Letters to the Editor

The Fall 2002 Montanan really struck a chord in my memory. I was born and raised in Missoula and attended the University as an English major from 1943 to 1946, while Mary Clapp was still on the faculty. Her description of the UM campus in winter as “the playground for Hellgate blizzards” fit the entire town of Missoula. I well remember as a small girl pushing against the wind from Alder Street over to Broadway, then east to the old Central School. I was dressed in everything warm my grandmother could find to put on me—from long underwear out—with a scarf tied across my face so the wind wouldn’t take my breath away. I had about five places I could stop along the way to warm up, including the courthouse and the old post office .... I watched Frontier House on PBS and enjoyed the article by Betsy Holmquist. My grandmother attended the Sacred Heart Academy, where St. Patrick Hospital now stands, during the 1880s, where she was a classmate of a sister of Jeannette Rankin. Her stories of life in early Missoula filled my early years—Sunday morning wagon rides to St. Ignatius to attend mass at the mission, watching a Brother paint the murals in St. Francis Xavier Church, crocheting doll clothes with a bent pin, taking piano lessons while suffering from chilblains, and always wanting to live in a house in Missoula. (She finally got her way when my grandfather was transferred to Missoula with the Ryan Fruit Co.)

But the article by Caroline Patterson really touched me. My dad was a brakeman on the Northern Pacific Railroad, so we lived near the Northern Pacific rail yards. The clatter of those freight trains was our life blood, and during the Depression few of the workers were able to work regularly. But there were many transients, or hobos, and we were visited by them constantly. Grandma could never bear the thought that someone was hungry, and we always had wood that needed chopping.

The children’s section of the Missoula Public Library was also my passageway into Ali Baba treasures, not only for the books, but also as a future career. I did an apprenticeship and worked in that treasure cave from my sophomore year in high school until I left to get my library degrees at Denver University during my senior year of college.

I usually get back to Missoula for a day or two every summer, so I see how it has grown. Orchards no longer exist in Orchard Homes; houses are built where asparagus and corn once grew in Hughes Gardens; and Missoula extends almost to Lolo. It is no longer the town of my childhood, but I cherish my memories from those earlier days: seeing Indians walking on the streets in beaded deerskins with braids hanging down their backs; turning cartwheels on the courthouse lawn while our elders listened to the band concerts; eating homemade ice cream beside the church; roller skating in the gymnasium of the school; dancing with my Dad at the Eagles Lodge; going barefoot all summer long; riding bicycles over every inch of the town, and picnicking in Greenough Park.

It’s good to hear that fruits and vegetables are still being raised in Missoula and that the parks and playgrounds are still a part of its life. And I sincerely hope that the neighborliness and goodwill that characterized the Missoulians of my childhood will continue on into the future. It was and is such a beautiful town.

Dorothea Baltezar
Salinas, California

I always look forward to receiving [the Montanan], but I am thoroughly convinced that this was the best I’ve ever seen. It made me want to drop everything, leave our 97 degree temperatures, and flee to Mount Jumbo and hide forever. Every connection I’ve ever had to the University and its town has been magical. Let’s hope it continues. Great job!

Sheila Skemp ’67
Oxford, Mississippi

As I fed another stick of firewood into my wood stove, I was whisked back to a place I had not visited in thirty-five years. The scent of fresh pine and a crackling fire unleashed memories of long ago. During the 1960s, UM’s forestry school required sophomore students to spend spring quarter in Lubrecht Forest Camp. Before winter snow had melted, students were sentenced to live in railroad boxcars that had been converted into small bunkhouses. Each bunkhouse was furnished with a voracious wood stove which the students were required to feed continuously with firewood if they wished to avoid frostbite.

The mess hall and classrooms were the hub of camp activity. Food was served cafeteria style and the outdoor activity honed our appetites to ravenous levels. We seldom complained about the food—only the “mystery meat” evoked comments; we wondered what unfortunate creature had met its demise out on the highway. In our two classrooms we listened to the professors attempting to interest us in all things forestry while we gazed wistfully out the windows at deer in the meadow.

Two days a week were reserved for field work and outdoor labs. We endured cold rains and snow squalls. On one nasty field day, our task was to determine elevations and distances. Two other students and I headed off encumbered with notebooks, steel tape, compass, tripod, and level to complete the assignment. It began to snow heavily, and we soon found ourselves lost in a remote gully thoroughly perplexed with our equipment. When we returned to camp many hours later covered with snow and shaking with cold, we were dubbed “The Lost Patrol.”

We regularly enjoyed volleyball games, wearing our heavy logger boots and adhering to “jungle rules.” In other locales volleyball is a non-contact sport; in Lubrecht players ran the risk of being kicked, tripped, or tackled.

Three decades have passed since the forestry class of 1969 studied in Lubrecht. Careers have been built using the skills we learned there. Some of my classmates have already retired while others have passed on to take up residence in Section 37.

Student foresters still traipse through spring camp in Lubrecht, enjoying modern facilities. No longer do students lie in bunks watching their breath rise above sleeping bags as they wonder who will start the morning fire. It may be a different experience today, but I wonder if it is better than the exceptional two months I enjoyed there in 1967. And all this has rushed back to me, simply because I opened the door to my wood stove today.

Mickey Bellman ’69
Salem Oregon