My First Day in Montana (A Mini Memoir)

The cords that so strongly bind my parents, siblings and me to Montana began in 1956 when I was five years old. My father, a university professor and specialist in agricultural economics, was hired to manage a 300,000-acre spread near Three Forks.

Although I cannot remember the details of our move from Carmichael, California, to Montana, I remember the day we arrived at the ranch. My brother, twin sister and I raced from room to room of the two-story home, excitedly counting five bedrooms, four bathrooms, and three fireplaces.

Discovering the cookhouse

After deciding where my bedroom would be, I flew through the back door to explore outside. The first thing I noticed was that all of the buildings, including our house and the barns, were painted white. Directly in front of me was a long, two-story building that contained three apartments for ranch families. To the left sat the bunkhouse, home to fifteen or so cowboys, and to the right—across an expanse of lawn—sat the cookhouse, where the cowboys ate their meals. I crossed the lawn and cautiously opened the creaking screen door of the cookhouse.

The unmistakable odor of freshly baked sweet rolls immediately drew my attention, as did a warm hello from Nina Leffingwell, the full-time cook. In response to my curiosity, Nina toured me through her small apartment, the kitchen, and the dining room, which boasted a low Formica counter that was long enough to feed twenty men at once. Nina said it was time to start preparing dinner, so she handed me a sticky morsel still warm from the oven and shooed me out the door.

Trying my hand at milking

Wandering past the bunkhouse, a dark and mysterious place that was off-limits to girls, I discovered a machine shop where men were busy repairing farm equipment. I felt out of place there, so I headed over to the barn next door. Sam Leffingwell, Nina’s husband, was busy milking two cows attached to stanchions.

Although he must have been at least fifty by then, Sam’s job title was “choreboy.” He motioned me over to try my hand at milking, but it was much harder than it looked. First I struggled to get any milk to come out of the teats at all; when I finally did, it squirted everywhere but into the bucket!

Exploring the horse barns and corrals

I left Sam behind and went to explore another barn. The acrid smell of hay and horse manure hit my nostrils as I stepped into a small barn that consisted of six stalls, each equipped with a hay-filled manger. A sorrel gelding was munching happily in one of them, his black tail moving rhythmically from side to side in a futile effort to dislodge the flies buzzing around his withers. Well-worn leather saddles, blankets and bridles hung from pegs on the outer wall.

In the last barn, I discovered a strange contraption called a “forge.” I later learned that this was where an itinerant farrier and Blackfoot Indian named Bob Hubbard would build a fire that grew so hot it would soften a steel “shoe,” enabling him to hammer it to the exact shape of a horse’s hoof. Connecting all the barns was a patchwork of corrals. I climbed the wooden slats of the nearest fence and watched as a huge bay mare sluped water noisily from a metal trough just below my feet.

The bench and the Madison River

From my perch atop the fence, I looked back toward our house and saw that it was surrounded on two sides by a large grove of cottonwood trees. Beyond the trees, dry, barren hills rose to form a flat mesa called the “bench.” An orchard just north of our house consisted almost entirely of crab apple trees that had been planted (for some unknowable reason) by an early occupant. Beyond the orchard lay alfalfa fields, and beyond those, about two miles from the house, lay the Madison River. On the horizon towered the blue and azure crags of the Rocky Mountains.

Thoughts about cavities

Today I am still a Montana girl. Even though I have lived in Portland, Oregon, for over twenty-five years, Montana holds my heart. It is odd, really. My husband was born and raised in the Netherlands and now feels like a native Oregonian; it is I who feel like a foreigner.

A childhood in Montana formed my soul while her mineral-rich waters formed my body. Because of such water, I have never had a cavity and visits to dentists over the years have been swift and painless. Ironically Montana herself left me with a much larger cavity, one that can only be filled when I cross the border and am greeted again by her incredible skies.

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