Bert W. Johnson homesteaded in the Little Crooked area. He also had the mail route. Bert was born in Wisconsin and lived in Minnesota during his younger days. He then went to Alberta, Canada before homesteading in Montana in 1915. In April of 1918 he married Lydia Derrer, daughter of neighboring homesteaders. They lived in his little one room dug-out, about a half-mile from her parents place.
  Mother and daughter worked out a communication system which totally relied on Ernest Derrer's dog, Tippy. Lydia writes: "I would call, Tippy would come and he would take back the message I tied on his collar to my mother."
  Bert and Lydia both contacted the flu during the 1918 epidemic. Fern writes "They both got the flu, but were among the lucky survivors, My father use to tell about arriving at outlaying homes while doing his mail route, only to find entire families dead."
  The Johnsons had one daughter, Fern, who was born October 20, 1980 in Lewistown.
  In 1932, the year the banks went broke, the family left Montana with what they could pack into their 1916 Studebaker touring car. Bert had sold his mail route to Myron Lempke another Little Crooked homesteader, and went to work in the harvest. The men were paid with worthless checks. They had to go somewhere to make a living and headed for California, which for them was a wise move.
  Johnson passed away in 1942 & Lydia remarried Eric Turner. She lives in California as does Fern.

  In 1921, there was to be a big 4th of July celebration at Little Crooked -- dance, rodeo, and picnic The Sandstroms and others of Little Crooked cut big pine trees and put them in holes in the ground for shade trees and it was a huge affair.
  Smokie Johnson, who lived on the bottom between Mauland and Anderson and Rocky Point, bought a still and planned to furnish booze for the doings. As he did not know how to operate the still, he hired Albert Green, who was homesteading on Big Crooked Creek below the horsecamp. They took one load up and cached it in the coulee northeast of Little Crooked. Then they went to the Little Crooked gathering with another load and soon sold it. Being a hit inebriated when they reached the site of the cache, Smokie could not find the liquor and immediately accused Al of getting away with it. During the argument, Smokie shot and killed Al Green.
  There were several of the young men with them including Lynn Phillips and Ed Pugh and also Nels Anderson. When Smokie killed Green, Ed Pugh grabbed a bottle and hit Smokie over the head, knocking him unconscious. Pugh thought he'd killed Smokie and got on his horse and headed for Roy to get the Sheriff. He sent the sheriff, but he left the country, going to Washington. Of course, Smokie soon came to, but the people who were there held him for the law officer who did not arrive until the following day. Smokie served some time at Deer lodge but was working at Neihart mines about 1925.
  Al Green is buried in the fence line on the north side of the Roy Cemetery -- there was a marker set on his grave several years ago.
  Smokie was a tall man who wore his hair shoulder length. He was married to Ida Marcott.
  Lynn Phillips said that Smokie shot Green with a revolver and kicked it down a prairie dog hole, but the Lewistown News stated that he used a saddle gun. Lynn was an eye witness so I would take his word.
  In the fall of 1967, Ed Pugh's wife and daughter drove in one day and wanted to know what had happened. Ed had been dead for several years at this time and it was only by accident that his wife found that-he believed that he had killed a man in Montana. They were very much relieved to hear the story and find that he was never guilty of murder. The poor guy had it on his conscience the rest of his life! ^{P. 265}

  Luther Jones homesteaded in the Little Crooked area, near Whisker Coulee.
  Jones raised broom corn and made brooms for many homesteaders. His brooms were also sold in stores in all the small towns around.
He remained on his homestead until he died in 1930.
  His youngest son, Raymond, stayed with the Steve Webbs after his dad died, until spring when he went to Roy and got a job with the railroad section crew. He was a very shy young man and the teasing dished out by his co-workere was hard to take so one day he left and wasn't heard from again.
  Another son, John Paul, worked on the Yaeger Ranch at Armells for almost 40 years, until he entered Valle Vista Manor in Lewistown where he passed away.
  Luther's son George has written the following history of his father and family.

Luther Thomas Jones - Father
Melinda Walters - Mother
10 children - 8 boys and 1 girl - First girl baby died as an infant.
  My father, Luther, was born in Wheeling, West Virginia. I'm uncertain as to his birthdate. In his early days he farmed a little then came to Rockwell City, Iowa. In the summertime, Luther plastered and did all forms of masonry work from which I learned my occupation later. In the winter, he cobbled shoes and made his brooms for the homesteaders there. He had a small shop which he rented. He made several homemade items such as his own cheese. Luther made brick cistern filters from molds and also I remember a small vehicle he put together out of parts he made in a garage It had belt drive and gas motor.
  Dad's broom business was a full-time job. He raised his own broom straw. It grew to about six inches tall and we'd break it over and rest it on each row so it made tunnels. Dad caned it "cradling" it would then dry and be ready to cut. Luther made a cylinder to thrash the seeds from the straw.
  He made several styles and sizes of brooms, from pocket size brushes to barn brooms. He used a wooden vise with large clamps on both sides and sewed it with wax string by hand and needle. Luther purchased his ready-made handles from Ft Dodge, He would put one end of the handle in a vise and start his broom straw on one end. He wound wire around to fasten it as it turned. He then need his clamps to press the straw down to the thickness he wanted. By hand then, the thread was put through to specially fasten the straw securely. I can remember picking out the long furrow straw, which was thicker, smoother and longer for the outside. This finished the broom head nicely. Dad would then cut the broom and it was a finished broom. He worked very hard all his life and many nights it was 2:00 A.M. before he would quit for the day.
  Luther was one of the first residents of Rockwell City, even the street we lived on was named after him (Jones Street); it is still there today. My mother died when I was small, five or six years old. Luther stayed in Rockwell City for some time. Jesse, my only sister, stayed with us kids and Dad left in 1915 to homestead 28 miles out of Roy, Montana. In 1917 we joined Dad. He came after us and we loaded a boxcar with what little belongings we owned. I, George Jones, went to school to the sixth grade but can't recall if my brothers or sister had much schooling. I was 17 when we moved to Roy.
  Luther worked for the railroad and proved up on his homestead. I worked some on the railroad with my brother Elmer, at Armells. He was foreman at that time. My father Luther spent his last days on his homestead. I'm now the last living in the family and will be 84 next October, 1984. I’m well and active. I have worked many different jobs and had nine children of my own.

  "Sheepherder Ends Life" writes the Winnett Times Brooding over ill health and war conditions in his native country and city of Odessa, Russia was given as the cause of death from a self-inflicted gun shot from a 30-06 rifle at the Tom Iverson bunkhouse in North Petroleum County. Krafden had been employed by Iversons for three or four years prior to which time he had resided on his homestead in Fergus County near the county line.
  Krafden got his mail at Wilder post office and used to ride horseback, staying over night many times, as it was quite a distance from his home. He had come to America in middle age became naturalized, homesteaded at a later date than most. He spoke very broken English and told of studying and taking his examination for citizenship. He said that he had been a Russian Cossack and had put in much military training in their cavalry. He wore the sash of the Cossack instead of a belt.
  One winter day, as he rode to Wilder, he stopped at a neighbors house and found the woman and her small boy nearly frozen. The stove was full of ashes and she could not get a fire to burn. He cleaned out the ashes, started a fire, cut and carried in a supply of wood. Thus he saved their lives, as she was disoriented and there was no chance of anyone stopping at this house The ^{P. 266} husband was working away from home and she and the little boy were left on the homestead.
  Krafden ran some horses and worked out part of the time when he was not busy on his homestead. Iversons and Egglands were some of the sheepmen that he worked for in lambing and shearing season.
  He was buried in the Lewistown City Cemetery. There were no known relatives in the United States.

  Although Ivar and Teens Mathison suffered some heavy losses and endured many hardships, the breaks country north of Little Crooked, where they lived for most of their lives was to them, the best place on earth.
  Their homestead place in later years was far removed from "civilization." They were 33 miles from Roy, 13 miles from their nearest neighbor and had to go 3 miles to the mailbox to get their mail, often on horseback.
  Did they mind the solitude? Were they lonely? On the contrary. They loved the place where they lived; they considered the wild, beautifully untouched country the prettiest on earth. And to it they returned every summer long after they "semi-retired" to a ranch they bought near Columbus in 1967.
  Bertine Marie "Teena" was born February 22, 1898 in Denmark, a daughter of Anton and Elizabeth Hansen. When she was three years old the family immigrated to the United States, and South Dakota. It was there on the prairies near Pierre, that she and her sister Margaret, grew up on a cattle and horse ranch. They attended rural schools in Sully County.
  In July each year the Sioux Indians would come to dig their winter supply of Indian turnips which grew in abundance there. The little girls played with the Indian children and they all shared and ate the turnips.
  In the early 1920s, the Hansens took several horses up into Canada and from there they brought horses down into Montana, settling in the Little Crooked area in 1921.
  Teens served as assistant postmaster at Little Crooked and later was postmaster at Wilder. Ivar was born in Norway. He came to the United States at the age of 19. He was all alone. His mother had died when he was very young and his dad died the year before he left for the U.S. He had no brothers or sisters. So, as he put it, "I had nothing to lose."
  He first settled in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He came to Montana in 1921, arriving at Kendall on Thanksgiving Day.
  Mathison left Kendall the latter part of December with a wagon and four horses. Snow was two feet deep and drifted. There were no trails and it was bitter cold and tough going. He made it as far as Milo Bucks at Fergus the first night, and to Joslin the second night. He arrived at Little Crooked on January 1, 1922. From there he went on to a homestead shack, that was abandoned, and where he had permission to spend the winter.
  Mathison remembers, "There were a lot of bad winters.  The winter of 1922-23 was especially bad, snow was deep and crusted over; horses died all over the range.  There were lots of bones scattered over the prairies for years.
  In the spring of 1922, he settled on the upper branches of Marcott (Carroll) Coulee, three and a half miles east of Little Crooked , and filed for a homestead.  He was the last person to homestead in this country.
  Mathison raised horses and on the big horse roundups for Charley Miller and Lynn Phillips in the Chain Butte area and for Charles Knox on Two Calf Creek.
  As the horse trade became unprofitable, Ivar added cattle to his ranch and the P-H brand, known as the Pearl Harbor, was used to mark his cattle.  His horse brand was XA-.
  The young cowboy, Ivar, and Teena were married on November 23, 1927.  Three children were born of this marriage; Vivian Ivy in 1928, Roy Conrad in 1930 and Marvin Carl in  1936.  Vivian and Marvin were both born in Lewistown, Roy was born at the homestead.
  In the fall of 1935, the Mathisons along with Louis and Margaret Devereaux, took horses to Minnesota (Stendal trucked the horses back for them) and spent the winter of 1935-36 there.  Roy Gordon leased Mathisons and Vontvers and ran sheep while Mathisons were in Minnesota and after Vontver had left.  He came from Wyoming.
  Upon their return to Montana, they moved to Wilder where they took over the store and post office.  Steve Webb has passed away and Mrs. Webb and Marie had gone back to Chicago.
  It was while at Wilder that the Mathisons experienced their first big disaster.  The older children, Vivian and Roy, were attending school in Roy and Teena stayed in with them most of the time, but she and infant Marvin "Boots" had come home for a few days.  Her mother was also staying with them.  A man by the name of Krafden who was working on the Hoezal dam, had also spent the previous night with them.  Teena and Ivar had walked over to feed some heifers which were some distance away.  They looked back and saw smoke, their home was burning up. Ivar says, "I was never so scared in my life; I thought Grandma and Boots had burned up." Boots and Grandma were all right, but they lost ^{P. 267} everything else.
  The family then moved to the river on the Webb place and it was there they flooded out and lost all of their possessions again in 1947.
  The river had been high all winter. Because of a January thaw that put even more water into the river the ice had built up until it was even with the land. It then turned cold again and froze hard.
  In March, on the first day of spring, the river became dangerous, so the cattle were moved up to the hills and they themselves moved up onto a hill above the place and stayed in a tent. The ice "jammed" that very night and flooded the entire area. During the night they could hear trees being snapped off. Huge cakes of ice floated downstream on the water. They could hear the people on the bottom above theirs calling their cattle out, so they knew they were safe. Had Mathisons stayed on the river bottom that night they would have lost their lives. As it was they lost a large alfalfa seed crop, worth several thousand dollars in those days, and all of their hay, plus part of the house and all of their furniture. They moved back to the old homestead that day. It was a long, hard, cold trip through gumbo, snow and ice, but they made it by dark.
  They had two more close brushes with fire after that. One time, Dick Mackie a biologist who was living and working for the Montana Fish and Game in the area, had come over to seek help for his dog which had been bitten by a rattlesnake. They were all outside working on the dog, when they heard a crackling sound. They looked up and saw that the roof on the house was afire. If Mackie hadn't been there "We'd have lost all." They relayed water from barrels setting around the house and had the fire under control by the time neighbors, from miles away who sped to the scene, arrived.
  Another time, a close call occurred when lightning started a grass fire that would have reached their house, had not Mathison happened to come upon it, just as it was starting to "get going good," and got it put out.
  Mathison stated that, "in living so far away, people had to rely on their common sense and have a plan of action in cases like these."
  The Mathisons moved to Columbus in 1967, but retained their place. They built a new cabin on it, where they spent part of their summers.
  Their son, Roy, became an accountant and public administrator and lives in Texas. Boots resides at Roberts, Montana. Vivian became a nurse and was married to George Fogle. She passed away in 1979; a shock from which Teena never really recovered.
  Teena was in failing health for two years until her death in 1981, not long after she achieved a long sought after dream, that of having her book, "Echos From The Breaks" published. The book tells of people and places and events about the country she so dearly loved.
  Ivar has returned to the old country a couple of times, once with Teena and. son Boots to visit relatives, but home to him is still the river breaks. He resides on the place in Columbus and returns "home" whenever he can. But, "it's not the same," He is the last of the old timers and with his inseparable companion of so many years and times, both good and bad, gone; it's just, "not the same."^{P. 268}

  Frank McArthur was born 2 September 1916, the oldest of seven children born to Walter and Julia Yaeger McArthur. Walter McArthur suffered from a recurring illness and so Frank spent most of his early life living with an aunt and uncle Rose Yaeger Machler and Dominic (Tobe) Machler at their ranch near Glengary. Julia McArthur and Rose Machler were sisters.
  Frank attended local schools and Fergus High School in Lewistown.
  He moved to the river and worked for Mike Machler, at his ranch. In 1936, Mike and Fred Machler leased grazing land at Jiggs, Nevada out of Elko. That fall they trailed the cattle from the Missouri breaks to Roy and shipped them to Nevada, by train. This was due to the extended drought here. Frank was already on the leased land in Nevada. He remained in Nevada until 1942, working for Machlers and other ranchers in the area.
  In 1942, he enlisted in the US Air Corps. He trained as a bombardier and flew 67 missions during World War II in the European Theatre of Operations (ETO). He received his discharge in 1945 and returned to the Central Montana area.
  Frank returned from his extraordinary service in the Air Corps with no injuries, but shortly after he got home he spent a few days at Tobe Machlers Sheep Ranch in Petroleum County, where at a Sunday branding session, he broke his ankle.
 He bought Mike Machler’s spread and started out on his own. In 1962, Frank married Betty Rae Carr Warneke. Betty was a young widow with four children and was running the Roy Grocery store Her husband, Fred Warneke, was killed in an auto accident in 1961, leaving his wife, Betty and their children, Jim, Linda, Sandra and Bobby. They all went to Roy schools and the eldest graduated from Roy High School. They ranched in the Missouri River area and the Musselshell Trail until 1963, when they moved to the Willie Williams place on the north side of the Missouri River near Landusky. That fall they trailed their big herd of cattle to their new home crossing the Fred Robinson Bridge. Their son, Frank Jr. was born in October of 1965.
  In 1969, they sold this ranch and bought a ranch near Townsend, Montana on Deep Creek, where they have resided since. Frankie is married and has a son, Durek, born 24 September 1985. Frankie lives in the Townsend area. Because of ill health, Frank and Betty have leased their land, sold off the stock and are still living in their ranch home and Frank has retired.

  Stanley Novak and Josephine Pitner were early homesteaders and their ranch was known as the "Four Trees." This was about 15 miles east of Button Butte where four big pine trees grew in a perfect square.
  Charlie Day, the Wartzenlufts, and Woods were neighbors "up on top" (of the Missouri River bottom places) where Novaks lived.
  Stanley was a cowboy for the Horseshoe Bar in its era and lost fingers in a dally accident. (More than one man lost fingers dallying a rope) Novaks ran sheep and cattle and had a nice set of ranch buildings. They had one of the first autos.
  A newspaper article of the 11 June 1929, entitled Sheep Shearing relates that the shearing crew is starting at the Novak ranch, Little Crooked, next will be the Ralph Jenson ranch, Little Crooked; over to Valentine and then to Roy. Lamb contracts at $11.50 to $12.50 cwt and wool prices at 30 to 33 cents per pound.
  These folks were hard working people, wonderful friends and neighbors, but bought a place at Hamilton, Montana when the dry thirties came and so moved to a more productive area.
  Josie was a victim of cancer.^{P. 269} 

  Abraham Phillips and Jennie Quigley were married in Knox, Indiana in 1901. They came to the Little Crooked Community in the spring of 1916. They traveled to Little Crooked from Roberts, Montana by wagon with three horses and some household goods. They had relatives in Roberts.
  After several days on the trail, they arrived at the home of Merle Musselman, an old friend from Indiana. Merle helped them get located, on what is now known as Phillips ridge about 3 1/2 miles north of the Little Crooked Store. Later that year Abe’s brother, Len, came and stayed with them. He didn't homestead. Abe farmed and was a horse trader,
  In February of 1930, Abe and Jennie were in the timber getting a load of wood when Abe dropped dead. Abe was born March 18 1867 in Knoxville Indiana. Jennie married Tom Cope in 1932. Tom's homestead was in the Indian Butte-Bundane area About 1942 they moved to the Valentine area where they farmed. Later, they moved to Prescott, Arizona where Jennie passed away in October of 1969, from cancer. Tom had preceded her in death. There were no children.

  Joseph Pipes and Mary Jane Laughery, both natives of Lynn County, Iowa, were married on 1 April 1890. Two sons were born to them: David Herman and Ira Glenn in 1894, while living at Rockwell City, Iowa. Herman graduated from Rockwell City High School and played professional baseball in Iowa. He married Miss Lucy Mae Williams 26 February 1913, at Rockwell City, Iowa.
  The family all moved to Montana in 1916 and homesteaded in the Little Crooked area, three miles southeast of Button Butte, where they began to farm. The Pipes men brought the first threshing machine in the area. Joe Pipes was a painter by trade and he and the boys worked in Lewistown part time. They also worked at the brickyard.
  When World War I broke out Ira joined the Army and served in France.
  Herman and Mae became parents of a baby girl, Irma born 17 August 1921 in Lewistown. Irma says that she spent only five young years on the homestead of her parents which joined her grandparent's land. She remembers visiting at Tom Huttons and playing with their daughter, Jean. Stanley and Josie Novak were neighbors and also J. Weldon Baker; a school teacher who lived near by. Edwin and Paul Wartzenlufts were frequent visitors at the Pipes. She vividly recalls the time she and her playmate, their Collie dog named Bob, went for a long walk down the road. When she was missed, her parents were frantic thinking that she had met up with a rattlesnake or some harm, and when they found her, she got a sound spanking for leaving home!
 The Senior Pipes and Herman and his family moved to Lewistown in 1926. Mary Pipes was suffering with arthritis and they bought property there. Ira remained on the homestead when not out working.
  In the fall of 1927, Rachael Louise Conner came from Hunningsberg, Indiana to teach at the Little Crooked School. She and Ira were married in Lewistown 5 June 1928. Ira went into the automobile business in Buffalo after their marriage, but came back to the homestead off and on. In the early thirties they moved out on the homestead. Their son, Glenn, was a baby at this time. This was depression years and the dry thirties, which caused them to move to Great Falls and a daughter was born, Mary Elaine. They were residents of Great Falls the rest of their lives, where Ira worked at different jobs, including painting and contracting.
  Joe Pipes died 7 December 1932 of a paralytic stroke at age 69. He was buried in the Lewistown City Cemetery. ^{P. 270}
   Mary Jane Pipes, age 72, a resident of Lewistown for nearly thirty years, passed away 4 November, 1946. She was buried beside her husband, Joe.
Irma Pipes married Carl Longfellow and lives in Lewistown. Her father Herman, died at 68 years of age in Lewistown where he had been a painter and bartender, 12 January 1954.
  Ira Glenn Pipes died 17 October 1977, at age 83. He was an invalid for the last several years and his Wife, Louise, cared for him in their home. He was buried in the veterans section of Highland Cemetery at Great Falls. Rachael Louise is also deceased.
  They were survived by their son, daughter, and three grandchildren.

  James was a well known rancher in the Little Crooked area. He died September 11, 1919 of kidney ailment and complications after an illness of over a year. He was born in Clinton County, Iowa in 1840. The body was shipped to Rockwell, Iowa for burial, and was accompanied east by his daughter, Mrs. Mary Pipes. 

  Charles Rish, his wife Nella and little daughter, Dorothy, homesteaded on the ridge west of Fritzners. They had a two-story white house with a brick chimney. He drove a team of albino horses called the "Snowballs" 
  When Montgomery Marshall left Little Crooked for Zion City, Illinois, Charles Rish took over the store and poet office from 1922-1923.
  They moved to Valentine where he went into the store business

 Benjamin Ross Spiker and his wife, Isaphine came to homestead at Little Crooked in the early teens They built a nice set of buildings, better structures than most, which were painted white with green trim. A cistern was built for water supply for the houses which was a first for this dry area. This property was located just south of the Little Crooked Bridge and the Rocky Point Trail followed the north line which made it accessible to the main road. The Spikers kept "stoppers" and were noted for their hospitality and good food. Many gatherings took place at their home before the Little Crooked Hall was built in 1916. Mrs. Spiker was a teacher, although she did not teach locally.
  The Spikers were older people and due to his failing health, returned to their native state of West Virginia in 1921, surely a gentler life-style. He passed away in 1925.
  Much of the Little Crooked population left by 1921 for several reasons. World War I took the young men, dry weather, economic conditions and the harsh environment caused most to leave; however, the Spiker house was inhabited almost constantly while it remained at its original location. Abe and Jennie Phillips were first to live in it. Next, Clarence and Sadie Baker moved to it from the Montgomery Marshall homestead where she had taken over the post office. Roy Casteel, his wife, Millie Fritzner Casteel and three children were here a short time and Isabelle and Earl attended school at Little Crooked (spring of 1932). Harold Fox was next to occupy the Spiker house. Arlene, Virginia and Juanita went to school and baby Harold was born here. The Fox family moved to Roy for school in 1935 and the place was vacant until Wilbert Zahn bought the house in 1938 and he and his brothers moved it with two teams of horses to make it their home and they still live in it at this date.

  My mother told me that I was born in Roy, Montana on October 25, 1919, but I never could get a birth certificate so I can't prove it. My parents Minnie and Joe Stroble came to Roy from Minnesota after my brother, Francis was born there in 1915. My sister, Alice was born in Roy in 1917. We were there and at the homestead until 1933 when we came to Washington state.
  We homesteaded about a mile west of Little Crooked School and I remember going to dances there and walking home when the sun was coming up, with the fiddle and accordion music still going around in my head.
  I remember my dad building dirt dams with horses and a fresno. Sometimes George Jakes helped him.
  We had to have gardens and ate a lot of sage hens, cottontail rabbits and snowshoes as big as dogs in the winter. We melted snow on the stove in a boiler to water the horses when the drifts would be higher than the shanty. One spring when Dad was building a dam I went to get him to come for dinner at noon and we saw a huge brown tarantula running into the sagebrush. Sometimes we saw antelope, coyotes and rattlesnakes. When Dad was gone working were the times we would hear the coyotes singing their songs in the night, or the wind would be so hard you'd think the whole place would blow away. The lightning would come in the house and bounce from stove to frying pan on the wall and back again -- that's when you learn what lonesome is or when I did anyway!
  I don't remember too many teachers. One year our mother taught us and one year when my sister and I were the only two pupils, we had Miss Goheen. I remember Miss Marie Skibness. 
  Mr. W. E. Jones, the regular mail carrier, had told us he had seen our new teacher and she had white hair and false teeth -- we thought he was teasing, but it was true and she was a real teacher. She taught us to sing. She brought fern fronds and tree twigs from Washington state to paste on paper to make pictures and story books about Skookum apples from Wenatchee. She really did a good teaching job way out there.
  Part of the time we stayed in Roy and went to school. The only teacher I remember in town was a substitute named Mrs. Murphy, who stood me in a corner for pinching Agnes LaRocque; I was so humiliated.
  In town we had a lot of friends, I remember Johnsons, Lanes, Oquists and Athearns -- we girls would baby-sit for 25 cents all night.
  There was a fire bell on a stand in the middle of town with a pump underneath. I remember the grain elevator burning and Hanson's Grocery.
  We had a barbwire fence around one house where we kept our horses.
  My dad worked anywhere he could find a job, as the depression got worse and his dream of irrigating many fields on a large homestead went by the wayside.
  Our Little Crooked neighbors were Bakers and Jakes. I remember well when Earl and Pearl (Jakes) were born. My sister and I had to give up our new dolls we got for Christmas and had hardly played with because our mother didn't have any other gift to give them. I really didn't want to.
  We didn't see many people on the homestead; one fellow named John Turner use to stop and visit on his way walking to and from town. I was always happy to go to Wilder to visit Marie Webb and sometimes stayed overnight.
  I remember one year moving into Roy for the winter with everything in the hayrack. We stopped to rest once and ate fried chicken out of a lard pail.
Sometimes my dad would be gone for weeks and would have to walk the 80 miles from Roy.
  My sister used to stay with, and help the Misses Hickey who lived out in the sagebrush, too. Near or on their place was a good old well that we hauled water from in a wooden barrel with a wash tub upended on top to keep the water from splashing out when it was on a stoneboat pulled by horses. That was when an the 'cricks' dried up in the hot, hot summer.
  One winter night, Dad put a small granary on the stone boat and we rode in it with hay and blankets and heated rocks to a school Christmas program. I forgot the name of the school but there was a tall Christmas tree with burning wax candles.
  It was 1933 when Dad gave up and headed for some relatives in Washington. Dad had fixed a wagon bed trailer with a seat near the front, to pull with his little one seat Model T. Three of us rode on that seat on the way to Wenatchee where everyone but me picked fruit to help us on our way. I was too small to pick so I found a baby-sitting job while we were there. After we got ^{P. 272} settled here I grew six inches taller and Mom put on 40 pounds She always said it was the rain that did it.
  But I still know all the words to the Montana State song. M-O-N-T-A-N-A Montana I love you. Francis Frank Stroble recalls that he attended 1st grade at Little Crooked School, 2nd grade by Jakes homestead and 3rd grade at Byford and the rest at Roy where he graduated from RHS in 1933.  Transportation traveling from the homestead to Roy in early days was by horse and wagon, then by Model T and then via a Red Flying Cloud.  (Francis, Anne and Alice all live in Washington.)

  John Turner, another 1914 homesteader, took up his homestead on the south side of upper Downer Coulee, where he built a good little two-room house. He came from a wealthy New York family, was well-educated and had traveled. He was much interested in science well-read and informed and was a pleasant person to visit with.
  It was customary in the early days not to question a person's name or past and thus mystery was often created. John was known to be short-tempered, and this was accepted, however he lived in this locality for 40 years as a respected citizen, which makes it doubtful that some of the stories that circulated were true.
  John had a grey team of horses that he called "Dynamite" and "Danger." They were very spirited, in their early years when he drove them to the Basin for the harvest season. He built a good-sized reservoir north of the house with them and used this to irrigate his garden. He was an avid gardener giving away much of his produce. He had bees and was interested in their culture. Honey was a sweet treat when sugar was scarce and expensive in the homestead days. 
  At one time John Turner became interested in poultry and bought a large incubator. He raised chickens and turkeys and built high woven-wire pens to confine and protect them. He ordered prepared rations for the turkeys and the bags of feed came out on the stage. By this date, the old team had become very gentle and docile. At Byford School the kids would watch them going by at a snail's pace enroute to the mailbox for the bags of feed. John always stopped by the Jakes house to visit. George was an especially good friend.
  John Turner was a tall, slender man, who wore high laced boots with his bib-overall pant legs tucked inside and always wore a flat cap. He was an exceptionally fast walker for this was the way he traveled about the country, never owning a car or saddle horse. He walked to the Little Crooked Post Office until it was discontinued and was it's last patron. He then put up a mailbox beside Jakes and Hickey on the mail route; but this was about seven miles from home.
  John worked for some of his neighbors occasionally, never being away from home too long at a time. He would help Johnsons during lambing or shearing and once helped John Beck do some fencing. Steve Webb at Wilder hired him to build a new roof on the garage that had been demolished in a twister storm. After that job, he was always available whenever the folks needed him and helped put up hay, get in the winter's wood and another time did some trapping for beaver on the river place. He did excellent work at any task he set out to do. In 1933, Mother left him in charge of the post office when we visited the Century of Progress World's Fair in Chicago and visited the relatives for a couple of weeks
 In 1939 John sold his homestead to the Government and purchased the old T. L. Peterson homestead which was on the mail route and at the mouth of Nine-mile Creek. He fenced the place by hand and was intending to move his house, which he had reserved, when it was destroyed by fire. It was struck by lightning in a dry electrical storm. He then bought an old homestead shack that stood down by Button Butte. He took it apart and moved it to live in, but never got it fixed up very well.
 Next, he bought an old Fordson tractor and farmed up a piece of ground and put in alfalfa, hoping to raise seed. Failing health and old age were against him. At this new location, he was closer to neighbors and visited with Zahns, Morris Rasmussen and Adolph Kosir. Illness forced him to go to the hospital and he lost a leg in an operation. Soon after, he passed away at St. Joseph's Hospital. We were in contact with his niece in New York and she said that his family respected his right to live as he wished in Montana without interference from them. He was buried in the Lewistown City Cemetery. Born March 17, 1882 died August 25, 1959.

  Simon Vontver was born in Norway, the son of Marthe Uroen and Anton Simensen.  May Anderson was born in Sweden.  They both emigrated to the United Sates and homesteaded in the Little Crooked area, about 1917, where they met. Both worked elsewhere to finance their homesteads, which they proved up on. They left the area shortly after their marriage, in 1920, because of the drouth.
  After they left, Simon worked for Continental Oil Company in Cat Creek and May taught school. May was, for a time, the Superintendent of Schools at Winnett and wrote several stories, including "The "Kiskies" published in Montana Margins.
  The Vontver's son, Louis, was horn in Billings in 1936.
  Simon's last name was originally Simensen. When he first came to the Little Crooked area he was known as Simon Antonson, later as S. A. Vontver. In Norwegian, Vontver means 'bad weather'. Simon passed away in November of 1974.

  Edwin Wartzenluft and his l6-year-old son, Paul came to Montana in 1914 and homesteaded east of Little Crooked, Montana on the Musselshell Road.
  Paul was born 22 September 1898 in Blandon County, Pennsylvania where he received his education. The family moved to Zion, Illinois where they resided before Edwin and Paul came west.
  The Wartzenlufts built some very fine hand-hewn log buildings, which are still standing. They were masters at the art of hewing logs, squared on four sides and dove-tailing corners to prevent warping and settling and thus held their shape remarkably well.
  Edwin returned to Zion, Illinois where he still had family, and Paul moved to Lewistown, Montana in 1926 where he was employed by the U.S. Gypsum Company, working until 1965, when he retired.
  Paul Wartzenluft and Lucy Mae Williams were married in Chicago, Illinois 14 April 1937. She preceded him in death in 1966. Paul was 70 years at the time of his death, 1 April 1969 at Lewistown. Among the survivors were Mrs. Carl (Irma) Longfellow, a step-daughter and four sisters of the Chicago area.

  Arch Wygal homesteaded on what is known as "the Flat", near Marcott Coulee. The Wygal house was a large well built log house that was situated on the right side of Button Butte; right up against it, and so was well protected. During the 30's it was torn down and hauled away.
  The large flocks of sage hens that abounded on the flats furnished many meals for the family. They would stand in the door in the early morning and shoot the day's supply. Water was obtained from a small depression on the flat and was the only water source. It rained often, during the time of their sojourn, and was kept full. In the winter the pond served as a skating rink The Wygals helped the many who got their wagons stuck in a low spot where the Musselshell Trail crossed Marcott, which was a short distance from their house. It seems that almost everyone got stuck and all needed help in getting out.
  They got their supplies at the Little Crooked Store. Many times whatever they needed the most, the store was out of. But they were always told, "it's on the road."
  There were three children in the family: Corinne, Ethel and Jack. The girls attended the Little Crooked School a couple of miles away. They had to walk across country, past the head of Marcott Coulee, where many big wolves were seen, the memory of which still brought chills to them many years later,
  One visitor that Mrs. Wygal and her daughters never forgot was a man who rode in one evening when the menfolk were gone and asked to stay the night. After much hesitation, he was invited in and had supper with them and then was shown to where he could sleep, upstairs. After he had retired for the night, Mrs. Wygal and the girls moved all the furniture they could up against the door, to ward off any surprise attack.
  After breakfast the next morning, he got out books and papers, It turned out that he was the Fergus County Assessor!

DEINER, ANTON AND WAVE-- lived near Elevator Ridge and raised hogs. Anton had hogs and fed anyones horses to them. Deiner Coulee is named after him. 

FRANK, WILLIAM J.- Mr. and Mrs. William J. "Bill" Frank homesteaded near the mouth of Big Crooked Creek. They were neighbors of Myron Lempke. They left in 1929 or 1930. In 1966 they were living in Minong, Wisconsin where they operated a greenhouse.

HOELZEL, MR. AND MRS. CARL- homesteaded near Little Crooked and later bought the Wygal place. Both places are now a part of Mathisons. He went into the service in WWI and never returned to live here The brand P-H was known as Pearl Harbor and belonged to Carl Hoelzel.

MCBRIDE, JOE-- lived near Chimney Crossing until 1930. McBride worked out and was gone from his homestead a lot. He was gone so long one time that fellows in the country thought he'd left for good and decided to move his house, as was a common practice to do with abandoned houses in those days. They came early in the A.M., wired the door shut so it wouldn't fly open, hooked the team on and took off. Unfortunately McBride had returned the previous evening and was sleeping in his bed when his house took off. His yelling scared the house movers so bad that they ran off and in their panic they left their singletree, by which McBride was able to identify them.

WESCOTT, JIM-- a homesteader, carried the mail on the Wilder route. Jim suffered from ill health. He had TB of the bone as well as of the lungs. He'd also been in a buggy wreck and that, too, bothered him.

• Mathiason family; left to right: Marvin (Boots), Roy, Vivian, Teena and Ivar
• When times were tough money from Coyote pelts kept many a family from starving. Ivar Mathiason in 1929.
• Josie Novak feeding a lamb.
• Tom Hutton, Stanley and Josie Novak and Jean Hutton on Christmas Day 1928.
• Tom and Jennie Cope. Nov. 1961
• Irma Pipes Longfellow
• Benjamin and Isaphine Spiker who lived at Little Crooked for many years
• The Strobel children in the summer of 1929, Annie age 9, Alice age 11 and Francis age 13.
• Wartzenluft Ranch Buildings