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Marooned Dancers Wait Out The Winter Storm
by Roberta Donovan
Lewistown News Argus -- Christmas 1974
Mrs. Ivar (Teena Marie) Mathison
of Roy will always remember the Christmas celebration held at the Little
Crooked school house about 1922.
She'd been in the area only a few short months.
Much preparation had proceeded the festivities for this eventful
celebration. A magnificent Christmas tree was hauled in from the breaks
and erected in the community hall which also served as a school Mrs. Mathison
remembers that her father put candles on the tree. They were lit for a
while but extinguished before the program began because of the danger of
fire.
While everyone from miles around were enjoying the dancing
that followed the program, a wintry storm blew into the area, with snow
and a bitterly cold wind. "Oh, it was terrible," Mrs. Mathison remembers.
Since it was impossible to go home during the storm, folks
just kept on dancing until morning to the music of Fred Sandstrom's guitar
and Del Wygals piano.
When morning came, some of the folks ventured across the
road to Marshall's store where they got food for everyone. The storm raged
on and everyone remained at the hall and the nearby Anton Hansen (Teena's
parents) home that day and the next night before venturing home. "They
just about ate all the food in the store" Mrs. Mathison said, "but Mr.
Marshall kept saying, never mind, there's a load on the road. But that
load didn't come in for quite a while after the storm."
Dances were the favorite form of entertainment in those early
years and both Mr. and Mrs. Mathison remember them well. During his early
years as a cowboy, Mathison, who came to this country from Norway as a
young man of 19, used to ride many miles to attend dances. He thought nothing
of riding 50 miles or more to Lodgepole and other points in the breaks.
Often it would take all day to get there and another day
of riding to get home. The cowboys often stopped at Tony Weingart's place
for breakfast on their way home, he remembers.
The dances at Little Crooked drew people from as far as the
Musselshell river in the summer time when traveling was easier. There were
plenty of people close around too, as the hills were dotted with homestead
shacks in those years.
Each woman who came to the dance brought a cake or sandwiches
for the midnight lunch. Coffee was prepared at the store while the dancing
was going on. The coffee was tied in a cheese cloth and dropped into an
oval clothes boiler full of water on the old cookstove to boil.
After lunch was served, a collection was taken up to pay the
musicians. it was never very much - no one had much money then. "But we
had a lot of good times" Mrs. Mathison recalled.
THE ROY BRASS BAND STARTED IN 1914
The Roy Brass Band was started in 1914 by Jo Chmelar.
There were 11 members. They were: Chmelar playing the piccolo; a Mr. Cook,
the trombone; Frank Vodicka and a Mr. Horacek, first and second alto saxophone;
Jay Gove snare drum; William Foulmer, brass horn; Joe Masek, base drum;
Fred Fadrhonc and E. Edwards, cornet; W. A. Rowland and William Barbee,
both clarinet; and a Mr. Porkarnay, baritone saxophone.
The band later grew to 14 members. They were ail
considered accomplished musicians. That same year, 1914 Roy had a big Fourth
of July celebration for which the Brass Band played.
Chmelar began his musical career at the age of
5, when his father bought him a violin.
He lived in St. Louis, Missouri for 40 years and
during that time was instrumental in organizing the St. Louis Philharmonic
Orchestra.
At the age of 87, Chmelar played violin and directed
a musical group in Chico, California known as the Beatitudes Entertainer
Orchestra. |
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