Window to the Big Sky: Reflections from Montana

By Mary Ellen Connelly

The stories presented here have been taken from my memories of life in Montana. I have tried to feature a variety of events that shaped my life and the lives of my children. Because Montana is such a special place it was difficult to decide what should be included. I hope the sequence is interesting and informative. My family is truly unique and wonderful. Mary Ellen Connelly

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 20, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503523999

Mary Ellen Connelly

Mary Ellen was born in Bonners Ferry, Idaho. Her family moved to Montana when her father, a Section Foreman on the Great Northern Railroad, was transferred. She attended local schools and graduated from Whitefish High School. Mary Ellen has been an activist. She was elected president and district president of the Whitefish Woman’s Club, an international service organization. She completed a series of courses and worked as a Real Estate Appraiser before her election to the Montana House of Representatives in 1982. She served five terms on the powerful Appropriations and Budget Committee and chair of the Long-range Planning Subcommittee. Appointed to the Western Regional Economic Council, as the Montana representative, because of the district bordering Canada. Charged with economic development and regional oversight, the members were Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Alaska, and Alberta, Camada/. Mary Ellen also served on the Montana drug and alcohol abuse council. Asked to chair the United Way of the county, she raised the most substantial amount ever donated. She was selected “Woman of the Year” for Flathead County and received various other honors. Mary Ellen currently lives on an acre and a half on the Calaveras River in California.

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Copyright © 2015 by Mary Ellen Connelly.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2014922840

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-5035-2397-5

                Softcover        978-1-5035-2398-2

                eBook             978-1-5035-2399-9

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Cover photo by Patrick W. Connelly

Rev. date: 10/20/2015

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Ester and Virgilio

The House at Pinnacle

Nyack

Melvin

Charlotte

Home In Montana with Charlie

Making Do

Helen

The Telephone Fire

Christmas Oddities

Jum, an Unusual Man

Winnifred and James Sr.

The Dog From Hell

Pooella

The Bear Who Wouldn’t Quit

A Trip Disaster

The Kids

Skiing Big Mountain

Dog Tales and Other Weird Stuff

Passing It On

Three Sisters

A Railroad Town

The Power of One

The Recount

Distress

Epilogue

Names

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

T o my family, for being the quirky people you are. I look at

our lives and marvel at how much I enjoyed our times together, and I sometimes agonize over the sad times. Again, my thanks to you for being fantastic, wonderful, amazing, and brilliant. The following excerpts only partly explain and describe the years of our lives, both happy and poignant. I love you and I think of you often.

John Albert Peterson

Anna Marie Hansson-Walden Peterson

Hulda Elvira Peterson Walden

Ester Caroline Peterson Ambrogini Hilliker

Edna Marie Peterson Hart

Virgilio Ambrogini

Charles Wellington Hilliker

James Stuart Connelly Sr.

Winnifred Ardith Horton Connelly

James Stuart Connelly Jr.

Melvin Virgilio Ambrogini

Evelyn Ida Ambrogini Ivers

Vera Mae (Babe) Ambrogini Ivers

Dorothy Jean Ambrogini Buckmaster

Helen Marie Ambrogini Bravo

Charlotte Ilene Ambrogini Palmer

Jan Stuart Connelly

Rebecca Ardith Connelly Haddix

Patrick Wellington Connelly

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Virgilio (Section Foreman) on the first motor car on the GN

ESTER AND VIRGILIO

M y mother’s grandparents were born in Sweden. My great-grandmother Matta was born August 9, 1836, and my great-grandfather Hans Nilsson was born June 5, 1835. I have no record of when they were married, but their first child of six children was born October 20, 1858. Hans and Matta died within three months of each other. Hans died on August 9, 1909, and Matta died on November 2, 1909. I have no record of where they were buried.

My grandmother Anna Hansson-Walden (the fourth child) was born in Vemmenhog Skane, Lan, Sverige, November 2, 1869. I have no record of when five of the family emigrated from Sweden or when various members of the Hansson-Walden family settled in Illinois, Idaho and Spokane, Washington. I have found no record of when my grandmother arrived in America.

My grandfather, John Peterson was born in July of 1854. He came alone from Sweden in 1878. He was twenty-four and spent time in Chicago and Minnesota before going west. He found work in the UR gold mine near Granite, Montana.

John and Anna met and were married in 1893 in Minnesota. They had a male child born in 1894. He lived only a few months. Their firstborn daughter, Hulda Elvira, was born May 11, 1896 in Livingston. My mother, Ester Caroline, was born on July 25, 1898, in a small town somewhere near Butte, Montana, the middle child of the three girls. The courthouse burned down around 1904, the year Edna was born; consequently no records are available and I couldn’t find anyone who remembers the town or the people. Helena’s records had nothing because at that time, local records were in the local courthouse. At about that same time a fire in Washington DC destroyed the census records from 1880 to 1890 and those records were lost as well. Their fourth child, a boy, was stillborn and eight years later, Edna Marie was born October 29 in Granite.

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great- grandparents, The Nilssons

When the mine began to play out and was in danger of closing, John and Anna moved the family to Bonners Ferry, Idaho to be near her brother. Her family had a homestead there and John bought a ranch near them. My grandmother, Anna had severe arthritis and because Hulda was the oldest child she was expected to help. She did everything from milking to feeding the stock to weeding the garden, as well as heavy farm work. She was a sturdy child, whereas my mother was two years younger and somewhat frail for her age. Because Edna was eight years younger than my mother she wasn’t required to help with household chores. Hulda and my mother attended school close to the homestead. Hulda finished 9th grade and my mother finished 7th grade at that school. There are no records of them attending any other school. My grandmother and Edna lived in Bonners Ferry temporarily so Edna could attend school. No records have been found of the fate of the school near the homestead whether abandoned, burned down or anything else. Hulda married her cousin, Harold Walden in 1914 in Bonners Ferry and they eventually moved to Helena. An interesting fact I discovered while researching the family history is that the first name of the father becomes the last name of the next generation. Perhaps that explains why my grandmother had two surnames. Edna married Bert Lynn Hart July 10th of 1924 in Helena and they settled in Mercer Island, Washington.

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LaProvence - ship from Italy 1907

My father’s parents Emelia Fabiani and Emilio Ambrogini were born in Masserella, Italy. My dad, Virgilio, was born on June 21, 1889. He arrived from Mayorella, Pescia, Italy, on November 2, 1907. He was eighteen departing from LeHavre, Seine-Inferior, France, and arrived on a French ship The LaProvence through Ellis Island. He had a relative somewhere in Washington State but couldn’t locate him. Virgilio moved to Chicago and was hired by the Great Northern Railroad out of St. Paul as a section foreman. He moved several times as he bid on different sections. He met my mother, Ester, and they were married in 1916 in Bonners Ferry, Idaho. My mother was sixteen and my dad was twenty-one. My brother and two of my sisters were born in Pateras, Washington but my sister Dorothy was born in Renton, Washington. I was born in Bonners Ferry where my mother’s family still lived on the homestead.

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Grandmother Anna

Virgilio was naturalized at age forty-six on September 3, 1935. He kept in touch with his family in Italy for a few years. A letter from his sister, Ida and brother, Geno in March of 1939, stated the family was well. In two other letters, in November 1945 from Geno and his daughter, Paola and December 1945 from his sister Cisera they informed my father that the WWII invasion had decimated everything they owned and they were wiped out. My dad sent $50.00 to the family (a huge sum at the time) and a later letter explained they used the money to establish a small rope factory, which became successful. Apparently they lost touch with my father and I wonder what happened since no other letters have been found. During a visit to Italy in 2007, I met several members of my dad’s family. Paola told me that perhaps my dad lost touch because he wanted to assimilate into America, was not using the Italian language and his brother (her father, Geno) had been killed in the war.

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top to bottom - Hulda, Ester, Edna

My father continued to work for The Great Northern Railroad and bid on a section in northern Montana near the continental divide and we moved to Pinnacle. Thus began another episode of events of my life. Following a move to Coram, after a few years he bid on the section in Sandpoint, Idaho, in 1943.

My parents divorced in 1944 and my father continued to live in Sandpoint and eventually retired. Following the divorce, my mother moved to Whitefish, Montana; and Charlotte, Helen, and I lived with her when she remarried.

In 1949, my mother and Charlie moved to Sandpoint. Helen and Charlotte moved with them and I stayed in Whitefish. I was working at the power company and planning to be married.

August of 1968, my sister Charlotte notified us that Dad was in the hospital, not expected to survive. My children and I left immediately, and I notified my husband to meet us there when his train arrived home from a run. He arrived the next day, deadheading into Sandpoint.

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Evelyn, Melvin, Mary Ellen, Dorothy, Babe, Helen, Charlotte at Virgilio’s funeral

Charlotte and I sat by Dad’s bedside through that night, and he died in the morning around eleven on August 26, 1968. I hadn’t been in touch with him for many years, and I was unexpectedly overwhelmed by his death. It hit me in the gut when I realized I didn’t really know him and that I had missed so many years. He wasn’t a part of my life or my children’s life. I could not control my emotions during and after the funeral, sobbing hysterically. For month, I couldn’t think of him without bursting into tears and to this day, I sometimes get weighed down with grief. Life sometimes gives you an unexpected kick in the teeth when you least expect it.

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Pat and Rusty - Cocker spaniel

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Becki at Age 4

THE HOUSE AT PINNACLE

I grew up living at the top of the world. Actually it only seemed like the top of the world. My dad was a section foreman on the Great Northern Railroad in charge of maintaining a designated area of track. In 1935, he used his seniority to bid on a tiny place in Montana called Pinnacle. And that’s how we got there.

Pinnacle was at the highest point of Marias Pass. A wide spot in the road, about forty houses and a population of less than a hundred. The one room school had nine students of various ages. Church services were held in the school. There was no gas station or grocery store. The only telephone was a company phone in the section house.

The section house where we lived was twenty to twenty-five feet from the track. When a train went by everything shook and rattled and sometimes a cupboard door would fly open. We had a lot of broken dishes and dented pans. My mother often remarked when my ship comes in I want a house that doesn’t move.

The first winter at Pinnacle the snow started in late September. As the snow drifted deeper and deeper the rotary plow used to clear the tracks threw it against the house. It continued to pile higher until it reached the upstairs windows. The snow was so deep my dad shoveled a tunnel from the doorway out to the tracks. Tunnels through the snow became a maze—from the various houses, to the school, to the tracks.

With the snow piled against the house, my brother thought it would be great fun to go out the window with his sled. The momentum of the slide sent him flying across the tracks and up the hill on the other side. When our mother caught him, he got a good switching. She cried that he should know better. Were you trying to get yourself killed doing such a foolish stunt? He was properly contrite until the next time he did it. But he never seemed to learn to let well enough alone. He took risks and did reckless things because he never thought about anything ahead of doing it or what the consequences might be. I was totally envious because I never had enough courage to try anything even slightly forbidden.

It continued to snow and the temperature hovered between 10 and 40 below zero. After a fresh downfall everything looked sparkling and clean for a few hours until a thin film of soot from the coal used to power the trains covered the snow piles and left black streaks.

When my mother mopped the kitchen, the water turned to ice on the floor and she sighed, I guess I’ll have to forego cleaning floors until spring. We had fun sliding across the kitchen in our stocking feet until the constant motion finally melted