two to four feet on which the track is laid, was washed away leaving the track undulating. In many places, long holes had washed under the roads and the rails had been built up with quantities of ties and bridge timbers. I could see that the water was rising rapidly again since this 18 miles of road had been abandoned. Nearly all sidewalks west of the business part of C. B. & Q have been drifted about. When I was there, the mud had about dried up, but much of it was under again.

It was reported here early this morning that there would be no train (mail) from the East today. I have not learned the cause and at Kearney Junction, I met Harry Pratt, Elasha Miles, old Mrs. Elisha Taylor (washing for a living), Ed and Beecher Cunningham of our school days and several others that you did not know from Mercer County.

Kearney is a place of about 2000.

Ed Cunningham is practicing law. He is a pleasant, smart-appearing fellow. The other brother is editing a paper. They both have an interest in this paper and told me they had such considerable money with it. Ed has been there some eight or 10 years.

After leaving central Iowa, there is no snow in Eastern Nebraska. The farmers are commencing work. In central Nebraska, the wheat is all about sown. There is almost as much grass now in this country as there was when we passed through last July.

In the western part of the state, the loss of cattle has been large at times. There could be __ from ___ .25 or 50 but there are vast herds of them along the Platte drifted in from the north five, maybe 10 times as many as we saw when we were out here.

Good judges say much of the loss there was from the shortness of the grass last fall. North to northwest west of here, the losses have been but more than any year. All kinds of cattle are 82

high and female cattle 10% higher than I could've contracted for last fall or winter. This cattle business is a vast industry and I have learned to my satisfaction that there is not any good opening for ours short of 300 to 350 miles north or northwest of here.

I am thinking of going to Fort Collins today to see a man who is going west and north of the Black Hills to start a new ranch and I may go with him. If I go with these men, I will not leave this section until about May 1.

You have my love and prayers, Yours, Orr

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Fort Collins, Colorado

April 24, 1881 Sunday 2 p.m.

My Dear Hattie, Paul, Nellie, I received your first card at Cheyenne last Thursday and wrote you on Friday coming down to this place the same afternoon. It was known that there would not be any mail from the East last Friday morning and but little chance for any Saturday. Not knowing how long I would stay here, I did not have any mail sent down here.

This morning's Denver papers report the Missouri River is one and a half to two feet higher than ever before an all mail is going and coming via Kansas City.

The last few days have been duplicates of the few balmy joyous spring April days of home.

They claim to have had many such here, in fact, about all of March. Today, however at 11 a.m., the wind changed into the Northwest and has blown a perfect gale since as strong or stronger than the March winds of Illinois. The dust does not seem any more disagreeable than at home and not one 10th part as much of it. This is much the nicest place to my notion I have seen in Colorado. _________ is not yet hid was shade trees as is Greeley. It has some 1,800 inhabitants with several buildings away ahead of Greeley. In fact, they would do credit to Denver or any other place. Good schoolhouse, but small churches. You'll remember the town is not a bottom as is Greeley and is 5 miles from the foothills, though I will have to travel it to ever believe it is more than one and a half. The mountain view is not so grand in uniform as at Denver--about the same as at Jaravasis ranch, but the water is the next best to that of Georgetown. Yet there is no telling how soon they will be _______ up the Poudre and change its crystal clearness to that of the Clear Creek.

At present, all water for house use is hauled from the Cache a La Poudre (River) at $.20 per barrel. Does that not sound strange that a town as good as a Alido getting its water supply in a barrel?

Yes, I see by the Denver papers that that fellow with his blue wagon of "pure spring water" is still running. The people here "are talking" waterworks and it won't be longer.

There are three banks, five or six hotels, nine saloons, four houses of prostitution and four or five churches.

The state agricultural college is here (Colorado State University). I had intended to walk out about a mile and hear the regular Sunday afternoon lecture by one of the faculty—subject-John Milton, but it is too windy.

Yesterday, the thermometer stood at 70 to 86°. Toward evening, it had dropped to 50° as at 60° today.

Not good beef. Loin cuts are selling at$.18 while other parts sell from 12 1/2 to $.15.

Potatoes sell at 2 3/4 to 2 1/2 per pound. Flour at 400 per 100. I was at SS and church this morning. They are with you, admirers of Mr. Cook. There are as many senior citizens as adults 86

as children in church. I counted seven ladies as old as Ma and two men pa’s age. I fancied one of these ladies to be about just as good as our ma.

The pastor, a man about my age, took his text in Christ's answer to the man of the tomb and the swine drowning. You will remember the man wanted to follow Jesus but that he sent him back to tell his friends what had been done for him. This man made quite an interesting sermon out of it claiming that in the building of the wall of Jerusalem, every man was to build over against his own house. So with Christ's kingdom, we are to work first in our own house and that our own salvation will only be assured by our working. By use, we could both develop and create that which is desirable in character. And, that it was equally true that by restraint, we could control and even eradicate that which we sought to be undesirable.

His enlarging on this last was to me novel of instruction.

My object in coming to this place was to arrange to join a man who is an old timer in this cattle business and to go with him up to the Little Missouri River and maybe to Yellowstone.

This party has 10,000 head contracted and wants to hunt a new good and location. There will be three of them in a light wagon and I will buy a horse so if I should want to go farther than they, I can do so.

I hope to find cattle range from 100 to 250 miles south of where the Northern Pacific Railroad will be run and live on the line of that road or what will be somewhere near it.

It is fortunate for me that I have fallen in with these men as I can have much of the benefit of their experience and advice. One of them is 45 years old, has lived on this stream since 1861 and has made all of his money in cattle. For years, he has had his herd 250 miles northwest of here.

I found a nearly all these men do not want to give information about their ranges and do not want new man to learn anything more than they can help. In short, they want to keep the good things to themselves. The losses in W.T. have not been a larger than the average. In fact, the losses have been the exception. I've not seen or heard of a man yet that wants to sell out. Of course, there are men who make a business of driving to sell -- I mean of those engaged in growing cattle.

Well, I have not written half what it wanted to, but I am tired of sitting. I think very often of you and little sweet Nell and Paul. Oh! How I would like to be with you this evening.

Write me and tell me what is become of our fall wheat.

Goodbye, J.O. Willits

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May 1, 1881 Dear Hattie, I wrote you a card yesterday on leaving Cheyenne and I also received yours and the children's letter of April 20. I am sure I never received one from you or anyone else that afforded me the pleasure this one did and the children's made no small part of it. Dear Little Nellie's opened first--my heart was in my throat--I could not keep back the tears of thankfulness learning of her reasonably good health and Paul's. God bless our dear children and permit us to all be united once more. Tell them to think of Papa and to pray for me often.

As I wrote you sometime since, I went down to Fort Collins and made arrangements with some cattlemen to go with them up on the headwaters of the Little Missouri River. They were going to look up a new ranch. This done, the next was to get a suitable horse, which proved to be no small job as it took an entire week. In fact, I gave up getting one in Fort Collins and was starting for Greeley when a man concluded to let me have one, which he had refused to sell at any price a few days before. It was a number one horse—a handsome sorrel--young, yet well broke, kind and an excellent traveler. He'll weigh about 900 pounds and will drive single or double. He will also be well suited for family use if we should move out to the country. I call them “Fred� and should I wish to sell him, I can get my money or more most anytime.

Last Friday, these men with whom I had arranged to travel learned of some business matters, which would have put them back some 10 or 15 days behind and as they would be likely to locate a little north or northwest of the Black Hills, it made it necessary for me to go on alone from there through a country claimed not be any too safe. I determined to start it once and take a different route.

My plan is to live on or near the N.P.R.R. I then could have cattle south of the Yellowstone for a time and then if wished, change them north of the river. My present route of inspection is to go up to Fort Fetterman and maybe to McKinney, then down to the Powder River to the Yellowstone. This route is perfectly safe and less it is the last 150 miles of the Powder River. I won't go it alone is dangerous. If it is good country about the new mouth of the powder -- healthy and good water -- I intend to come home and move there at once. I left all those maps at home on purpose for you. I have learned to my satisfaction there is no country within 200 to 250 miles of Cheyenne that I would put cattle on.

I bought in Cheyenne yesterday an 8-pound pair of blankets, went to a tent maker and had a canvas or decking blanket 6 x 6 made. I thought this would be better than a rubber one.

I left my valise with John Wild at the First National Bank in Cheyenne. Some stockmen north told me not to go this trip without a gun. Others told me they had been all over this country 92

without anything. At one time, I concluded to go without one for it seemed to me I would not carry it for $100. But, I bought a Winchester magazine rifle, which anyone can discharge 15 times in a minute.

How to carry this 12-pound Indian destroyer was a “mountain” in my mind until I had gone some miles. With the gun, I had bought a saddle scabbard for the purpose of swinging the thing at the side of the horse under one's leg, but I could not think but that with this under one's leg it would in time wear one's leg in. Yet, to my surprise, I hardly know the gun is there. I can reach down and pull it out by a very easy and quick motion of the leaver. It is loaded and is not necessary to carry ready to discharge, so there cannot be any serious accident with. This machine with things necessary to it cost $31.

I rode from Fort Collins to Cheyenne--49 miles on Friday, my horse walking it without getting very weary. Through a dry, lonesome, worthless country, I saw three or four bands of sheep. One crosses water but twice in this entire trip.

I took enough of the food you started me with for my dinner, throwing the balance (a little) away and with the feed of grain for my horse, took as near as I could a straight course over the country, yet would not be out of sight of the railroad for more than two or three hours at a time.

I saw a number of antelope, some quite tame. The losses of sheep have not been very heavy through there, yet I cannot see what they lived on. Hay is not as high as it was in Denver last fall. This place is kind of stock ranch, farm, hotel, feed stable and last--but not by no means least--whiskey mill.

There is a young woman--the wife and landlady—with a little girl of some two years of age. The only evidence of its being Sunday is in the dressing up of this child. At about 8 a.m. this morning, a noncommissioned officer rode up inquiring of the landlord if he had any beer.

Upon learning that he had, the soldier informed him that he was just in advance of six or eight bluecoats that had drank the last ranch out (of beer) and were all very dry again. This fellow swallowed up a quart bottle with the agility of an old hand and soon after, a four-mule team drove up with several dissipated, worthless soldiers -- this first fellow drinking with them as if this was his first. These men were from Fort Laramie to Cheyenne after 10 horses. There is quite a camp about two miles west of Cheyenne. These cowboys are mostly goodhearted but worthless fellows. The foreman and owners--some rough, some religious.

One of the largest dealers in Texas cattle of the country lives in Cheyenne and is a devoted Methodist.

I don't know just when I can mail this, though I am told there is a daily mail over this road.

I'm a real good health for me, better than I have been in any time last winter.

It has been hot, cold, clear and cloudy out here--about half and half.

I think much and often of you all. Pray for me and for guidance of our heavenly father. It will take me some eight to 10 days to make the Yellowstone River and two to six more to look 93

around there to make up my mind as to our moving there.

How is Pa? You did not mention his health. Give my love to him and Ma, keeping a goodly share for yourself and for our dear children. I know they will be good. I have great confidence in them.

Goodbye, J. O. Willits P.S. The mail just drove up. I will start this.

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Sunday, May 8, 1881 My Dear Hattie, I wrote you last Sunday at some length and a card since, which I hope you received ere this.

I ordered my mail from Cheyenne to Fort McKinney where I expect to hear once more from you Tuesday morning.

Oh! How he do long to see you and our sweet children. These are long, lonely tiresome days but I am real well and strong and the hope of finding a home where we all may be so spurs me on. I will try to give you some idea of the country and people through which I have passed.

For some 50 to 65 miles north from Cheyenne, the country is one vast swell after another, the soil of that peculiar gravely nature, which does not easily wash. Hill and hollow is covered with four to six kinds of good grass. There is a wire from Cheyenne to Hunton's ranch there to Laramie then to Fetterman, then onto Fort Custer, also a two-horse hack mail from Cheyenne to Laramie, and one from Rock Creek on the Union Pacific Railroad to the Yellowstone via McKinney and Custer. See the maps that you have.

From hundreds ranch to Fetterman, I was away from these “sivilizers.” For the first three or four days, I was hardly without the disgusting odor of dead cattle and sheep. There are hundreds of dead oxen, horses and mules. These last of been starved and worked to death by the many freight trains as the country north for 350 miles forts and so get all their supplies from the UP. Railroad.

At the ranch from which I wrote last Sunday on the bar was this motto in plain white letters on black poster board, "Welcome all. Drink moderately. Treat friendly. Part quietly and call again." Is that not a contrast with the religious mottos one sees in our eastern homes?

For the first 150 miles, the bluffs are deserts on the south side of all the streams I crossed were very gradual—sometimes three miles long--while the north side was very abrupt, showing plainly as I think that the altitude was growing less.

It is a common thing to see six to 12 miles of oxen in one team here with two to four wagons fastened one behind the other. These last are called “trail wagons” with very short tongues and as they can haul most any load only up a hill, they can drop their "trails" and go back for them, a wagon needing little if any gongue to be hauled up a hill.

Monday afternoon, I reach the Chugg (a small stream) where there are three first-class frame houses far better than any in____. One of these is the home of one High Kelley (cattleman). The other is the hotel, store and stage station with the ever-present accursed saloon.

For some six to 10 miles, the valley along the stream is all fenced and irrigated for hay.

They cut on an average of a little less than one ton to the acre, which, when in the stack is ready 99

for sale at $20 a ton. The bottom or hay land is from zero to one mile wide with high precipitous rocky bluffs on either side. In a few places, the rocky top part of the bluffs recede from the stream one to two miles and large quantities of pasturelands have been enclosed by running a wire fence under the bluff on one side and across the narrow places in the valley to the cliffs of rock. These pastures were used in raising horses.

On one of these places owned by the Swanes, I saw a large red barn, with which with the castering trees, stock and fencing carried one back to the states.

At dusk, I reached the Hunton's ranch. Here the road to Fort Laramie turns off and here I found "all drinks $.25 and cigars $.25" with a man for a cook; Mr. Hunton, a keen cool selfwilled man with more honor and broader views than anyone I have met since leaving the railroad. Four years ago this spring, Hunton’s brother went out to kill an antelope and the Indians surrounded and killed him but his got away and came home.

Here also (at the Hunton ranch) was a Mr. Kent, one of Wyoming's big stockmen with whom I rode Tuesday forenoon.

Some 10 miles down this “chugg water”, a small stream comes in from the bluffs and in the ages in the past, the wind and waters have cut off by itself huge massive sandstone standing out in bold relief visible for miles up and down the valley resembling at a distance the castles of Europe.

Tuesday afternoon brought me in the vicinity of Laramie Peak and as I raised one vast well after another, each getting higher, I could look back 40 miles and see this tower rock quite as plain as you can see the bluffs across the river.

Took dinner at Cottonwood, where I found a young wife two weeks from Ohio.

It threatened rain, but I started and soon had to use my gum coat riding for some two hours through a warm shower up and up a beautiful little valley covered with a soft green coat of grass, the top of the hills everywhere skirted with large pine trees. Dark found me at Horse Shoe a nice mountain stream. I took a bed here, for I was completely tired out, but not of that sickly weak way I have experienced at home of late years. I usually sleep on the floor. At this place, I could get no hay and my good “Fred” showed this plainly all the next day.

I rode 20 miles and took dinner at the LaBauta (I eat only two meals, which saves some money out here 50 and sometimes $.75). I reached the bluffs overlooking Fetterman. The sun was about a half an hour high and I turned my horse on the grass for an hour and from there, rode into the post staying at the worst thing I ever knew called a “hotel”. It was the only one. I had to ride fully a mile and back to water my horse. The government hauls the water from ______.

At the hotel, I found hay, grain, bedbugs, gray backs and a half-witted man for a cook and drunken landlord. This last--worthy is also a postmaster and telegraph operator. I wish to go back to the LaBauta and state that I spent an hour or more there with the foreman and several others (cowboys) who did not use an oath or any unpleasant language while I was there. I 100

thought seriously of getting a coal chisel and cutting this statement on the face of some of these eternal rocks.

Thursday, I rode only 25 miles; fell in on the way with the horsemen going up on the Yellowstone. I am with him yet. He is just not my kind of man, yet not a bad one.

I stayed that night at Brown's Springs where I found a pleasant little woman with the daughter some 17 years of age and six other children, none of which have been at school, yet all have some knowledge of books with good manners. The youngest was just Willie’s size and real handsome. I came near beating up the husband; a drunken was a drunken worthless fellow.

Here, we fed on antelope meat. These people had some 150 cattle and before leaving, I learned they had kept them alive by feeding hay, which is now worth $40-$50 a ton. I've not seen any country yet that I would put a steer onto.

Friday at noon, I reached Antelope Springs. This spring is a coal oil barrel sunk into a mud hole. Here we got dinner. They have a man for a cook and some six men --about all got drunk. When we were eating dinner, one of them began shooting his revolver in air. When he finally came into eat, he got mad broke, a lot of things in the house, got his pistol out again until the foreman (also drunk Texas man) disarmed the cowboy after which (the cowboy) sat down in the dirt and took a cry. Before we left, the boss strapped the pistol on the fellow; got him another on there horses and sent them off for some ponies. They started on a run shooting the revolvers empty in the air. When of a mile or so on a side hill, one of the fellow horses threw him a number of times. He rolled around in a cactus and sage for the last 45 miles. A third of the country is covered a sagebrush.

Hattie, in the notecase, you will find the postal card from the assessor over in Iowa asserting that he has assessed 300 BU of corn there. That corn is in that crib at Ballard's. Take the card, show and explain and give it to Mr. Doughty. Also go to Mr. Ballard and see if he has sold some Timothy seeds I left there and see what has become of the sacks, two in number.

For some distances back, one could see antelope, one and two in a place on the hills most anytime. They would look for them, but they are very suspicious of us. These little prairie dogs are long every stream and their complaining squirrel like insistent chirping as you pass them was very unpleasant.

On Thursday morning, we passed through "Hold Up Hollow", a name given a ravine where some of these drunken wretches stop the stage, taking valuables from passengers and the mail. The mail was secretly taken from the coach this past February. A government detective is on the road now looking up the matter.

On Friday afternoon, we stopped on top of the divide between the North Platte and the Powder River to let our horses rest and enjoy some of the excellent grass, as we did not expect to be able to get hay at night. From this summit, we could see without limit almost in every direction. Behind us was the ever-winding road over which we had come with here and there 101

small bunches of cattle. How expressive that passage, "The cattle on 1000 hills and south to our traveling through these mountains‌.� We turned our horses loose at 4 p.m. to feed an hour supposing we had come some eight to 10 miles yet to go at about five and we saw that this storm would quickly be upon us.

We had been watching the clouds for some time but all at once it seemed to gather from every direction and we had not more than time to catch our horses and get ready for it until the ice-cold drops began to pelt us. The wind blew a gale and the thunder was of the very loudest.

In less than five minutes, every particle of falling moisture was in the form of hail and did pelt our poor horses. I had my rubber coat on and the wind and the effort that it took to control my horse kept my coat above my boot tops and the sensation caused by the ice and water on my feet was almost unbearable.

The hail was not any of them larger than ordinary marbles, but two thirds of the mass was that size and they fell to the depth of eight inches.

My horse, almost frantic and drug me for some distance over the hills through the storm.

This lasted a full hour and a half and my horse, in his efforts to get away, reached a little ravine, which broke the force of the wind and hail were he finally tucked his tail and stood still.

By the time we were saddled and ready to go, it was almost dark and the clay hill so slippery, the horse could hardly walk at all. The ice beat down my hat onto my head and I thought sometimes it would pound me helpless. I had my gloves on or horse would've gotten away in spite of me. I would never have heard of him again. It was soon dark and my horse, already tired, labored away in the mud and ice. We had already traveled further than I had ever ridden in a day. We should have stayed at the last ranch, but for the drunken crowd there. We went on and on but no ranch until I thought we had surely passed it in the darkness.

After we had about concluded that we would have to lay out on the cold wet ground without feed for our worn-out horses, I knew I could smell a manure pile and I had not much more than spoken of this until our jaded horses smelled it and started up with an energy, which no amount of whipping could awaken in them. Not long after this, we raised a hill and then saw the light. This hill we could see the next morning and they said it was just one and a half miles.

There was a strong wind in our faces and a large pile of manure at this stage stable.

At this station was a boy of 10 years old and an old Irishman and a cook, a graduate of some college in QuĂŠbec--a very intelligent, pleasant appearing fellow. We reach this place at 10 at night and stayed there until 1 p.m. Saturday having traveled 60 miles on Friday.

Yesterday, we came down the "Dry Fork" of the Powder River 17 miles to this place. For some 10 miles in every direction up and down these streams, there is an abundant growth of Cottonwood, some of them being three feet through. On the west bank of the Powder River is a military post with accommodations for 1000 cavalrymen now deserted except for two to three soldiers who are here to keep up the wire and take care of the buildings (mostly adobe).

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I will now try to give you an idea of how they build a house out here--the description will apply to every one for hundreds of miles over this country accepting the three on the Chugg: They go from 25 miles down and cut these cottonwood logs--usually about 10 or 12 feet long-they have the ends chipped off to a uniform thickness and are laid one on another and spiked to a post-hewn -- say six or 8 inches. Instead of notching the logs at the corners, they are also spiked to a square post. In this way, they are easily built as large as desired.

The one in which I am writing is 30 x 60. To build this overhead to support the roof, they go over 100 miles and get a few pine as these must be long and stout. If there any ceiling at all it is made may be by stretching muslin.

For a roof, a few feet of gable with only a very little pitch, they take cottonwood polls-straight ones--if not too small, split them and lay them side-by-side on the roof, cover them all with gunny sacks in which they haul all the corn in the country and then cover them all with some 4 inches of loose dirt.

Some have the floor in them. Between the logs are filled with either mud or mortar. Some new ones--all the logs on two sides to say--6 inches in thickness. These make quite a goodlooking house and any of them are comfortable if properly chained. This one has a bar in one end and a billiard table and the other with lots of rooms for the drunk ones in between. The house is separate here. The first time from Cheyenne here.

Some 40 or 50 miles to the northwest loom up the Big Horn Mountains. For one-third the way down, they are covered with snow. The thermometer stood at 74° at noon. Last winter, it went to low for alcohol here on one occasion. Yet stock have wintered here better than any other place I've seen. The losses have nothing and many are now good beef.

There are quite a variety and number of birds through Wyoming -- a good many meadowlarks and also kind of mockingbird. There are some buffalo off from the road and I have been some venison. These people killed what buffalo they wanted from their doors last winter.

Well, Hattie, I must close. I could write as much more. You see it is taking longer to make this trip than I expected but I will do the best I can and not lose an hour I can avoid I will to make an average of 40 to 50 miles a day. I have to feed grain to do this which cost $.25-$.50 of feed.

May God bless and keep you all. I pray for you sometimes 100 times a day.

Goodbye Hattie likely till next Sunday. I have lots of pleasure writing to you and I've had some fine time that Old Testament.

Yours Orr

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Cheyenne, Wyoming

April 22, 1881

Dear Hattie, I reached this place yesterday at 3 PM after a not unpleasant, but monotonous ride. I'm feeling quite well, yet lonesome and unsettled. I was delayed in central Iowa some six hours by the burning of some trestle work to a bridge and did not make the noon train out of Omaha.

The emigrant train goes out at 6:10 PM and as I wanted to stop at Kearney Junction and could make some six hours by it, I took this last train ride in the conductor's car. I had a good hair cushion for a bed and rested all night. It cost me $22 from Omaha to here. The emigrant fair is $20. The bottom at and below Council Bluff is now and has been nearly all underwater for miles. The CB & Q track was washed out of shape. The fences were all gone, and much of the way, the grade of 2 to 4 feet on which the track is laid, was washed away leaving the track undulating. In many places, long holes had washed under the road and the rails had been built up with quantities of ties and bridge timbers. I could see that the water was rising rapidly again.

Nearly all sidewalks west of the business part of Council Bluffs have been drifted about.

When I was there, the mud had about dried up, but much of it is under again. It was reported here early this morning that there would be no train (mail) from the East today. I have not learned that cause.

At Kearney Junction, I met Harry Pratt and Elasha Miles--old Mrs. Elasha Taylor, (washing for a living), Ed and Beecher Cunningham of our school days and several others that you did not know from Mercer County. Kearney is a place of about 2000.

Ed Cunningham is practicing law. He is a pleasant, smart-appearing fellow. The other brother is editing a paper. They both have an interest in this paper and told me they had such considerable money with it and have been there some eight or 10 years.

After leaving central Iowa, there is no snow in eastern Nebraska. The farmers are commencing work. In central Nebraska, the wheat is about all how sown. There is also almost as much grass in this country as there was when we passed through last July. In the western part of the state, the loss of cattle has been large at times. There could be__from__ point 25 or .50, but there are vast herds of them along the Platte River drifted in from the north--five maybe 10 times as many as we saw went out.

Good judges say much of the loss there was from the shortness of the grass last fall. North northwest and west of here, the losses have been but little if any more than any year. All kinds of cattle are high and female cattle 10% higher than I could' ve contracted for last fall or winter.

This cattle business is a vast industry I have learned to my satisfaction that there is not any good opening for ours short of 300 to 350 miles north or northwest of here. I am thinking of going to Fort Collins today to see a man who is going west and north of the Black Hills to start a new 109

ranch and I may go with him. If I go with these men, I will not leave this section until about May one. You have my love and prayers.

Your Orr

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Hattie and J.O. Willits raised three grandchildren born to their daughter Nellie Willits Wood: Beth, at left, born in 1888; Iris, born in 1900; and Makinley “Chip�, born in 1901, in front. Nellie passed away on August 11, 1903 at Dr. John Kellogg’s sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan. Hattie was 50 and J.O. was 55 at the time of her passing. Iris lived to be 100 years old. Photo taken in 1905.

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J.O. and Hattie are pictured here in 1921 at the Stone House with their grandchildren from left to right: Chip Wood, Orr Garber, Victor on Hattie’s lap, Beth, J.O. and Iris Wood.

Neighborly Gathering -1921. Bottom left is J.O. Willits with Orr Garber on his lap, Mrs. Davis, Helen Dow with Victor Garber seated in front of her, and Hattie Willits; Second row: Guy Wood, Vie Garber, Vera Wood, Beth Wood, Iris Wood, Roy Garber (hat), and Chip Wood; Third row: Bert Dow and Will Davis.

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July 21, 1926. From left to right are, with the date they arrived in Big Horn: First row: Jenny Hilman Davis (1879), Amanda Davis Jackson (1880), Jo Skinner (1885) and “Auntie� Helen Dow (1880); Second row: Lydia Davis Hilman (1879), Mae Davis Howard (1879), Minnie Martin (1880), James Orr Willits (1881), John Custis (1882), Oliver Perry Hanna (1878), Mr. Austin (1881), Joseph Darlington (1882), and Aaron Darlington (1882). Reprinted from Big Horn City*

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Roy Garber, ? ?

Paul, Chip Wood, Victor, Beth, Magdelena, David, J.O. Willits Maybe Roy and Vie in the back

Young “Roy” Garber – a school photograph from Fremont, Nebraska.

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University of Wyoming Girl’s Cadet Corp – 1902-1908. Vie Willits Garber is the eighth girl from the left. Photo courtesy of the American Heritage Center – University of Wyoming.

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University of Wyoming Class of 1908- top row left to right – Regina Harsch, Mabel Sodergreen, Thyra Thirkeldsen, Vie Willits; bottom row left to right – Herbert Kennedy, Gertrude Ponting, Marcus Walker.

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The Other Roughriders Col. Torrey and Wyoming’s Volunteer Cavalry

The Rough Riders are usually associated with Theodore Roosevelt, but his were not the only “rough riders” organized to fight in the Spanish-American War of 1898. Wyoming had its rough riders, too, but due to a train mishap and the shortness of the war, they never saw combat.

When war with Spain over Cuba appeared probable in the spring of 1898, Jay L. Torrey, rancher and former legislator from Embar, Wyoming, traveled to Washington, D. C., to convince Congress to authorize an army unit of cowboys. While other men made similar proposals, Torrey is credited with originating the idea of the rough riders.

Born in Pittsfield, Illinois, Torrey came to Wyoming to help his elder brother Capt. R. A. Torrey manage his ranch in the Big Horn Basin. The elder Torrey, who had been commander of Fort Washakie for a time, purchased pioneer J. D. Woodruff’s ranch holdings on Owl Creek about 25 miles west of Thermopolis I the late 1870s. Jay Torrey later bought his brother’s interest and enlarged the operation.

In 1894 Torrey was elected to the state legislature, representing Fremont County (which at that time included much of the Big Horn Basin). Even though he was a freshman legislator, he was elected speaker of the house. By the time hostilities with Spain appeared likely, he was politically well-known throughout the state though he had 119

served only the one term in the legislature.

When Congress finally authorized “cowboy units,” three men were given command of the three volunteer cavalry organizations. Col. Leonard Wood, assisted by former undersecretary of the Navy, Theodore Roosevelt, was in charge of the First Volunteer Cavalry and Melvin Grigsby, South Dakota Attorney General, was given command of the Third. Torrey was authorized to raise men for the Second Volunteer Cavalry.

Of the 842 recruits, 591 were from Wyoming. The volunteers were assigned to companies largely on the basis of their home towns. For example, most men in Troop E were from Sheridan, Crook or Weston County and the men in Troop G had been recruited from Albany County. Also assigned to the Torrey command, however, were troops from Colorado, Nevada, Idaho, and Utah.

The recruits met strict requirements. They had to be between 18 and 45 years of age, stand between 5’4” and 5’10” in height and weigh no more than 165 pounds. (The 230-lb. Torrey was exempted from the requirements). Of course, all had to be expert horsemen.

The troops assembled at Fort D. A. Russell (now Warren Air Force Base) in May 1898, while the job of finding suitable horses took place. Torrey insisted on having the best mounts available and by the middle of May, only 175 of the needed 1,000 horses had met his high standards for the government authorized price of no more than $110 per animal.

The horses for each unit were of the same color. A drawing for colors gave Wyoming units bay horses while the Nevada contingent drew chestnut and the Utah group, black horses. The two Colorado units would ride black and chestnut mounts.

Intensive training continued amid a great deal of patriotic fanfare until June 13 when the troops, by then dubbed “Torrey’s Rough Riders,” were finally ordered to Jacksonville, Florida, the staging area for Cuba. The send-off from Cheyenne was a festive occasion and all across the country, people cheered the passage of the Rough Riders on their way to war.

On June 26 while the two trains carrying the troops and their horses were nearing Tupelo, Mississippi, the first train stopped to take on water. The second train rounded a sharp curve and smashed into the rear car of the parked train. Five men were killed and 15 were injured. Col. Torrey injured both feet and had to be on crutches for several weeks after the accident.

After days’ delay, the Torrey group arrived at the base in Jacksonville. At the same time, Roosevelt’s Rough Riders were charging up San Juan Hill in Cuba. Within a month, the war was over and Wyoming’s Rough Riders were still in Jacksonville having never been ordered to the front.

Typhoid fever took its toll while the disappointed volunteers awaited their discharges. More than 30 men died of the disease before the unit was finally returned to Fort D. A. Russell and mustered out in later October 1898.

Most of the cowboys, hunters, miners, ropers and blacksmiths who made up “Torrey’s Rough Riders” returned to their hometowns. A year later in an elaborate 120

ceremony, the victims of the train mishap, none of which were from Wyoming, were reinterred in the Fort Russell Cemetery.

While Theodore Roosevelt was elected vice president and later became President after the death of William McKinley, Col. Jay Torrey returned to his ranch in the Big Horn Basin where he lived until about 1906. He sold his Wyoming interests that year and moved to Missouri. Although he was a very successful and prosperous farmer, he failed in an attempt to represent Missouri in the U. S. Senate. After a trip to Wyoming in 1920, he became ill and died Dec. 4 at West Plains, Missouri. Roosevelt, the more famous Rough Rider, had died a year earlier. -- Phil Roberts – Professor of History, University of Wyoming

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Sara Garber Ropp helping out during World War 1. She is riding a Dempter Overshot Stacker called a “Buck-A-Rake.”

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Vie Willits Garber 1884-1895. Vie was a leading authority on Big Horn history and was instrumental in publishing the book big Horn Pioneers, which was written by her high school English classes in 1957-1958.

We held Grandma’s 100ths birthday WHAT YEAR? at Uncle Vic and Phyllis’ ranch. Vie’s great grandchildren asked her what was the most significant invention or event in her lifetime. Everyone guessed that she was say it was the fact that man had walked on the moon. But she thought for a few moments and then said, “The match. If there was anything you hated to do in a wagon or buggy or horseback, it was to come home to no fire or hot stove.

You would then have to ride to the neighbors and get hot coals to bring back in a brass bucket. But the match changed the need to do that!”

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VICTOR GARBER Victor Garber on his political involvement in Wyoming …In ‘65 as a Democrat and I went back as a Republican in the 80s.

In my third term as a Democrat, "right-to-work" was the big issue for the legislative session.

At that time, there were three Republican legislators in the House from Sheridan County--we hadn't been redistricted—and one Democrat. I was a Democrat. “Right to work” passed the Wyoming Senate overwhelmingly— well, maybe not overwhelmingly, but by a good margin. It came to the House and became very evident to me that the three Republicans from Sheridan County were all going to vote “no” on the right to work. A lot of other Republicans were waffling, so I voted “I”. It would not have passed the House, it would've gone into a tie had not Victor Garber as a Democrat and one other Democrat from Torrington. We two Democrats and a Republican from Carbon County voted for right to work. He was sitting in the desk next to me.

Things were so tense that the governor had police dogs and added police in the basement of the capital building. The last vote went in and it was passed. A labor union wife who'd been sitting in the gallery for days charged into the gallery. She knocked the sergeant at arms – R. Dyle--flat on his face on the carpet and sat a funeral wreath and basket…it was taller than I was in my chair sitting down—and a great embossed ribbon that said "In memory of those who committed political suicide today." She set it down by the Republican who had voted for it and the Democrat who'd voted for it. Of course, he was from a Democratic County — the Republican was--and she was so right. That took care of my…I was defeated in the next primary election as a Democrat.

Well, I ran unsuccessfully as a write-in in the primary for the Senate. I lost by a slim margin.

I waited a few years and I was still working on the Democratic Party. One day, I went to a Democratic Caucus breakfast meeting and the Democrats chose for a county chairman a man who had of been convicted of stealing money from a school district in Campbell County. He was being questioned about short funds in the Northeast District mental health clinic in Sheridan, Wyoming but was elected county chairman. It made me so god damn mad, I got in my car and drove up to the county courthouse, changed my registration and filed for the House in one move and I was elected to the House as a Republican.

It was a very contentious two years. We had a special session and a whole lot of things. And I had championed a water development bill on the headwaters of the Little Big Horn River. The Little Big Horn River flows into Montana and goes into the Big Horn River. Gov. Herschler 126

wouldn't sign the bill and he called for statewide meetings on it. We had a statewide meeting in Sheridan and the crowd was so big that they had to hold it in the school gymnasium. The governor of Montana was there. After that public meeting, Herschler vetoed the thing. There were environmental concerns and there was some conflict between the Yellowstone River compact between Wyoming and Montana but that could have been worked out. That bill was so written that after 50 of years of usage years, all the pipelines on that coal slurry pipeline to transport call from Campbell County primarily to the Gulf Coast of Texas for power production would have reverted to the State of Wyoming and would have been a municipal thing for Sheridan and Gillette and all of the intervening little Wyoming communities where it went out of the state into South Dakota. Well, anyway, that killed me in the next primary.

I am sitting here telling you that in my political career I have led each party’s primary vote running for the House of Representatives in the primary and then been defeated in the next primary election in both parties.

I then served 12 years as a member of the Employment Securities Commission of Wyoming.

You meet one day every month--Sunday's two days every month--and then once a year there is a convention.

So all of those years in the Legislature and then 12 years meeting once a month, when I applied for my state pension I was 70 years old, I called the proper number in Cheyenne and was assigned to a desk in the retirement system. I gave all my things to that lady. She said, "It's going to take me a little while to compute this because of all of the years involved." She gave me her extension number and told me to call her some day next week. I did and she answered. Identified myself and she just broke out laughing— just really a belly laugh for a lady!

I said, "What's so funny?"

"Oh, Mr. Garber! Let me tell you--you've worked more years for the state of Wyoming and have the smallest pension I've ever computed.

As a state employee in the legislature, you get paid and they withhold retirement--it's automatic. Well, to give you a taste of how well Wyoming has handled its investments--I had a choice--I could take a cash settlement of I think $340 or I could take a monthly payment of $13 and a few cents every month for as long as I lived. I said I would take the monthly payment.

Well, Wyoming's investment in the retirement system has been so good that I'm drawing now just under $40 a month. That speaks of how well of this cowboy legislature and all of our 127

cowboy boot stupidity and just how dumb we really are. I want to impress that on you because every other state has this analysis and says how backward we are in Wyoming.

Did you ever think about running for governor?

Oh heavens no. Absolutely not! Malcolm Wallop, before he went to the Senate, ran for governor and lost in the primary. He had 640 acres of land up here and he needed to raise money for his campaign. Don Carroll and his wife and my wife Phyllis and I entered into a loosely fitted partnership and we bought that 640 acres together and held it for a few years. When we sold it, my half of the profits put Garber-Agribusiness completely out of debt. It was one of the best damn‌I never did thank Malcolm Wallop for running for governor!

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APPENDIX – EUGENE GARBER

Port of call, USS Oconto APA-187 The following ports of call and some major events during the ports of call prepared by Y2c Eugene Garber: 20 June 1944, Vancouver, Washington 2 September 1944, Astoria, Oregon 16 September 1944, Seattle, Washington 21 September 1944, San Francisco, California 24 September 1944, Long Beach, California 10 October 1944, Terminal Island, California 21 October 1944, San Francisco, California 14 November 1944, Oro Bay, New Guinea 19 November 1944, Finschaven, New Guinea 21 November 1944, Empress Augusta Bay, Bougainville, Solomons 25 November 1944, Noumea, New Caledonia 21 December 1944, Guadalcanal, Solomons 24 December 1944, Florida, Solomons 25 December 1944, two Lottie, Solomons 29 December 1944, Manus, Seeadler Harbor, Admiralties 9 January 1945, Lingayen Gulf, Luzon, P.I. 15 January 1945, Tacloban, Leyte, P.I. 16 January 1945, Guinan, Samar P.I. 22 January 1945, Biak, Dutch East Indies 9 February 1945, San Fabian, Mindoro, P. I. * Iwo Jima D-day 19 February 1945 1 April 1945 Okinawa, Ryukus, J.M. 11 April 1945, Saipan, Marianas 3 May 1945, Pearl Harbor, Oahu, T.H. * VE-day 8 May 1945 20 May 1945, Seattle, Washington 23 May 1945, San Francisco, California 1 June 1945, Honolulu, Oahu, T. H. 129

3 June 1945, Pearl Harbor, Oahu, T. H. 16 June 1945, Eniwetok, Marshall's, 19 June 1945, Guam, Marianas 22 June 1945, Tinian, Marianas 28 June 1945, Saipan, Marianas 12 July 1945, Ulithi, Carolines 13 July 1945, Mog Mog, Carolines 24 July 1945, Okinawa, Ryukus, J.M. * ATOM BOMB, Hiroshima, 6 August 1945 * ATOM BOMB, Nagasaki, 9 August 1945 10 August 1945, Ulithi, Carolines Last mission from Guam, 14 August 1945 VJ Day, 15 August 1945 21 August 1945, Tacloban, Leyte, P.I. 24 August 1945, Cebu City, Cebu, P.I. 25 August 1945 Mactan, P.I. SURRENDER ON USS Missouri, to September 1945 8 September 1945, Yokohama, Honshu, Japan 18 September 1945, Manila, Luzon, P. I. 5 October 1945, Otaru, Hokkaido, Japan 5 October 1945, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan 12 October 1945, Guam, the Marianas 29 October 1945, Taku Bar, China 1 November 1945, Tientsin, China 14 November 1945, Manila, Luzon, P. I. 19 November 1945, Subic Bay, Luzon, P. I. 23 November 1945, Guam, the Marianas 30 November 1945, Okinawa, Ryukus, J.M. 17 December 1945, Portland, Oregon 28 January 1946, Saipan, the Marianas 1 March 1946, Cristobal, Canal Zone 25 March 1946, Norfolk, Virginia decommissioned on 22nd May, 1946 stricken from naval registry eight July, 1946 USS Oconto APA-187, one battle star, Major events-- served within 1st Fleet Pacific

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James Orr Willits Ethics Award

After his death in 1927, it was found that J.O. Willits’ will arranged for a gift of $3,000 to the University of Wyoming. Each year, the interest from this sum is used as a first and second prize for an essay an assigned ethical subject. The “Ethics of Segregation” was the topic in 1957.

Willits often said, “Put all you can into every young life and get youth to think.”

Below are the guidelines for the award as of 2015 FOR UNDERGRADUATE AND GRADUATE STUDENTS Due to the gracious support of the Garber family, three awards of $3,000 each will be made to University of Wyoming students, at any academic level, for summer projects in research or creative endeavor that involve a substantial ethics component. The research can be conducted individually or collaboratively, under sponsorship and supervision of a faculty member.

The purpose of this award is to encourage and assist students, in any discipline in the university, who are considering, beginning or in the midst of a research or creative activity, to include a substantial ethics component.

SELECTION CONSIDERATIONS: Preference will be given to projects that: 1 Concentrate on a well-defined ethical problem; 2 Make a positive contribution to solving an ethical problem; 3 Have a substantial, clear, developed, relevant, and concrete ethics component; 4 Utilize a process or methodology for investigation and research; 5 Are of consequence, and have potential benefit to others; 6 Are feasible, capable of completion in one summer; 7 Are original, the students’ own research rather than a segment of faculty research; 8 Use the funds for project essentials; Have a strong faculty letter of recommendation

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Family lore of the meaning of the word “SHIT�

Certain types of manure used to be transported (as everything was back then) by ship ... well in dry form it weighs a lot less, but once water (at sea) hit it, it not only became heavier, but the process of fermentation began again, and one of the by products is methane gas . . . and as the stuff was stored below decks in bundles you can see what could (and did) happen, methane began to build up below decks and the first time someone came below at night with a lantern . . .

BOOOOM! Several ships were destroyed in this manner before it was discovered what was happening. After that the bundles of manure where always stamped with the term S.H.I.T on them which meant to the sailors to "Ship High In Transit". In other words high enough off the lower decks so that any water that came into the hold would not touch this volatile cargo and start the production of methane.

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The old Stone House - 2015

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Vic, Janelle and Janelle? in “The Pulse” – a publication for Peabody Employees --Fall 1989 135

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Other Appendix items to include

Vie’s theses (2) Maps Land titles and descriptions Any other photos or articles Current family photos and updates

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About the “Author”

Sue Castaneda considers herself to be an accidental historian. “I didn’t know how much I enjoyed history until I realized I was becoming old enough to be a part of it,” she says. “I came to learn that history is often just good gossip!”

She worked for Wyoming State Parks and Cultural Resources from 2005 – 2014. Although she primarily worked in public information, Sue found a love of oral histories assisting the Wyoming State Archives with hundreds of old interviews recorded by Wyoming historian Mark Junge that needed to be edited and uploaded for public enjoyment. Later, she spearheaded her own significant Wyoming history projects.

Sue has received awards from the Wyoming State Historical Society for oral histories titled “How Are You Doing in Vietnam” and “Survivor is My Name: Remembrances of the Cokeville Elementary School Bombing.” As well, she has published “One Shot Brammar: the Photography of Francis S. Brammar”; “The Hitching Post Inn – Wyoming’s Second Capitol”; and “De Galo con Flores – Margaret Reed Goes to South America.”

Sue and her husband Pete live in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

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