Tall Tales of Montana Homesteading and Beyond

By Thelma Van Hook Kirkish

A biography and moving story of a remarkable lady, who is an avid horsewomen since the day she was born. Homesteading days in southeastern Montana on the prairie is about a strong hard working family surviving hardships and heartbreak including love along the way. The mode of transportation was usually a horse or horse and buggy. No electricity, inside plumbing or water just the light of the kerosene lamps.
During the depression years the family made their own good times with many humorous stories and made the best of the bad. This story takes you to Missoula, Montana then to Grand Coulee Dam as it was being built then later to San Francisco during World War 11 where she raised her three teenaged daughters and then the fun began.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 6, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462899159

Thelma Van Hook Kirkish

Thelma Van Hook was born in 1911 in South Dakota, traveled with her family to their homestead in the Chalk Buttes area near Ekalaka, Montana in 1915. Attended the Van Hook, Foster and Willard country schools. The Willard country school was taught by my Mother, grades 1-8.I met my first husband Darrold Grant Johnston at Ekalaka High School, we married and had two of our three daughters delivered by Dr. Sandy of Ekalaka. Surviving the adversities of the great depression I moved west to California in the 1940’s and worked in various occupations. I married David Kirkish in 1959. Now a widow and a Century old, I decided to write my story. I currently live with my daughter in Orangevale, California. I had three daughters, two step-daughters, nine grandchildren, fourteen great-grandchildren and seven, great-great-grandchildren.

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Copyright © 2011 by Thelma Van Hook Kirkish.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2011911713

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4628-9914-2

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4628-9913-5

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4628-9915-9

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This book was printed in the United States of America.

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99486

Dedication

I would like to dedicate this book to all my family. They were all there

to encourage me and to tell me their side of the story.

A very special thanks to my daughters, Roberta and Joanne,

for their help in putting this together. Thanks, girls,

for prodding me along when I became a little lazy.

Your loving mother, grandmother, great-grandmother,

and great-great-grandmother

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Thelma (8 months old)

Cyril (3 years old)

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The James Lawrence Van Hook Family

Bottom Row: Walter, Mary (McAleer), James L., Bertha.

Middle Row: Jesse, Wilbert, Laura, Julia, David, Herbert, Frank

Top Row: James (Bud), Robert

99486-ENGL-layout-low.pdfThe Joseph C. Couch Family, Front Row, Mary, Joseph C. Elizabeth (Bowlin), Sarah Jane, Julia Ann, Top Row, Joseph J., John H., Ella A and William H..jpg

The Joseph C. Couch Family

Front Row: Mary, Joseph C., Elizabeth (Bowlin), Sarah Jane, Julia Ann

Top Row: Joseph J., Elizabeth, Ella A, and William H.

The Otto Family 1982, Left to right, Agnes,Lloyd,Francis,Lonnie,Vera and Clyde.jpg

The Otto Family 1982

Left to right: Agnes, Lloyd, Francis, Lonnie, Vera and Clyde

99486-ENGL-layout-low.pdfSarah Agnes Otto 18 years old.jpg

Sarah Agnes Otto 18 years old

Sarah Agnes and Ethel Otto, Hats my Grandma Julia Otto.jpg

Sarah Agnes and Ethel Otto,

Hats by Grandma Julia Otto

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The Jesse Van Hook Family Homestead at Chalk Buttes 1921

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Poverty Point

Homestead at Chalk Buttes

Thelma and Cyril Van Hook.jpg

Thelma and Cyril Van Hook

Agnes, Thelma and Vera Otto.gif

Agnes, Thelma and Vera Otto

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Van Hook family at Tom Peterson’s home 1923.

Wayne, Thelma, Jessie, Wilma, Mary, and Agnes

Thelma, Jessie and Wilma 1921.jpg

Thelma, Jessie and Wilma 1921

Wayne, Cyril and Wilma at Poverty Point.jpg

Wayne, Cyril and Wilma at Poverty Point

Thelma and Jeff repairing sod roof at Homestead.jpg

Jesse and Thelma repairing

sod roof on Homestead

Thelma, age 10 on Beauty at the old Dahlberg's homestead.jpg

Thelma, age 10 on Beauty at the old Dahlberg’s homestead

Van Hook family and friends on outing in wagon.jpg

Van Hook family and friends on outing in wagon

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Buggy made by Cyril

Jesse VanHook , Chalk Buttes to Baker Montana on Mail route with Pack Horses.jpg

Jesse Van Hook with

Pack Horse on Mail Route

Chalk Buttes to Ekalaka

John Johnston at Madison Rock State Park with his 1912 Velue Truck.jpg

John Johnston and family

in his 1912 Velue truck at

Medicine Rocks

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Foster Country School 1925

Nancy Kortum, Maurice Bartlett, Wayne Van Hook, Duane Bartlett, Pat Peterson, Wilma Van Hook, Henry Elmore, Orine Bartlett,

Thelma Van Hook, and Mildred Kortum

Foster School 1925 Jessie Mae Van Hook, Patricia Peterson, Byron Yates,Gladys Yates and Nancy Kortum.jpg

Foster School 1925 Jessie Mae Van Hook, Patricia Peterson,

Byron Yates, Gladys Yates, Nancy Kortum, and Gentry Bush

ArrolSchool.jpg

Arroll School in Missouri

Cyril Van Hook in front of homestead house..jpg

Cyril in front of homestead

Kids.jpg

Wilma, Wayne and Thelma Van Hook on Homestead

My father, Jess Van Hook, was born on a farm near De Smet, South Dakota. He was the sixth of thirteen children born to James and Mary (McAleer) Van Hook. They were married in 1874 in Wisconsin. Mary McAleer originally came from Hamilton, Canada.

My mother, Agnes Otto, was born near Bevington in Madison County, Iowa (same as Bridges of Madison County novel and movie). She was the fourth of ten children born to John and Julia Otto. My grandfather ran a blacksmith shop in Winterset, Iowa, for many years until they moved to South Dakota, near De Smet. They traveled by covered wagon, taking only necessary possessions, some livestock, etc. Mother told us children many stories of the trip to South Dakota. They encountered Indians, who frightened them until they found that they were friendly Indians and only wanted a handout. She told us how she loved picking wild daisies along the way and of the much-hated chore of gathering buffalo chips that were used for campfires.

The Otto family soon became acquainted with the Van Hook family. James (Bud) Van Hook married my mother’s sister Francis in 1904 in Wagner, South Dakota. They moved to Baker, Montana, where Bud filed for a homestead. They had two children, Merle and Edna. My Uncle Bud died of pneumonia in 1911.

Wagner, South Dakota

My dad met my mother in Wagner, South Dakota, when he and his brother Bud went to work on Grandpa Otto’s farm. Grandpa Otto bragged about the two men, saying they were the best workers he had ever had. My mother was a cute, petite young girl, just eighteen and only four feet eight inches tall. She applied for her first job as a teacher. When she met with the school board and was asked for her teacher’s diploma, she calmly handed them her eighth-grade diploma, and with only a glance at it, they hired her. She became a very good teacher and was able to handle students three times her size and almost as old as she was. Mother also taught in a one-room log schoolhouse located on Bob Van Hook’s homestead, and of course, it was called the Van Hook School. All of us children went to this school, with Mother as the teacher most of the time. She retired from teaching before my youngest sister, Jessie Mae, was born. Uncle Bob’s homestead was about two miles to the north of ours in the Chalk Buttes area of eastern Montana.

Jess married my mother, Agnes Otto, on October 22, 1908, in Wagner, South Dakota, where my father worked as a sharecropper. The farmer’s name was John Wysup. This is where my brother Cyril was born on August 26, 1909. I was also born on the farm on July 9, 1911 and was named Thelma, after the novel Thelma, an old love story written by Marie Corelli. I have a copy of this book. My sister Wilma was also born on this farm on September 22, 1913. In the summer of 1915, my father along with his brothers, Herb, Dave and Bob, all filed for homesteads in southeastern Montana known as the Chalk Buttes. Dave filed in the Ridgeway area, southeast, about fifteen miles from the Buttes.

While my father was building our homestead shack in Chalk Buttes, the family stayed with our Aunt Francis in Baker, awaiting the birth of my brother Wayne, who was born on October 28, 1915.

Our homestead was in a beautiful spot with canyons on both sides of us and at the northern base of a tall pine tree covered hill known as Poverty Point. It was a landmark that could be seen for miles away. Dad had added a log house to our homestead shack. We had the only freshwater spring in the area, but we had to carry the water up a steep hill from the canyon. I remember Dad witching for water—first in the east canyon with no luck, then in the west canyon where he dug the well that supplied us with soft, cold water. The well could be pumped dry, and within a few hours, it would be full again. We kept milk, butter, and sometimes homebrew hanging from racks in there.

My youngest sister, Jessie Mae, was born in Ekalaka, Montana, on October 3, 1921. Jessie Mae was delivered by Dr. B. B. Sandy, the only doctor in Carter County, who in 1931 delivered my daughter Roberta and again in 1933 delivered my second daughter, Joanne.

I was inspired to write this article when, in September of 2001, my daughter Joanne and I visited Ekalaka and the old homestead in Chalk Buttes. We visited the museum in Baker on our way home to California. I remembered that Mother had taught at the Willard Elementary School near Baker around 1918 and Dad stayed on the ranch. Mother, my brothers and sisters, and I lived in a teacherie, a one-room house next to the school that was on the road to Baker. I distinctly remember the day Uncle Bob stopped by to tell us that the Armistice had been signed, ending World War I. Of course, Mother closed the school for the day.

At the Baker Museum, I asked Myrtle Stanhope (curator) if she knew where the old Willard School had been moved to, and much to my surprise, she showed me the schoolhouse restored and right there at the Baker Museum! Myrtle also mentioned that the building we were in used to be the county courthouse with the jail upstairs.

It dawned on me that this was where the justice of the peace married my first husband, Darrold Grant Johnston of Ekalaka, and me on July 15, 1930. Darrold lived in Baker as a young boy with his parents, John