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The "come on's" of some of the promotional groups were wrong and too often a disgrace. One favorite was a strapping well fed young fellow striding down a furrow behind an couple of prancing also well fed young horses hitched to a plow that was turning real dollars and lots of them right up out of the virgin so! If some of these promoters eventually found themselves in possession of mortgages on a bunch of abandoned horses funning wild on abandoned homesteads they were only repeating what whey sowed. These "wild" horses eventually became so numerous that they got allot of attention in one way and another but the dreams and hopes that had been left behind by the evacuating homeseekers got little notice.

Some of this is at least partly repetition and may not seem to check with an earlier remark that Mable and I did not find any misery in homesteading. Mable might take exception to that statement. In any case we got several good breaks. We were just about the last to file in this area. Those who had come before us had already learned some things and we profited by their experience. Ernest and Maude who were the fist to take up residence here had picked an unusually good location when they chose Salt Creek. We rode in on their coat tails. But perhaps the fact that we had a school ma"am in the family did more than anything else to keep us solvent and going.

When I was a small boy going to town with father we met a man likewise riding in a horse drawn wagon going in the opposite direction. As was very customary and usual in those days they stopped to talk. Even if the travelers were trotting along in a buggy they were not always above slowing down at least long enough to pass the time of day. Father I am sure was especially thus inclined. Aside from a willingness and likely a desire to be friendly there was another influencing reason. Without exception roads were strictly one-lane affairs. When you met another rig you passed by pulling the right half of you own out of the road and where the going was likely not good . You always slowed down automatically and the other fellow did too. The stopping came easy. I have heard Mother tell Father that his horses knew so well what was going to happen when they met another rig that they stopped of their own accord. It should be mentioned that when you met a woman driver you pulled clear out of the road and gave her the right of way. Because of the opinions of some moderns it should also be mentioned that you pulled out because of chivalry and not because of fear. In the course of the conversation the other man suggested that Father run for the Legislature but Father refused to agree with the idea. I was disappointed. As remarked earlier "insignificant events sometimes have a wide influence". That meeting resulted in me wanting to go to the Legislature when I got old enough and I do not believe it ever got out of my head. Iowa, at least in those days, was not only organized as counties as is Montana but each six-mile square township was a unit of government and had its officers. Father held some of these most important of which was township treasurer. I well remember how angry Father got when a man asked Father to make him a personal loan of from these township funds. While he would not be a candidate for the Legislature he did run about this time for county treasurer, I believe on the Populist ticket. He was a enthusiastic member of that party. Early day Grangers, the Farmers Alliance, and a group known as the Greenbackers were the influences back of formation. In some ways was looked upon then in about the same way as the Farmers Union is now after both the Populists and Democrats nominated W.J. Bryan President it was not long before the former went out of existence. At least three of its planks were adopted by the Democrats - - a graduated income tax, adoption of the initiative and referendum, and direct election by the people of the United States Senators. The above wandering around touches at times on some of the things that had a later influence upon my activities. In college I took some interest in campus politics but almost always did no better than second best. In fact that became so much the rule that for a time my nickname was "Presque" which is French for "almost". An early Montana Political activity was to take an active interest in a local election of a school trustee. I was promoting one man and Ernest another. The election was held in the Donkey Ridge schoolhouse which was located on the Cellars Brothers place. We had the election and counted the votes and it was a tie. Ernest suggested that he go and get one of the Cellars Brothers to vote and break the tie. He did. Win Cellars voted , and my man lost. I have never wondered why. Next thing along that line was to get myself appointed judge of election in this precinct. Walked over to the voting place at Suffolk. Remember I made it in just an hour. Mark Tierney was another judge, I do not recall the third. Before time for the polls to open Mark instructed the other two of us to go to the lumber yard and get a twelve inch board and to the store an and get some cloth and make a voting booth. We did but I was a little peeved that night when Mark loaded up that board, cloth and all, and hauled it home. I was peeved worse than when I later learned that he had presented a claim and drawn pay for a days work as a carpenter for building a voting booth in the Suffolk precinct, I also later learned that he had done only what was a common practice. One precinct that used three booths presented a claim for carpenters wages for two days cash. It is no wonder that so many people think that Legislators, with all the opportunity they have, must be grafters.

Along about this time, maybe even before, I got Ernest to get me appointed a Justice of the Peace for this Judicial township which at that time at least, extended from Hilger to the Missouri river. I gave Ernest as a reason for wanting the job a desire I had to get hold of a copy of the Montana laws that were furnished to Justices of the Peace. I did. And I still have them! (Further reason for opinions about Legislators.) With the same breath with which the Commissioners appointed me they also made a Constable out of Jess Ford. I think I may have been a bit hesitant as a judge but there was nothing hesitating about Jess as a Constable, any way after he found out the lay of the land. We had a case in Winifred in which a jury was demanded and I sent Jess out to gather one in. After awhile he came back and reported that nobody wanted to come. I informed him he had authority to bring them in whether they wanted to come or not. With some remarks that had best not
be set down here out he went and soon was back shooing in front of himself what must have been the first six men he saw. Included was Roy Cranston, the editor of the local paper, and some other of the towns big shots. Do not remember now but I will bet Jess was packing a gun.

Had some interesting cases. One day a big husky woman came riding into the barnyard in a buggy driven by her husband. She did all the talking. She was from the so-called "reservation" Northwest of Winifred and wanted a neighbor woman put under bonds to keep the peace. In response to questions she said she "didn't like the ----- -------. Yesterday when she came driving her cows down the road in front of my place I got right out in front and stood my ground till she got right up close and then I let her have it right on the nose." She further said that if I did not put the ----- ------- under bonds to keep the peace she would take the law into her own hands and as proof pulled a six gun from under the buggy seat. I figured that arguments it dissuade would be better that efforts to disarm and acted accordingly. Another case required the service of an interpreter for which the attorney for the litigant made provision. I later concluded that the man the attorney had provided bar to it that his interpretations were, when necessary, doctored up to do the most good for his side, and further concluded that he had been acting under before trial instructions. My final conclusion was that next time I needed an interpreter I was going to pick him myself. I heard an assault and battery case in the Suffolk schoolhouse in which one of the parties had retained the services of the famous or infamous (depending on your point of view) Attorney Jack Wasson of Maidens. His side lost. Not long before that time Attorney Wasson had been the victim of a hanging because of the displeasure of some Maiden miners. Only reason it was not fatal was because they gave the rope some slack just before his last gasp. When the term for which I had been appointed expired I made no effort to get reappointed. Apparently no one else made that request either. Any way that Legislature idea was still hanging around.

Ernest and I were both candidates for the Democrat nomination as member of the Legislature in the same year along in the mid twenties. He was and I was not. In thus times aspirants in the primary were allowed to have a slogan printed under their names. His was "For fewer and better laws", mine was "Keep your eyes on the stars but your feet on the ground. Ernest was defeated in the general election. In those days Fergus County was strongly Republican.

In 1930 I was again a candidate for that same Democratic nomination and was successful and was elected to be a member of the Legislature in the general election held that fall. At that time Fergus County had four members in the House. For the session they were, beside myself, Democrat Roy Cranston and Bert Rap loge and Republican Dave Salverds. Sam Teagarden had been elected State Senator but died before the Session opened. Tom Stout served as sort of a synthetic substitute, having no official (Note: 2001 Sue this page was cut off)



that capacity. There was no provision in law for the filling of a vacancy which had occurred in this manner. This defect was remedied in that session and the county commissioners given the power of appointment. I served as member of the Legislature continuously for 20 years, eight in the House and 12 in the Senate. It included 11 sessions as there was a special session called by Governor Cooney in the winter of 33 and 34. This Extraordinary Session was convened by the Governor for the primary purpose of passing legislation for the relief of the large number of citizens who were in desperate financial difficulty. He included ten recommendations in the call. From time to time he set additional ones for a total of 21 and upon a wide variety of subjects. Cooney had been Lieutenant Governor and had succeeded to the job when Governor Erickson resigned.  He the appointed the then Ex. Governor Erickson to the vacant seat in the United States Senate caused by the death of Senator Walsh. Very plainly a "deal" had been made. The session dragged along for 54 days. However Because there was no adjournment deadline to meet, as in the regular 60-day sessions, it is my opinion that proposed legislation got better attention. In special sessions the only matters that may be considered are those submitted by the Governor--- with one exception- impeachment. On the 51st day of the session, ? according to the Page 461 to the Journal Representative Haight of Fergus moved that the house "proceed forthwith to cause to be done all things necessary to effect the impeachment and removal from office of Frank H. Cooney,. Governor _ _ _ _ _ _". After allot of scheming and skirmishing by a lot of people (and the lost of a lot of sleep by myself) the motion was finally defeated by a vote of 50 to 41. Page 486 of the Journal. My position at that time as set out in pages of the Journal 397 to 401. Illegal acts had been committed and I thought then that the penalty should be impeachment. I have since changed my mind-- not about the illegality of the acts but about the severity of the penalty that should have been imposed. A green hand had his sights set too high. There is a too generally held opinion that there is a high percentage of playboys, numbskulls and grafters among members of the Legislature, as a matter of fact the percentage of the above mentioned traits among Legislators is considerably lower then among the voters who send them there. To argue otherwise is to argue that our Democratic process are a failure. Considering the circumstances under which they work, Legislators and Legislatures on the whole do a good job. Our form of government is cumbersome and expensive but we know of no other we would trade it for. I served at one time or another on most of the important committees. Money committees are the toughest and one does not know what sessions are all about until he has the experience there. While a member of the House, that body created a new committee, the Committee on Economy, and (I cannot now recall any accomplishments that amounted to much) was made Chairman. I was particularly pleased with having been a member of a couple of special committees that did accomplish a lot. In 1931 I was appointed a member of a special committee of three that was given the job of overhauling the High School laws. Under the old system of census distribution of school funds the smaller High Schools were being killed off along with the taxpayer who was trying to support them. Among other things we devised a new system of distributing school money and of levying High School taxes that was and is fairer to both the schools and the taxpayer and resulted in a better High School. In 1949 a like job of overhauling was undertaken for the elementary schools. They had long been in trouble and it was getting worse. Some districts were rich and had lots of money. Some were poor and so were their pocketbooks, as an illustration in Fergus County the richest one room district had a taxable valuation nearly ten times that of the poorest district. This time I was made Chairman of a select committee of three that was given the job. In both these cases the legislation we recommended was passed and is still on the books. Any changes have been forward and not backward.


Mable C. Haight
School has always summed up my chief pleasure in life.

One afternoon my mother put the finishing touches to a little red calico dress, tied my new matching sun bonnet and started me down the one half mile road-watching me until I bobbed into the schoolhouse door-a little four year old delighted to be permitted to enter. And after a bribe of a blue stationery box with a red pen pictured thereon, I quit telling my teacher "I knew that long ago", and went to work on my first reader which I ate up and had to have a new one. Often the big Maple washed out the bridge approaches and Father walked that far and carried me trembling across a plank while a muddy torrent surged below.

My Alta (Iowa) High School was a pleasure. Finished in three years with class honors leading me to enroll in Buena Vista (Iowa) College the following year with a scholarship.

My pleasure one year in country school teaching was marred only by the struggle with a pot-bellied (depot type) stove. The fire was slow, the roof bitter cold and I patted hands and stamped feet declaring I'd stay at home if I ever got there.

But next autumn my father had to urge me to temporarily abandon teaching and enter Buena Vista College. After the happiest year in my college career I took a Normal Diploma which entitled me to teach in the grade in the Sac City schools.

Then my sister was entering a Methodist College. My father insisted I accompany her. Three years here and I took my A.B. at Morningside. (1907-Sioux City, Iowa)

The highlight in my career was a twelve-month sojourn in Pachuca, Old Mexico. Here a real scare when the principal of the school contracted smallpox in his room just beneath mine and died in a mine hospital up in the mountains. A joy in a Christmas spent in Quernavaca in an old Spanish castle where I wandered about in a garden called Carlotas Garden (built for Maxmillian's favorite wife) trying to find names of every known plant found amid its formal bricked paths. It was the day of liveried coachman and it was a real thrill to visit Mexico City, sixty miles away, to watch carriages from "Caloma Roma", the American Colony, visit the museum and the Cathedral built by Cortez with its altar of gold and its other altars of solid silver. It was before the day of "The Peacock Loses His Tail" so I saw the real haciendas (gone now) as they were then and many of the ancient customs with them. The Mexican observance of Christmas-a rite we saw enacted in Quernavaca and to the final breaking of the "Petate" and the resultant scrambling for sweets on Christmas.

When I came home I taught in Sioux City, Iowa and Seattle, Washington, spending summers in country schools (Larabee and Glen Alpine Home).

At the end of three years in Seattle, Washington, I came to Suffolk, Montana to file on a homestead and married H.H. ( Herbert Hale Haight, born 9/2/1882) August 23. 1914.

We lived in a typical shack with a path down through the center-a sheepherders stove for cooking. In late autumn I learned of a school and took it riding five miles almost straight north chiefly without fences.

Dressed in blanket-linked trousers, sheepskin coat, cap and overshoes, I discarded them for more ladylike apparel behind a sheet hung across one corner of the tar papered shack. They were homesteader's children.  I with a mind filled with good reference books told them stories.  Knowing I'd stop that if I found unlearned lessons, they studied and we both loved it. Next summer my house was done and I waited for my son who turned out to be a girl in Missouri where she was born the morning after my favorite sister died. When she was ready for school I took the school Maude Haight had to give up. In a building E. W. Haight meant for a chicken house, we carried on.  Katherine Haight was small and I felt if the Board would let me put her to play in back of the room she'd be better off than to have a girl who refused to make her mind.  If the grade work is not well done, other work I s useless and on this principle I worked.

Since my heart has not been good, I have not taught.  At 74 I am out anyway so the younger women can go on.  Electricity has given us lights.  Gas heats our home.  Two telephones stand on our desk.  The freezer is full of meat and vegetables a far cry from the root cellars of homestead days.  Cars and pickups have replaced the lumber wagon. Horses are used chiefly for feeding cattle and sheep.  A school bus passes our door and a mail route is to come three times a week after January 10th.  Truly we have seen a great change. About two pages written by Mrs. Mable (Chamberlain) Haight.
Above a very brief sketch of Mable Chamberlain who became the wife of Herbert Haight in 7-23-1914 at Suffolk on the ranch.  As of 4-5-1959 both Herbert and Mable Haight are not in very good health but are together on the above ranch after 45 years of married life on this ranch.  Dwight L. Haight



Grace Virginia

 Grace Virginia Haight Peterson, born June 4, 1916,  Written 12/9/58

 I am "back home"  (Suffolk- Montana) at the ranch tonight staying with Mother while the doctor has a look-see at Daddy's hip.  As we drove out from Lewistown on a well plowed albeit snowy road, I found myself " remember when-ing":  When it was graveled from Lewistown to here (ten of the forty miles).  When they graveled the Gilsky Hill.  When Uncle Ray backed the Model T up this hill.  When the road used to come up that hill-well Daddy, Gertrude and I were enroute to town for a school Board meeting and music lessons.  Left Suffolk about six that spring evening.  Got that far and couldn't make the hill.  Daddy unloaded the horsehides and carried them up, one by one. We walked and he and the Model  T made it only to have to repeat the process on Gilsky Hill.  Was past midnight when we got to town.

 Enroute to (Lewistown-Winifred) Montana, tonight, we met a train!  First I'd seen on those track in years.  As a kid, the thrill of those dirt green plush coach seats as we on occasion rode, in style, on the car connected to the nearly daily freight train to Winifred. And at the ranch, if we listened carefully about noon one might be rewarded by the far away whistle of that train.

The Suffolk of my youth had two stores-Sedgwicks and -Vane.  The latter contained the Post Office and home of the owners.  Sedge lived above the store and entrance was by an outside stair over the back of the store-something that impressed me unduly.  (Later they built a house that since had been moved to the Clow ranch.)  A boardwalk extended from the Post Office to the depot.  It held special interest for me with its big-wheeled cart and raised platform and gay orange paint on the building.

Our Post Office box was always the big double one at the bottom of the rows. Suspect the six was to accommodate those Herford Journals and Congressional Records that were a part of the mail as the daily paper.  (The Congressional Records joined the Monkey Ward catalogue for an infamous end-too young  to follow me?)  Ever been locked in one of those places?    A dirty trick that results in claustrophobia.  Paid to keep a foot in the door.)
Then Suffolk Montana had a couple of beer parlors, a hotel, lumberyard, livery stable besides two elevators.  I can remember Sedge getting his bakery bread off the train in big covered wooden boxes and all the discussion  concerning folks who didn't bake. Dried prunes were sold in wooden boxes and we always had a #25 ( I suspect) box on hand.  If you dug around you might find a sweet soft fresh one that tasted really good, raw.

There were numerous farms after one turned west on the Salt Creek road. Leach lived just east of Dog Creek and I believe my first remembrance of alfalfa was their patch near the road.  The Kellt place was on the hill where the road again branched for Winifred. Just before one got there, the old road made two definite right angle turns. The second was at the bottom of a hill.  One of the first trips Daddy made home with the Model A-luxury, let me tell you-he reached for the brake pedal and instead hit the accelerator. We made it, though.  Trouble was, the gas feed on the new car was where the brake was on the Model T.

I was often told of the time Daddy (Herbert-Haight) got stuck somewhere near the Kelly place and he had to pace me-a toddler-the four miles home on his back.  The vane Lans had two homes along it and connected on the south end to the "washboard road" that took one back to Suffolk.  But to go home we went on to the "Brown Hill" down past Uncle Ray's, Hiningere, past "THE corner" where our mail was often left in a big barrel and where the road branched to Uncle Ernest's, Clary's and Barslows.

 The first school I attended stood atop a hill with a good view-we could sometimes see two lights at night if Uncle Rays and Uncle Ernest's had their kerosene lamps in the right windows !  (Is it any wonder that I continually marvel at the myriad of lights we can see from our Bitter Root home.  Hundreds of them, actually).  Beyond us was the Tierny place (now Louis Knudson's) and Turk Fordyce's-Once in awhile saw a light there.  And to the South of the Tierney's were the Murray's on the Bar L ranch. Hamilton, Alleys, Clows, Jones, Hordycee (J.B.), Shells and Schuberts.  Brookses lived down on the Judith River.  The Balkey Horse school was above the river and the Salt Creek School, "over south".

 There was the marvel of the threshing machine and the binder and seeing wagon after wagonload of wheat going to town each pulled by four or six horses.

 Sunday School (precious picture cards given weekly) and church at the Community Hall in Suffolk;  Bible School at the Suffolk school-oh, those special swings-usually headed by Mr.  Cotton.

 Community meetings at the Balky Horse school.  Babies lay on the teacher's bed and ride milling everywhere.  Women fixed lunch in the teacher's kitchen. School desks were pulled around to fit the needs of the group.  A big old wood-coal furnace in one corner heated the room.  Noise, excitement, kids, and eats.  No wonder there was a new teacher every year.

 My first grade was mostly done at the kitchen counter of the old house. Bold blue and white checked linoleum on the floor.  Mother taught the school situated between our place and Uncle Ews the next year.  I will always remember the Cave Ten, sand tables and especially the rickshaws of that year.  Cooling saws, too, and camel hair water color brushes of which I have seen no equal, since.  That's where I first ran into the expression "a teacher has eyes in the back of her head".  At recess we climbed in the "wash out" in the coulee and thrashed their dirty way making even deeper the wash.  Can be sure today's children have seen no such sight in that area.  A tribute to conservation practices in the drainage.

 The next year, I was to attend Winifred schools.  Whether other got a job to teach in the High School so I could go there to school or whether I went because she had the job, I do not know.  We boarded at Huntere (I still detest  squash, as a result) and spent most of the year abed with asthma.  Can remember asking Mother if I was going to die..  I made it to school on occasion and had my initiation to rocks on snowballs. One gooey morning, Daddy stopped by school to tell me Auntie Verniece had had twins, a boy and a girl.  After school was out Mother, Katherine and hiked down to Rays-still living in the shingled house - - and saw the babies through the windows.

 Had another year of my Mother's teaching so I could make up the third year and an the fourth grade together.  Attended there for the fifth and most of the sixth grades.  Yes a "cousin" school with Kenneth and Karle Clary the outsiders.  We took lunches in gallon tin eyras buckets, dug for moles, played "Goat" on the cliff below the Hininger house and, in season, did lots of sledding.

Alice Hamilton taught us the year Neil was born.  I could hardly wait until my parents brought him from the hospital.  I had special permission to go home. When I saw them coming Katherine wouldn't leave school for such an unimportant thing - -suspect a slightly bent nose.

 We moved to Cocoran Street where I was a seventh grader and bet the Fifth Avenue South house when I was in the eighth grade.  I attended the departmentalized Junior High and found adjusting from the ways of country school a bit difficult.  When we graduated from the eighth grade, each girl wore a white middy and white pleated skirt with either red or black tie.

My High School years were marked by absence after absence.  First Scarlet Fever, then , mastoid, measles, and what have you.  But managed to make an occasional honor roll and eventually to graduate.  Girls wore white dresses as the parenting the early thirty's had no money for caps and gowns and annuals.

Because I was sixteen when I graduated, my folks saw to it that I took a post graduate course.

Up to then, my summers were filled with Four H work - - mostly sewing - - and bouts with heyfever,  My first 4H sewing brought no awards but eventually I made an outfit that won first in Fergus, first in the state, and was entered at a  Coutland fair.  I gave many a demonstration but just wasn't cut out for public speaking.

The fall of 1934, I entered Montana State University and lived at the dorm. It was a great experience and although my college days were marked with no great successes.  I would not change them and know they resulted in many privation to the rest of the family.

Through a case of mistaken identities, I dated a Leonard Esterson in the fall of my freshman year and before long was going steady- - a condition that lasted through my remaining three and a half years of college and ended June 11, 1938 in wedding vows at the ranch.

We lived in a trailer house (not a common situation or the near luxury state of today) at the Larry Chew ranch near Cardwell, Montana.  Leonard did general farm work. We walked to town or bummed  a ride.  Our company slept in the hayloft of the Shaw barn and washed clothes at the edge of the creek.  Happy days.

Next year we rented a farm where Leonard milked twelve cows by hand.  Then we went to a logging camp where Leonard skidded logs with a horse.  It was a little outfit.  All got out logs for awhile and then all ran the mill for a spell.  Leonard went to work for the Highway Department as an engineer and we moved continuously.  We were in Lincoln County when wee broke out and the fellows were notified that Highway work would be short and they should get other jobs as fast as possible.  So Leonard went to work for J. Neil's doing scaling and later running the unloading crane at the Nerland landing.  That crane was considered quite a piece of machinery in 1940.  We lived in the old Harper logging offices.  Present summer as Dispatcher at the Ranger Station doing dispatching and whatever else I was needed for.

 Minence of a strike made us pull stakes and heard for the Bitter Root where Leonard hoped to farm.  He worked for a couple of farmers before we rented and eventually bought a place.  He aimed for a Grade A dairy and eventually milked forty-nine cows,  We had probably the most modern milk parlor in the valet, including a pipeline milker and 500 gallon bulk tank.  But I was a big job, a fellow met Leonard's price and we sold the cows.  That was just a month ago.  Where we go from here, no one knows.  We have thirty-five head of young she stuff left and land isn't at this point, listed for sale.

As for our offering, there just aint none.  Leonard says it was lack of priorities during those war years,
Grace- Virginia- Haight Married now Mrs. Leonard Peterson


Katherine Laura

I arrived in this world at my parents ranch near Suffolk, Mont. on July , 16,1920. My Dad, (Herbert H. Haight) remembers the year because it was then be bought his first Purebred Hereford Cattle. The country doctor who came from 18 miles away to officiate went out to the barnyard to look the cattle over while waiting. Sometime later when he got to the county seat (Lewistown) and casually recorded a batch of births, he got mine one day off and I live in horror of having to explain this to some official in our modern age of time; tables and schedules with which I never feel very comfortable anyway. My parents had lost a baby girl (Laura Edith) a year or so previously (from some ailment which could no doubt have been prevented by present day medical methods). They had no intention of loosing another and I am told I lived a pampered life during my first months.

Early memories include snuggling down on a bed of straw under a warm buffalo robe in a wooden sled happily watching the frost grow on the horses' shaggy coats and on my fathers fur cap as he was taking us home for a vacation from the small town of Winifred 9 miles from the ranch, where we spent the winters so my sister (Grace Virginia) could have the advantage of a better school.

Another winter memory is of the morning when Mother stood in our kitchen doorway receipting "Snowbound" which seemed incredibly beautiful. There was also the rhythmic whine of the cream separator and the smell of a kerosene lantern on the back porch which often worked me of a morning to the comfortable assurance that the chores were done, breakfast would soon be ready, and if I hurried I might have the privilege of brushing "Daddy's hair". The cellar door on the back porch was a fine place to play. Unfortunately my enjoyment of the dirt cellar was tempered by the fact that it was inhabited by a dragon. In later years this shrank to a family of green and yellow salamanders of who I grew quite fond. I recall, well, the big dinner bell on the back porch was the envy of neighbor children and made lovely loud clanging. Just off the same porch was a closet in which Mother kept her Mexican souvenirs. (She having taught school in Old Mexico before she was married to Daddy).

In the pasture each spring yellow bells and shooting stars arrived in time for May baskets. Wild roses and a few Sand Roses soon followed. Still later wild sunflowers adorned the roadsides in a riot of color. There were lots of hollyhocks and we vied with each other to find the first blossoms of the season.

Pets were important: cats, dogs, rabbits, Babe and Babita, the saddle horses and even a very wild "pet goat".

It was a treat to ride out into the pasture behind the saddle on my fathers horse. We pulled bunches of "Fan Weed" to be later burned and we scattered poisoned oats in and near gopher holes. In the fall we might cut off a branch of Choc-cherry or buffalo berry as we rode along. Along one of the creeks we sometimes saw half-eroded potholes, where the Indians used to cook over campfires.

A sod barn still stood in the barnyard when I was very small. How we enjoyed watching the new wooden chicken house and the hog house going up. The carpenter always let us dress up with shavings for curls to cover our severely bobbed hair.

Hired meant, and occasionally hired girls, were much a part of farm and ranch life. I especially remember: Mable, who was a calm and kind assistant mother, Blackie, who used to hide my desert, Uncle Joe (name only) who was to old to work anymore but who remembered and told about the California Gold Rush of 1848. There was a blue eyed Indian who tied a horned toad by our door to catch flies, teen aged, Ralph, who brought snake rattle to my sister, Jim who cut my hair and Mart who teased my cats and me unmercifully (no doubt Mart was Martin Noel). These people who talked off handedly of Dakota or Kansas seemed sophisticated world travelers and brought sparkle and interest to a rather quiet life.

The shelterbelt was a fine place to play hide and seek with the "Knudson Kids" who lived down the road, or with some of the cousins. I loved walking barefoot in the garden. There were tunnels under the lilac bushes. Rose hips made bracelets. Our open air play house contained real stove taken from a homesteaders deserted cabin. On hot days we could dangle our feet in the cool water of the horse troughs. Drinking water from the wooden barrel that stood by the windmill was always cool and fresh. Wind and sun and sky and sunsets and stars were much of our scenery. There was no obstruction to our view of the Milky Way or the Northern Lights.

At summer's end the county fair was a big event and we almost burst with pride when father's corn won the blue ribbon.

School almost always meant moving to town and leaving father to "Batch" at home. I regularly wept in protest but just as regularly lost my battles. In fact, thought it sometimes seemed my parents disagreed briskly on most subjects, they agreed thoroughly on the importance of an education and developing "Good Attitudes". After a few years of bitterly resenting the public school system I was convinced school and town were inevitable easier each fall and eventually school at Lewistown (40 miles away) became the center of my life. There were music lessons, orchestra, debate, and bit parts in plays, but little other social life. Twice I was allowed to miss school to visit the State Legislature where my father was serving as a legislator.

In summer as I grew older there was 4-H Club work, horseback riding, housework and best of all community picnics where we benefited from the efforts of many good cooks to out do each other. These neighbors were of a solid sort and though I spent more time in town than at the ranch, town neighbors never meant as much to me.

Mother was often away during part of the summer and my older sister and I took great pride in being or trying to be housewives. My brother Neil Haight, six years younger than I, sometimes thought we bossed him a bit to much. From the time I was 2 years old, our family never spent a full year together, and yet, possibly partly because of this, we always considered family ties of prime importance.

During my high school years the drought and depression were at their worst. I remember being frightened when I saw a dead cow bogged down in the creek. I was frightened again when grasshoppers demolished a row of lettuce intended for lunch in a few hours, one morning. Yet all in all we were fortunate for there was always food in the cellar though I did tire of rhubarb. And there seemed to many times to be clothes in the attic that could be made over.

Grandmother Haight (Laura Cassiday Haight) stayed with us sometimes and though she had grown forgetful and occasionally dwelt in the past her gentle humor and wholesome philosophy were good influence.

In 1937 I set off for Whitman college in Walla, Washington. The next four years were busy and happy. I belonged to the sophomore honorary, was president of our independent women's club, became a member of "Phi Deta Rappa". I earned part of my expenses as a "hasher", desk clerk, reader and paper grader for Dr. Penrose, who was blind and was our college "Prof." of Philosophy. Next I went to Washington State College at Pullman where I was a teaching assistant in Sociology and later a research assistant. This work was fascinating and I was proud to see my name in print on some bulletins and in two articles in professional magazines.

I had some especially happy times at Washington State and while there met a Robert Winwood Day, who was an intelligent and handsome red head to whom I was married two years later after a courtship consistence of almost entirely of letters, wires and phone calls. He was the son of RLG Day and Ruth Diehl Day both of Spokane. His father's family were railroad builders and speculator in the Black Hills area in South Dakota. His maternal grandfather was a Los Angles attorney. Bob himself was the oldest of five children. We were married in Albuquerque, New Mexico and lived also in Tampa and Savannah before he went overseas as a B17 bombardier in July of 1944. Our daughter was four months old before he saw her on his return from a German prison camp. (Carol Ann Day)

Next we lived in Spokane, Seattle and later at Suffolk, Montana while Bob went back to college and spent some time in hospitals.

Carol Anne Day 2-11-1945 in Spokane and Alan 8-19-1948 both have their fathers red hair. Both are good students and enjoy school and get on well with other children. Carol is giving up the violin but likes to sing. Alan Herbert Day the youngest is happy with his baritone horn. Is happy practicing.

Bob and I were divorced in 1950 and we have seen him just once since. The children and I have lived in the teacherage at Suffolk, at Billings where I taught briefly before going back into welfare work, in Denver where I got a second Master's Degree, and in Great Falls, Montana where we are at the present time. My jobs as Child Welfare Worker is interesting, rewarding, frustrating. Leisure time is taken up with Congregational Church, P.T.A., bridge club, visits to the ranch and drinking coffee with friends and neighbors.

May 25-1959

Signed Katherine (Haight) Day.





Carol Ann Day


Following written by Carol Ann Day  - July - Aug. - 1959

I was born at Fort George Wright, an army hospital at Spokane, Washington, on March-11-1945.  My parents are Mrs. Katherine Laura Day and Mr.  Robert Windwood Day.  I will tell you briefly some of what I know about each of them.

My father was born in Spokane, Washington.  He got quite good grades in school.  His quick temper and wanting to do everything perfectly no matter how long it took were a hindrance to his school work.  It is just within the last year that he got up enough patience to write the thesis which enabled him to get his degree and become a teacher in Priest River, Idaho.  When I have seen him he has been very kind to me and I have liked him very much.  There was a time when I was just about four years old that I did not feel this way.  I still remember that at this time my only brother, (Alan Day) was a small baby and his crying, wetting diapers, etc. irritated my father to no end.

My mother and father were divorced when I was four and my father has since re-married and has two children.  He once had red hair though it has darkened now and he is very tall and slender.  He flew an Air Force "B" 17 and was in a German prison camp for nine months during the second World War.

My mother is shorter, heavier, and has black hair.  She is a child welfare worker and has been a -teacher -welfare-case-worker-in the past.  She like my father is very intelligent (although sometimes I wonder) and she has two Master's degrees.  She was born near Suffolk Montana-7/16/1920-and grew up with what I think must have been nearly the nicest  parents possible.  She spent her summers on the ranch and in the winter they lived and went to school in the county seat town of Lewistown Montana.  The ranch on which she grew up is a very wonderful place to live and you get to do things like, riding horses, picking buffalo berries, watching cattle being branded, gathering eggs, feeding pigs, cats, or sheep and milking cows, which a city child does not get to do and misses very much.

I think mother is an extremely wonderful person and love her very much.  I do not know how I could have had a more patient or understanding mother and I rely on her more and more when I have problems.  This does not mean that there aren't ever times when I would like to "beat her up".  I am sure the feeling is mutual for she must feel the same way yet all in all I consider myself very lucky to have her.

NOW FOR THE MENACE OF THE FAMILY: My brother Alan Day was born in St. Joseph Hospital at Lewistown, Montana on August 19 1948.  At the time I am starting this- Autobiography-May 11 1959 and he is not quite ten years old yet.  He (Alan) has red hair as I do.  His however, is much brighter, intense red and his face is more freckled than mine.  He is tall and rather slender.  His chief ambition during the past year has been to become a farmer or a jet pilot.  He is the best student in his class and likes school. History, science and gym are his favorite subjects.  He loves sports and especially running-ping pong, badminton and football.  He (Alan Day) plays baritone horn, likes it, and does a good job of it.  He and I get along very well together now but there was a time in the past when we could not stand each other.  His personality has improved no end in the last few years and through much hard work on his part he has learned to control his
"Temper".

My earliest memory is of the time in Seattle, Washington, when I was being squirted in the mouth with a liquid that tasted terrible.  Mother tells me, now in 1959, it was a way back when I was being given vitamin, Abdec. We next moved to Suffolk, Montana, where my mother taught in an eight-grade country school.  I was then three.  My brother, Alan was born at about this time.  A lady whom I thoroughly hate as I look back on her took care of us at the time.  AI was afraid to hate anyone.  She was the only person available in this small country community to "baby sit". Although she meant well my brother and I were terrified of her and what she may have meant to tease us with-hurt us deeply and no end.  Her name was -H____ (I better not say).  We lived in a one-room teacherage and in the winter Mother would pull us on a sled to HE___n's.  At the school ground and with the play ground equipment we had a gay time.  Surprised at finding my pants wet I once told my mother-"Some one has wet my pants".

After my parents divorce we moved to Billings, Montana.  We lived there for four years, the longest we have yet lived in one place.  We rented a basement apartment in the home of a very likable family called the "Peterson's" .  The parents had five girls.  The youngest two, Karen and Mary, were exactly the ages of myself and my brother Alan. The family, and especially those two girls were very close to us kids because mother worked and we stayed with them in the day time and also because we lived so very near to each other, The Peterson's were a very kind family and although they believed in discipline I think my stay with them was good for me.  I was by nature very quiet and did not like going outside or taking a nap.  Hated naps the most of the two so when I had a choice of "Napping" or going out side, I went outside and came to enjoy the outdoors more and more and became fairly fond of things such as climbing trees, picking and eating green
apples, floating, and wading, playing hopscotch, racing, hide and seek, etc..  Mary and Karen Peterson were as tough and tomboyish a pair as you'll ever find and it took every ounce of my energy to keep up with them.

The five things I hated most or was most scared of were First -- Bruce Elliot-- who was a bully Second-The Dark----Thirdly-Kidnappers-Fourth: seeing chickens flopping around after their heads were cut off and Fifth and last; ---Mother going out evenings.

In my life I have been glad twice some one died, both of which was when we lived in Billings.  The first had to do with some unfriendly folk's of the Peterson's who I liked. There was an extremely bitter property dispute between the Peterson's and the Kobers. Mr. Kobe started digging a ditch on the land the Peterson's claimed and was rightly theirs. I had magnified the bad things I had heard about him (Mr. Kober) and thought of him as next to a murderer because I was sure one of us children would drown to death in the ditch he was starting to dig.  When digging the ditch he had a fatal heart attack and died I was glad.

The other death I am sure that others to rejoiced.  Joseph Stalin died and as I listened to it over the radio I told mother about my feelings.  She explained to me that it was not good to be glad about such things even though the persons seemed cruel to me.

These were milestones in my life because for the first time I saw how hateful I could be if I wanted to.  I got into my little head that you have to try to understand and forgive people. We all make mistakes.  I have never lived that way but I started to learn what I should do. Also Mother helped me to start a process of learning not to be afraid of death which it has taken me about seven years to complete.

In kindergarten, that year I made things with clay, sang songs, listened to and acted out stories and had a very pleasant school year.  First and second grade went well fir me and I enjoyed them.  I literally day dreamed the third grade away and was so slow at my work that the girl next to me would ask me what number problem I was on, then she would whisper it to the person in back of her, and so it would go all around the room and everyone would laugh at how slow Carol Day was.  I was rather a tomboy but was so embarrassed of it that when the teacher asked who's three pair of Jeans that were found that I refused to claim them although they really were mine and I knew it. Much to my poor Mother's dismay I never got them back.

We once in a while had great fun putting on a free circus for the neighborhood.  Mother furnished marshmallows and kool aid for refreshments and we sang songs. Had a baton and aerobatics acts,  with master of ceremonies.  A grand time was enjoyed by all.

We had a small red playhouse, all our own.  We would climb on the roof.  I wanted to be a nurse and I adored playing hospital.

In 1945 when I was nine years old we moved to Denver, Colorado.  Mother had a stipend to attend Denver "U" and get her second Masters degree.  We lived in the campus dormitory for bachelors and for married couples or families.  About this time I became interested in writing and development of my abilities along that line.  My ideas were used in two plays for assembly.

I sold four and one half dozen boxes of Girl Scout cookies by going around to different dormitories.  The seminary for ministers was a real cinch to sell them.  I knocked on the locked doors and one of the apparently influential ministers took me around to the apartments of everyone who was home and told them that his "Little Friend" was selling some delicious Scout cookies and of course they'd like to buy some- - - wouldn't they?  It was the easiest sale job I've ever had.

At night I would play ball with Alan, watch Sheriff Scottie on T.V., read the newspaper funnies or talk with Linda, my baby sitter.

The campus of Denver University was very beautiful when the trees flowered in the spring.  The clumps of trees made wonderful hiding places and the steep hills were lots of fun fir skidding.  We would also race up and down the dormitory stairs and through all the complicated winding halls in the basements of the buildings.  I knew foreign students from about ten of fifteen countries.  One of my best friends was Jewish and I met a man who's father had been imprisoned with Mahatma Gandhi.

My brother, Alan, spends most all of his summers at my grandfathers ranch and we have a wonderful time visiting them over the weekends.  (This grandfather is my mothers father and mother- namely- Herbert and Mable Haight) (And the ranch is thirty-five or so miles north of Lewistown Montana and five miles west of Suffolk Mont.)

The summer before I entered the sixth grade we moved to Great Falls Montana. We lived here in Great Falls now in this year 1959.  It is early summer and I will tell you a little of myself as I am now.  I am fourteen years old and I just passed the eighth grade.  I enjoy school very much and get mostly A's and B's for grades.  English and Social Studies are my favorite subjects and I like singing also.  I play violin but I believe I will quit it soon. At least I do not want to be in the orchestra next year although I may practice some at home.  Among the things I enjoy doing in my spare time are cooking, swimming, writing, ping pong, basket ball, running, reading, watching some T.V. programs, drawing, if I am in the mood, listening to records and to the radio and taking care of small children.

My religion means quite a bit to me and I am a member of the First Congregational Church.  I am in its rhythmic choir and Pilgrim Fellowship.  I was initiated into Job's Daughters about a month ago.  It's ceremonies are very meaningful and I am glad I joined.

I have light, medium length, red hair, some freckles, blue eyes and I am very short for my age, am medium weight.  I am 4 feet ten inches tall.  I am generally quite serious and thoughtful for my age.  I have always been that way and I am not so much now as I used to be.  I live a little bit by moods.  Wither I will be very very talkative or I'll be quiet and say almost nothing.  It is usually the first.  I am usually fairly happy and some days I will be just bubbling with joy.  Even so, I am more sensitive that I wish I were and my feelings are easily hurt so that I will cry or be very unhappy.  I have a fault of becoming jealous very quickly of some one who has better grades than I do or is more popular. I try not to do this but I know that I do.  I have a slow temper and I don't show my anger except at home, usually.  I bring most of my problems and feelings home.  I am not very nervous.  I am friendly to the kids I know and I like most of them.  I think I am like all teenagers in
wanting to have friends.

When I grow up I would like to either get married and raise a family or be a Social Studies or English teacher.  Or be a Social Worker or a school guidance worker or be a director of Christian education - - or maybe do some kind of writing.  I am going to college.  My future is a question mark and you can guess it about as well as I.


 (August-1959)- - Signed Carol Ann Day







Neil Haight


Neil Haight -born November 29, 1926. at St. Joseph's Hospital, Lewistown, Fergus County, Montana. Parents: Herbert H. Haight and Mable J. Haight, (nee Chamberlain). First acquaintances -two overbearing sisters: Katherine and Grace Virginia, and Babe a horse of ancient vintage. Spent the formative years (pre-school) on the family ranch at Suffolk, or more specifically Salt Creek, winters in. Lewistown where the mentioned sisters were attending school also attended kindergarten and the first three grades of school at the now condemned and demolished old Lincoln grade school in Lewistown. The fourth, fifth and sixth grades were attended at Salt Creek school four miles from home, transportation was by horseback and old Babe was still hanging on to do the job part time. Other horses used were principally pintos, which had the habit of running away with me, I rode bareback and usually with a halter rope rather than a bridle, this was the best way to make good time to school without violating speed restrictions imposed by Dad but also resulted in being unseated at least once a day whereupon I developed the unique ability to fall from a horse at any angle and any speed without injury (usually). Seventh and eight grades were at Balky Horse school, seven miles from home and as Mother was teaching the school, I became a chauffeur operating under a strict 20-MPH speed limit, drove a Model-A Ford and then a 1938 Chevrolet to school. For high school, I roomed and boarded in Lewistown, attending Fergus County High School, took some piano lessons, learned to play coronet in the band warbled some in the choir joined the Future Farmers of America and 4-H Club, and played a precarious piano in the Alkali Sifters a small school dance combo sponsored by the FFA& Because of numerous credits from extra curricular activities, graduated from high school in three years, 1943. This was my time of supreme brilliance and despite a number of years of college education since that time, I have found that I know the answers to a few less questions each day. Naturally, it was difficult to stay at home with such a superior intellect, so during the summer of 1943, without the knowledge and consent of my parents, this worthy set forth to give the world the benefit of himself. Jobs included farm. work. newspaper boy, swamper in restaurants. apprentice aircraft mechanic. section gang. canning factory (LeSeur, Minn.) bellboy. hatcheck girl, busboy 6 cab driver, telephone solicitor for a. mortgage company, companion for a paralytic with whom I saw my first major league baseball game. Meantime, I entered North-western University at Evanston, Illinois, and was regularly ejected at the end of each quarter because I was much too interested in making what was then big money driving cab and in general learning what the big city of Chicago was all about. In the summer of 1944 I returned to the ranch and after Dad returned from the legislature in the winter of 1945 entered the Army, voluntary induction, I believe they called it, whereby a person might have a chance to get in the Navy. Induction was at Fort Douglas, Utah, basic training at Camp Wolters, near Fort Worth, Texas, where I learned that I and the military were irreconcilably incompatible, then to Japan for occupation duty, first station at Rakurazuka, the Japanese opera center between Kobe and Osaka, then a signal corp. outfit. The numerals of which I can't recall, between Tokyo and Yokahama, and finally a long sought transfer to parachutist training with the 11th airborne Division at Sendai. Said training scared me more than I have been before or since or hope to be again. Finally home by plane via Guam, Johnston Island and Hawaii for terminal leave and discharge on 1 December, 1946. Entered Montana State University at Missoula, Montana, in January, 1947. And after being in and out of school and acquiring three years of credits without having the slightest idea what I would do with them, entered Law School in 1949, and in 1952 acquired a B.A. and an LLB. Jobs in school included swamping (again), tending furnaces, waiting tables at dorms, taking night calls for a mortuary, night shift at a beet factory, and bartending, also became a ski enthusiast, debated, played in the University band and occasionally with a dance band, joined Alpha Tau Omega fraternity. Also met and married Betty Randles. After school, we spent a year on the ranch but finally yielded to the urge to practice law. In 1953 moved myself, wife and daughter, Leslie Lynn, and 1949 Ford to New Mexico. First stop, Albuquerque where for the first time in my life I learned that hustling does not necessarily get one a job and the employers are quite suspicious of foreigners with law degrees. Tried creative selling (that's a nice name for
the door to door stuff), worked for Household Finance Company taking loans and then trying to collect on them, then in 1954 moved to Carlsbad as an adjuster for Farmers Insurance Group. In Oct., 1954 entered law practice in Farmington, New Mexico, a booming oil and gas area, with Oscar Donisthorpe, a boyhood neighbor. Law practice proved quite successful financially but not temperamentally. Served 18 months as Assistant District Attorney handing San Juan County, acquired a house, a half interest in some irrigated farmland, and in 1957 a boy Rand (Herbert Randall) who has since been doing his best to demonstrate all the known and a few unknown problems in raising children. In August, 1958, left law practice, worked briefly with a pipeline construction company, then back to insurance claims with U.S. Fidelity & Guaranty Company. As this is written we are preparing to move back to the family homestead at Suffolk, Leslie Lynn is completing a successful first grade term. Wife Betty was born and raised at Missoula, Montana, (parents Archie R. and Pauline Randles), she was born on the 5th of November but I have forgotten the year and she won't tell me anymore, she attended school at Missoula, also business college and one quarter at the University, is now a crackerjack secretary who can pinch hit for the family income if needed.

Signed Neil Haight







Herbert Hale Haight 9-2-1882 Elk Twp., Buena Vista County, Iowa married 7-23-1914 to Mable Chamberlain at Suffolk, Montana she was born 11-11-1884 in Buena Vista County, Iowa.

Grace Virginia Haight 6-6-1916 Drexel, Missouri married Leonard Peterson 6-11-1938 at Suffolk, Montana he was born 5-11-1931 at Forsyth, Montana. Their children In April, 1958, none, and no sign of any.

Laura Edith Haight 10-4-1917 Suffolk, Montana died 5-7-1918 at Suffolk, Montana buried in the cemetery located one mile south of Winifred, Montana.

Katherine Laura Haight 7-16-1920 Suffolk, Montana married 10-30-1943 to Robert Day at Albuquerque, New Mexico he was born 10-??-1917 at Spokane, Washington. They divorced in 1950). Their children:
Carol Ann Day 3-11-1945 Spokane, Washington
Herbert Michael Allan Day 8-19-1948 Lewistown, Montana

Neil Noble Haight 11-29-1927 Lewistown, Montana married Betty Jane Randles at Missoula, Montana she was born 11-5-1932 at Missoula, Montana. Their children:

Leslie Lynn 12-22-1952 St. Joseph Hospital, Lewistown, Montana.
Herbert Randall 5-20-1957 San Juan Hospital, Farmington, New Mexico.