Montana
Few times in a woman’s life can compare to becoming a mother, grandmother, great grandmother, or great great grandmother. Holding that little baby in your arms is so special. And when you become a grandmother twice in 2 days…well, that is amazing. While waiting for the grandbabies to arrive, you have a profound sense of expectation, and yet still empty arms, because your little one hasn’t arrived yet…you just know the baby is coming. And the excitement is almost overwhelming.
That is just how I felt when both of my girls were pregnant at the same time. The were due about 2 weeks apart, but that was not to be. We were going to be blessed with grandbabies that were 1 day apart. The idea of having 2 grandchildren in 2 days…and they weren’t even twins. My arms like my heart were filled with so much joy that I felt like I was floating on air. I wanted to hold both of them constantly. It was an amazing feeling.
I think that can be a universal feeling, because when we took the babies up to Montana to visit Bob’s grandmother, the look on her face reminded me of exactly how I felt when holding my 2 grandchildren. They weren’t her first great great grandchildren, but it didn’t matter of course, because they were still her little babies, and there were two of them at the same time.
That is really how all babies make their grandmothers feel, no matter what level of grandmother you are. Babies are just the greatest blessing there is. That new little life, so 
sweet and cuddly…full of giggles and smiles, making the goofiest faces. And if you have ever been a mother or grandmother, you will know that there are no babies that are a sweet, as cute, or as wonderful as the ones that belong to you, no matter how many you have at one time.
Since Christopher and Shai’s arrivals, we have been blessed with 2 more grandsons, Caalab and Joshua, and while they didn’t arrive a day apart, they are as wonderful as our older grandchildren. I love being a grandmother as much as I loved being a mother. Life is good, and I’m still floating on air.
My mother-in-law has Alzheimer’s Disease, and as you know, the cherished memories new, and later on even the old ones, begin to slip. Soon they will be lost forever. One of the best things the family can do for her is to help her to remember things. Old memories, and important data, as well as who these people in her house are. We try to keep her current on those things, in the hope that her quality of life can remain good for just a little bit longer.
Recently, after several bad bouts with pneumonia, several stays in the hospital, and finally a little more than two weeks in a nursing home getting rehab because her muscles were very weak, we have had a little more trouble triggering her memory. Her environment was not her normal, and my father-in-law was not right beside her to help keep that process going, so her cherished memories have slipped more. She was having trouble remembering her dad’s first name…something she normally gets right away. And when asked about her favorite horse, she couldn’t remember Molly’s name.
My daughter, Corrie had taken my father-in-law, her grandpa up to see her grandma, and ended up hearing information she hadn’t heard before. Today at lunch, she mentioned that she didn’t know that her grandmother had owned a horse…much less that she loved to ride, and spent as much time on her horse, Molly as she possibly could. I suppose Corrie wouldn’t have heard much about Molly, because my mother-in-law owned Molly when she was a teenager. Still, I guess we all just thought her grandchildren knew about the years when their grandparents spent much time living and working on ranches in Montana. We were wrong.
When you live on a ranch, it is quite common for the kids to ride horses to visit friends. Who needed a car when you had a horse, and you didn’t have to be 16 years old with a driver’s license to “drive” one either. So, that is what kids who lived on ranches did, and still do today, and my mother-in-law was a very good horse woman. She loved horses, and most especially Molly, her very favorite horse.
Sadly, as her Alzheimer’s Disease progresses, she is losing many of her memories. Mostly the newer ones, it’s true, but we also see that she forgets people she doesn’t see very much, and also forgets about things that she hasn’t seen or done in a long time. We try to remind her about her life by doing regular memory work, and much of the time she remembers Molly’s name at least, although I don’t know if she would know what Molly looked like. It’s that way with people too. She doesn’t remember the new people who come into her life, but figures it out when we remind her who they are, and she remembers the names of people from her past for the most part, but probably wouldn’t recognize them if she saw them. All we can do is keep reminding her on a daily basis, of who she was and hope that it will allow her to have one more day of remembering things like…Molly.
When Bob was a little boy, his family lived in Montana. When he was 5 years old, his dad would take a job offer in Wyoming, and the family would move to Mills, Wyoming, which is a suburb of Casper, Wyoming. The family lived in Mills from the time Bob was in Kindergarten until about 3rd grade. During that time, Bob was friends with some of my cousins, and for all I know we played together too, since my family spent a lot of time with those cousins, and at the Mills school, which Bob and his family lived across from. Then the family would move out in the country, west of town. But it seems as though our families were crossing paths over and over for many years.
I was born in Superior, Wisconsin, where I lived until I was 3. Then our family moved to Casper, Wyoming, which is where my mom was born and raised. My aunts future husband’s family lived in Mills, and my future mother-in-law did quite a bit of sewing for them. Later my future father-in-law would work with that same uncle whose mother my future mother-in-law sewed for. I am often amazed at the connections that happen without knowing what they will bring to the future of those involved. People you knew years ago and who didn’t seem to have any particular bearing on your future, suddenly do. It makes you realize what a small world this really is.
For a boy from Montana, and a girl from Wisconsin to move to Wyoming and live there for 15 years, go to different schools, and finally meet because his sister worked at the same place as the girl, and then get married and live happily ever after…is amazing. In fact, when I told my mom’s family who I was dating, they all knew his family. Imagine my surprise! You really don’t just assume that your family will know your boyfriend’s family, unless you had grown up around each other for many years, which was not the case with us. Nevertheless, our families were crossing paths all those years, and now they would be forever connected. I guess we all knew good people when we met them.
In mid 1951, my father-in-law was hired to work on the railroad in Dalin, Montana. It was a necessary job change for him, since the prior job he had been working couldn’t seem to pay it’s employees, and you just can’t raise a family with no money, nor can you continue to work for someone on the hope that they will finally pay you. I’m quite certain that this job felt like they were rich, after the struggles of the previous situation.
At the time of the move to Dalin, they had only their daughter, Marlyce. During their 5 years in Dalin, the family would grow by two more children. Debbie was born in 1953, and my future husband, Bob was born in 1954. Both Debbie and Bob were born in Miles City, Montana, although Bob was almost born on the road between Billings, where the family had gone to spend the day, and Miles City. Thankfully they made it in time, and Bob was born in the hospital in Miles City.
During the years they lived there, the family lived in a house that was owned by the railroad. There were actually two houses on the property. A big house where the boss lived, and a smaller house where my future in-laws lived. But the interesting thing about the property was that there were also two railroad cabooses that had been turned into homes for some of the other railroad employees.
Now, I don’t know about you, but to me, that would be an interesting idea. I’m sure someone decided that it would be an inexpensive way to house the employees who didn’t have big families, and it did serve it purpose, as you can see in the picture. The kids must have thought it was interesting, because they liked to play around there, although maybe they never gave it much thought. When I look at it from the future, it seems like a very 
different kind of life than any I would have imagined, but I suppose that many things we take for granted today would seem quite strange to the people of the past.
Trains have always held an interest for me, and I especially liked the caboose, so I’m quite sure I would have wanted to see what they were like inside, and maybe the kids did get a chance to see for themselves, I don’t know for sure. I also think I might have found it somewhat interesting to live in a caboose, at least in the short term. It would undoubtedly get to be pretty cramped after a while, but for the single person workin’ on the railroad, it might have been just the ticket.
When our girls were little, Bob and I took them to Helena, Montana to visit he Aunt Marion’s family. Aunt Marion was Bob’s dad’s older sister. She and her husband John lived in Helena with their 8 children. Bob and I had not gone to see them since our marriage, and we were on our way to visit his mother’s grandmother, so we decided to take a couple of days to visit Aunt Marion and her family too. It was September and the weather can be unpredictable.
We were going to run a couple of errands, and the sky was clouding up. Aunt Marion suggested that we leave the girls at the house in case it rained. So we headed out to the store. We completed our shopping much more quickly without two babies to carry too, so we were thankful that Aunt Marion had offered, and of course, her kids were excited about having some time to play with their little cousins too. And our girls were having such a good time when we left, that we knew they would be fine with it.
Nevertheless, I had an uneasy feeling as the sky got more and more black and the clouds began to look menacing. As we finished up our errands and headed back to Aunt Marion’s house, the lightning and thunder began. The weather almost reminded me of tornado weather, and I definitely didn’t like that. As we pulled up to Aunt Marion’s house their was a flash of lightning directly in front of us. The lightning hit the power line in front of her house, and literally danced along the power line for several seconds. I had never seen anything like it. Now I had a new dilemma. To go into the house…under that power line, or to stay in the car and leave my babies 
in the house with that monstrous lightning storm threatening my girls. I knew it was unreasonable. The girls were in no danger, but I just couldn’t get past the obstacle that stood between me and my girls.
Of course, everything was fine in the house, and I was just being silly, but I can tell you this. Seeing lightning strike…in any of the dramatic forms that can take, is something that you never forget, and to this day I can still see it in my mind. That has been 35 years ago, and I have never seen lightning strike in front of me again, something I can honestly say I’m not sorry about, but I will never forget the day in Helena, Montana when I did.
Everyone hopes that the marriages in their family will last forever, but sadly that is not always the way things work out. Bob’s grandparents on his dad’s side divorced when his dad was about 5, I believe and for many years, Bob’s dad would have nothing to do with his real dad. In fact, Bob would be a grown man with two daughters of his own before we would know anything more than that his grandpa was the sheriff of Forsyth, Montana for many years before he retired. The one thing we did know is that if your last name was Schulenberg in Forsyth, Montana, they knew who you were related to…the sheriff. He was a much loved sheriff for a long time.
My father-in-law finally reconnected with his dad at a family reunion about 1980. We went to the family reunion the next time, and my girls were able to meet their great grandpa for the first time. We knew about the hard feelings from the past, but my father-in-law had decided to put that all behind him and be friends with his dad, so we felt comfortable getting to know him, knowing that we would not be hurting my father-in-law’s feelings.
The years had changed him from the man who could not seem to get along with grandma, to a much more mellow person…someone who maybe realized what he had missed out on through those many years of no contact. Bob and his family had visited Forsyth many times after moving to Wyoming, but the kids would not have known their grandpa if they saw him on the street…unless he was in uniform of course, but Bob doesn’t recall ever meeting him.
Grandpa would pass away before we got a chance to see him again, and much about him remains a mystery to us. We know that he remarried after the divorce, and had another son, who has stayed in contact with my father-in-law, and is a very nice man. We know that during his retirement years he made wooden lawn chairs, and he gave one to each of his great granddaughters. It will be the only thing they will have to remember him by…other than a couple of pictures. It is sad that so much of their heritage is lost to them, but that is the way it goes sometimes in a divorce. I will always be grateful that we had the chance to meet him, even if it was only once.
Watching the news every day, we hear more and more about flooding and sandbagging. Snow pack in many areas is 300% above normal or even more. Rivers are very high, and lots of people are sandbagging in the hope of holding back the water. People are being forced to move to higher ground, and some have had to abandon their homes.
Wyoming had a lot of water last year, but nothing like they are expecting this year. I have lived here since I was 3 years old, and I don’t remember ever having water this high, but I suppose I might not have been paying much attention as a child. Now, as an insurance agent, I have clients who live by the river, and it does concern me. I know they have flood insurance, but I don’t want their homes destroyed. You can replace the home, but the memories and pictures and things are gone, and cannot be replaced.
Bob’s extended family lives in Forsyth, Montana, and they are right by the Yellowstone River. Flooding has already started there. I have seen pictures of standing water on the football field of the high school. Bob’s uncle lives just on the other side of the levee from the river, and said that if his sump pump wasn’t working, he would have 4 feet of water in his basement.
I occurs to me that an event like this one, with flooding in so many states can change lives in such 
a short time…sometimes forever. The floods along the Mississippi that are devastating so much of Louisiana…not to mention the rest of the states along the Mississippi, are just horrible. Of course, I don’t wish drought on anyone, but I wish there was a balance of the two.
I know this season will pass, and the waters will recede. People will rebuild, and move forward again. Human beings are a resilient bunch. We tend to fight our way back from the brink in many ways. Of course, after the return, we will find ourselves forever changed because of the time we spent in the water’s path.
Another fun memory I have of going to Forsyth, Montana to visit my husband’s grandparents, is the old swimmin’ hole. I know, anyone who has ever had family that lived on a ranch in the country, might have memories of the swimmin’ hole too, or the pond, or the creek or river, but my memory of it is a little different. As I told you yesterday, my husband’s grandfather was a bit of a pack rat, and he simply hated to throw things away. Someone might find a use for it at some point. Or it simply might not be broken. No matter, he would just keep it around until he found a use for it. Such was the story behind the old swimmin’ hole.
There might have been a pond somewhere on their property, and I know there was a big watering trough for the cows, but who would ever want to cool off there, right. At that time, there were a number of little kids in the family, my girls being two of them, and summer in Montana can be really hot! Now, imagine two little girls, cranky because of the heat, and no real way to cool them off…because there was no air conditioning at Grandma’s house…they still had an outhouse, so air conditioning was not a high priority. Well, you get the picture.
So, Grandpa’s solution was an old bathtub in the front yard. He didn’t figure the adults really needed to cool off, but those little kids needed a wading pool, and since he had the bathtub, there was no reason to go spend good money on a cheap wading pool. He would just bring the hose around and fill up that bathtub, and presto…you had a wading pool. And they lived out in the country, and of course the kids are little anyway, so who needs a bathing suit. Undies and water. That’s all you need. The girls were set, and no longer cranky…problem solved.
