Archives and Special Collections Mansfield Library, University of Montana Missoula MT 59812-9936 Email: [email protected] Telephone: (406) 243-2053
This transcript represents the nearly verbatim record of an unrehearsed interview. Please bear in mind that you are reading the spoken word rather than the written word.
Oral History Number: 138-001 Interviewees: Angus Monroe, Lilly Monroe Interviewers: Bob Emery, Dorothy Floerchinger Date of Interview: circa 1970s
Bob Emery: Today we're in the Farmers State Bank building in Conrad, Montana. It's a pleasure today to talk with Mr. Angus Monroe of the Pondera County area and also in the room with us today is Mrs. Angus Monroe and also Bob Emery and Dorothy Floerchinger both of the Pondera County Historical Association. We're happy to have an opportunity to talk to these people, particularly Mr. and Mrs. Monroe because Mr. Monroe's grandfather is Hugh Monroe. For those of us like myself who don't know all that much about the area history, we're going to try to find out about Hugh Monroe who was the first white man in this area.
Mr. Monroe, what memories, if any, do you have of your grandfather?
Angus Monroe: Well, as far as I know and can remember, I met my grandfather on the head of Milk River. I can't remember what year it was. I don't remember. But I was only a boy about five or six years old when I first saw him. Then years after—two or three years after—saw him again. That is the last time I seen him, and next I heard of the old man was I remember when my dad did left head of W illow Creek to go and see his dad when he was at the head of Milk River. That he was dying, and my dad was notified that afternoon about his dad and he left our place—head of Willow Creek—to go to Milk River on snowshoes since snow was deep.
BE: You say this was when you were about, what, five or six? Would this be about 75 or 80 years ago?
AM: W ell—
BE: How old are you?
AM: I'll be 83 May the 27th coming.
BE: So we're talking about very quickly maybe 75 or 78 years ago, we're talking about 1892, '93 right roughly in there.
Lilly Monroe: Yes.
AM: That hits and just about...My grandfather gave the Mrs. Monroe here her Indian name.
LM: That was in 1892.
AM:1892.
1 Angus Monroe and Lilly Monroe Interview, OH 138-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. BE: Angus, about your grandfather, about when did he come to this area and what was he doing?
AM: Approximately 1812 has just been told to me.
BE: And what was he coming to the area for?
AM: Well, he was sent here by the Hudson Bay Company as a as a trapper, and then sent here to learn the Indian language to go with the Indians. Blackfeet Indians—he lived with them to learn the language so that they could trade with the Hudson Bay. You see, that was his main purpose of being here.
BE: Well, this was long before there were any settlements in this area. Just as a wild guess, anybody at the table might know what would be the closest white man to Hugh about this time. Canada, would it be o r—
AM: He came from Canada originally, you know.
BE: This is a pretty tough question. I don't know that anybody knows it, but he would be, seems to me, the only white man for hundreds and hundreds of miles around so this would be quite an undertaking for somebody to come out in unknown territory. Did he know any of the language before he came, do to you know that?
Am: No, no.
BE: He was going to try to learn the Blackfeet language just by living with the Blackfeet?
AM: That's right. Yes, which he did. He spoke the Indian language frequently and lived with them and lived with the Indians. Then he lived with the chief in the tipi, see, as they traveled throughout the country. Then the chief gave Hugh Monroe his daughter to marry, which is right. That's very true. That's my dad's mother, see.
BE: How did this all work out for the Hudson Bay Company, or do you know?
AM: I don't know. I couldn't tell you that.
BE: Did Hugh move on to anything else, or did he stay with the company?
AM: Stayed with the—
BE: Let's put it this way, how long did he stay with the company? Did he go to ranching or farming or try something else?
2 Angus Monroe and Lilly Monroe Interview, OH 138-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. AM: Oh, well later after everything was over, like when they started to settle here, he settled on the M ilk River, the head of Milk River, with one of the daughters. She married a man by the name of Jackson—first marriage. I don't know what happened to Jackson, but second marriage was a man by the name of Fox.
LM: That's the daughter that Grandpa Hugh lived with.
BE: Now did they keep that farm and ranch for very long, or did they move to someplace else?
AM: He went on until he got so old that he quit ranching and just lived with his daughter.
LM: He passed away on that ranch that you're asking about. He passed away there. He was out of ranching at that time he was living with his daughter, and he passed away on Milk River. I think it's the year 1892.
BE: Mrs. Monroe has some memories of the appearance of Hugh Monroe who some say lived to be 109. Apparently, there's some question just about that, but Mrs. Monroe what do you remember about—
LM: This is what my mother has told us. Our home was on Willow Creek too, and so was Angus' folks home up there. At this time Angus' grandfather was living with his father John Monroe on Willow Creek. He used to ride down and visit my father. He was very old then, and the skin on his forehead was so loose that he had to have it tied up like for him to see. M other has tied it up several times. I was born there on Willow Creek. That's at the Deguire (?) place now just west of Browning. That's where Grandpa Hugh gave me my Indian name, which is "long time living woman" in Indian.
BE: Angus, let me ask you this, if he was the first white man in this area, did anybody seemed to make a special fuss over him—the fact that he was so old and that he was the first white man in the area?
AM: No, not that I know of. I don't think it was anything like that.
BE: He was just a pioneer but nobody—
LM: He was recognized because there is a mountain in Glacier Park that's names for him.
BE: Very good.
DF: [unintelligible]
3 Angus Monroe and Lilly Monroe Interview, OH 138-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. LM: Oh was it? The mountain was named before then, yes. The Rising W olf was his Indian name, which when Angus ran for council for the Blackfeet tribe they gave him his grandfather's name, Rising Wolf, so that's Angus's Indian named now among the Indians.
BE: Angus, we've determined that Hugh Monroe came to the area about 1812 or 1815—the year it is a little hard to determine—died somewhere around 1892. That's 80 years in Northern Montana. Now, how many of those years did he live with the Indians?
AM: All his time from the time he hit this country until he died here in 18...what "92?
LM: Some 80 years,
Am: Eighty...Some 80 years.
BE: Then was he just a white man living with the Indians, or did he live as an Indian himself?
AM: He lived as an Indian himself. He lived with the Indians, see, and learned the language and stayed with them.
BE: Then can we assume that any Indian battles or buffalo hunts or anything the Indians did, he went right along with them?
AM: I couldn't tell you about anything about that.
LM: I'm sure he did.
BE: Apparently, Hugh Monroe can be an elusive figure in history. A man who lived with the Indians as an Indian for 80 years did not leave very many things in the way of written records.
Let's talk for a few minutes now about to some interesting people we do have here, and that is Mr. and Mrs. Angus Monroe. Angus as we mentioned is Hugh Monroe' grandson. Hugh Monroe, the first white man in this area. Angus, you say you're 83 years old and you have been in the ranching business all of your life. When did you really get started in ranching?
AM: Well, I lived with my dad till he passed away in 1908, and he was a stock raiser, had cattle, horses—many horses. After he passed on in 1908, well, I took over as a young boy, but I didn't make a success of it. I went under being that winters were hard, and I was alone and just couldn't cut the mustard, [laughs]
BE: Where was this...Pardon me. Where was this ranch?
AM: That'd be west of Browning about 12 miles near the Glacier Park now—east entrance of the Glacier Park. That's where my folks had a ranch. So when I quit ranching, I went out and
4 Angus Monroe and Lilly Monroe Interview, OH 138-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. went to work for different outfits, you know, the roundup outfits. I worked for the "F" outfit for several years. Then, I worked for the "ID" outfit, that's the Indian outfit on reservation, for a few years. Then, I worked for the Horseshoe Bar Company from Judith Basin. Then —
LM: You rode into Judith Basin.
AM: Yes I rode in the Judith Basin for a year as a rep, if you know understand what that means—rep. Well, anyway, I repped when we brought the cattle up. That was in 1910. Brought these cattle up from Judith Basin to the Blackfeet reservation. We were three weeks longer from the lower end of Judith Basin along the Missouri River to the reservation here.
BE: You were, in other words, a cowboy plain and simple right?
AM: Right.
BE: If I may be a little nosy, I don't know if it's...How much were you paid for being a cowboy in those days?
AM: We were all getting 40 dollars a month those days, and we worked night and day for 40 dollars a month.
BE: Angus, what would you do...and just if you can think of a typical day or some of the things you had to do in any given day as a cowboy?
AM: Well, I was just a cowboy, just nothing else but one and —
BE: Let me ask you this. We have seen for a number of years now these pictures—movie pictures—of what a cowboy was like and the wild, wild life and the things they did. I'll ask you this, Angus, what did you do on a weekend where if you ever got any time off, what did you do?
AM: Well, I've never had no time off. I worked every day that I could in winters and summers, and when I wasn't on the roundup in the summer time I worked for ranchers on the reservation—winter places to stay, you know. I worked for my board and a place to stay until spring and then I'd go out on the roundup again, see.
LM: But on weekends, they had dances. They got to them.
BE: All right there we've got some comments here about some of the dances and some of the things you might have had an opportunity to go assuming you, every once while, got some time off and there was a dance in the area. How far might you have to go to go to one of these things?
5 Angus Monroe and Lilly Monroe Interview, OH 138-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. AM: Well, Bob, I can remember a tim e I...I've told this story once or twice to my wife here just lately, last few days. We lived up there west of Browning, and my dad sent me to Browning after a can of tobacco. He was out of tobacco, and it was wintertime. He gave me three dollars to buy this tobacco so I went to town. I got to loafing around there, and I met a friend of mine, a young boy by the name of Dan Hassem (?). He asked me to go to Babb with him to a dance, and that was from our home to Babb was about, well, I'd say 60 miles. We rode that afternoon and the biggest part of the day, you might say, and got into Babb that evening about seven, eight o'clock to this dance. The next morning the dance broke up about five or six o'clock and rode back to my home with no tobacco. I spent the money that he gave me for tobacco. [laughs]
BE: He probably had a few words and something else for you I suppose at the time. Before we go any further, Angus, you and your wife mentioned that you were acquainted with easily the most famous Montanan of them all. Could you tell us about yourfriend Charlie Russell?
AM: What I can tell you about our friend Russell was the Eaton party used to come in here from Wolf, Wyoming, those days. That was I say 1915, '16, '17, and '18—those years—about five or six years he'd come in here. Russell was a great friend of Uncle Howard Eaton, as they called him, Uncle Howard Eaton. So he was with us on this trip through Glacier Park, and in two, three years after, he was back again with the party with us. Then that was that the end of that. When the party quit Charlie quit too, traveling through the park, see.
BE: What kind of guy was he? Was he pretty easy to get along with?
AM: Oh yes, Charlie was a real gentleman. He was good with people and good to the tourists. He told him a lot of good stories and just whatever he wanted to say and tell, he told. He and old Howard Eaton got together that to Lewis Hotel at Lake McDonald, and they told stories there until two o'clock in the morning to the tourists. They even spoke of eating rattlesnakes and sleeping among the rattlesnakes in their time through this country and eastern part down here. I can't think of the name down east here where big roundups used to be. Charlie was from there too.
LM: [unintelligible].
Am: No, no. Down along the highway here.
LM: Well that's [unintelligible].
AM: Those big roundup ranches used to be down there. I can't think of the name of that ranch.
LM: Barns?
AM: No. Well anyway, they—
6 Angus Monroe and Lilly Monroe Interview, OH 138-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. BE: Did he ever talk much about his painting, or did you ever see him do any of his painting?
AM: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. We used to visit him there in Great Falls when he was there—the few years that we knew him. We used to visit him, and he used to ask us down to his place. In fact, he gave us a painting. That was the last time we saw him. He'd give us some nice paintings, and we asked Charlie if we couldn't leave it there until we went uptown and done our shopping around business so on. We forgot to take our paintings home with us. We left it there—
LM: [unintelligible]
BE: Yes, Mrs. Monroe?
LM: Well, I want to tell something about this painting that Angus is speaking of. I had my two boys—our oldest children, Floyd and Harvey—with us, and he had a Eskimo boat. I don't know what really you call it. It was hanging up in in his cabin, and I said the children wanted to see what it looked like inside and Charlie told him what it was. He said it was built in, and there was just a hole that they sat in in this. So he got a long stick and pulled the boat over to show us, and it wasn't what he told us it was. His spurs fell out of there and out on the floor. He said he was so tickled, they had been lost for five years. So he said, "I'm going to make you a present," he said, "for asking about wanting to see that boat." He said, "Now, any three pictures that's by the door along the w all"—which was about, oh, I'd say 4 by 10 inches long, they weren't very large pictures I could have my pick of them. So I picked out the one that was "Bronc to Breakfast," but I never did get back to get it. That's how we lost...That's how we come by getting the picture from Charlie.
But on the Eaton party, we went down to Charlie's cabin many times in the boat down Lake McDonald. One time we went down, and there was a tourist there and Charlie was carving a stick. He wanted to know what it was and he carved it around to a sharp point then he notched it around the top, which made kind of a head on it. He tied a leather string to it. This tourist wanted to know what that was made for. He said, "Don't ask me, but watch me." So when he got it through, he had one of these little back houses in the back of his house that there was no lock on so he said, "Come with me now." So he took this boy over, and he shut the little house door which had no clasp, or what do you call it?
AM: Hasp.
LM: Hasp. He dropped this stick down. "Now," he said, "you found out what I made that for." [laughs]
BE: Another view of Charlie Russell the sculptor.
7 Angus Monroe and Lilly Monroe Interview, OH 138-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. LM: He made a beautiful little man, the cutest thing—I've a picture of it—out of the white birch bark that sat on the table in the Lewis Hotel, which is now the Lake McDonald Hotel. It belongs to Glacier National Park now, but at that time, it belonged to John Lewis who was a fur buyer. He bought fur from the people around.
BE: Let me ask you this, Angus, because you mentioned that you saw Charlie doing some of his pictures. Did he have to have a model of work from, or did he just work from his mind?
AM: Just from his mind. Just had his paintings out on the table, never had nothing else but that.
BE: But you knew that when he was drawing a picture of say cowboy life he had a pretty good picture, because he was there. He knew what he was doing.
AM: Yes he knew what he was doing. He didn't have anything else.
LM: He was just a plain old cowboy, but you know, he loved to eat right in the tipi. He ate in a tipi of my mother's. She wanted him to go in the house to eat dinner, and he said, "Oh no," he said, "I didn't come here. This is where I'm going to here in this tipi." So he ate with my mother in the tipi.
BE: Was Charlie very famous at that time, well-known? Did people really think this is really something special to know Charlie Russell?
AM: Sure he was. Sure he was. We'd seen his pictures long before we knew him in the Mint Saloon there at Great Falls. We used to go in there and look at his pictures, and afterwards we met Charlie. The first time we met Charlie in Great Falls was walking down the street. We seen Charlie sitting on the sidewalk there, and we stopped and we spoke to Charlie. Charlie said to us, he said, "Take me home." We had an old Ford car, the missus and I, and we put him in the car and took him home. He says, "Take me downhill on the flat." So we took him down now on the flat. He had a little barn there, and he had his horse there. He showed us his horse, saddles, and so forth there, and that's how we first met Charlie.
LM: After he showed the horse to us and one thing another, he had Angus ride the horse up on M ount Royal and exercises the horse. I drove the car, and then we came back to Charlie's. But I'm going tell you about Charlie when...This was 1912. He painted the poster for the Calgary Stampede...or is that what they call it? Stampede or rodeo whatever it is. At that time, there was no road through the mountains. They had to load their car in a boxcar and bring their stuff over like that to get it on this side of the mountains. So we met him at the depot to help take the pictures and stuff up to the big hotel, and then we traveled with them as far as Browning, but when we were on Nine Mile Hill, his wife had a flat. Charlie couldn't drive the car. He didn't know nothing about the car, and he didn't want to know. They stopped and they had to fix a tire, and Charlie just walked off and went and sat on a big rock and lit his cigarette and went to
8 Angus Monroe and Lilly Monroe Interview, OH 138-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. smoking. Mrs. Russell said to us, she said now, "Just look at him. Isn't that a full-blood Indian for you?" while she and Angus changed the tire, [laughs]
BE: We're talking with Mr. and Mrs. Angus Monroe, and we talked about the Monroes and their friend Charlie Russell.
Let's get back to talking about Angus himself who has already mentioned about some of his times as a cowboy. You also mentioned I understand, Angus, that you did some work up around the park. Just what was that?
Am: Well, I started to work in the park for the Brewster Company. That was a horse concession. They called them the Brewster brothers. I went to work for them in 1912—1 started working. I worked with them for several years in the park as a as a guide, head and guide, and so forth like that.
BE: Tell us a little bit about what Glacier Park was like in 1912. I think it was only officially about two years old then.
AM: Well the park was opened in 1910, then I went to work there in 1912 as a guide, as I said before. Well, as it goes along now, the park was really a park at that time. There was no automobiles coming into the park. They come into the park, but I mean not through the park itself. There's all horseback riders and trails was all, say, from Two Medicine, starting from Two Medicine clear into Many Glaciers. That's through St. Mary's and up over the hills—the mountains, and so forth—and landing there at Many Glaciers. That was a point where they finished—some did. Then they'd go on from there over Swiftcurrent Pass up on the hill to Granite Park overnight, then down to Lewis Hotel at Lake McDonald.
BE: With the park so young, Angus, when you started working there, I assume there was there were some of the chalets and whatnot weren't even built then. You have been telling us that you were in on some of the construction, or whatever you want to call it, of some of the chalets back there. Could you tell us how they went about, without any roads and whatnot, of getting some of those chalets built?
AM: They built the trail up over Logan Pass about that time, 1912 or 1913—somewhere along in there. I had this job of delivering sand and cement to Granite Park, and I had nine boys—ten with myself, made us ten—and I took ten horses to every two boys. See there was ten boys. I had 80 head of horses. We packed sand and cement to Granite Park. It took us 47 days to finish the job, and we hauled lumber up there on pack horses over Swiftcurrent pass.
BE: I think there's quite a story about one of the items of getting the granite to Park Chalet put together, and that was the story of a large stove that Angus helped to get up there. Angus, could you tell us that story? Tell us a little bit about the stove, how big it was, and then what you had to do to get that stove up to the chalet.
9 Angus Monroe and Lilly Monroe Interview, OH 138-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. AM: After our packing sand and cement and lumber and so forth, Johnny Lang (?) and I, we were asked to take a stove up to Granite Park—a cook stove, a large cook stove. There was two or three other parties that started it, and they couldn't make it. They quit at the bottom of the hill, so they asked me if I wouldn't take it. I said "Okay, I'll try it." I took Johnny Lang with me— he was a friend of mine—and we took the stove up Swiftcurrent Pass. We went up that side mountain with 17 switchbacks, and we took the stove up the hill all right without too much trouble. But, the way we did it is we built an Indian travois, Johnny and I, and put poles across— little sticks across the travois—and put the stove on it and started up the hill. Well, we had this horse, big old gentle horse—big horse, gentle. The first switchback we come to Johnny stopped. He was leading the horse, and I was trailing back behind. He said "Well, how are we going to get around here?"
I said, "Well, wait, John," I said, "let's think this thing over." I said, "We got a lot of time to do this." I said, "Well, now, you lead the horse, and I'll take this pole that I have and I'll move these poles over around the trail—around the bend. You keep turning the horse to the next turn, and when we get straightened out, well, we'll go on," which we did. We kept that up, and it was two days on that side hill getting that stove up to the top of the hill. We got it down to Many Glaciers [unintelligible]. I meant to say to Granite Park. The second evening we delivered to stove to Granite Park. Then from there I said, we went back down to camp to Many Glaciers, and that was it.
BE: This mountain that you went up, there was how many switchbacks?
AM: Seventeen switchbacks.
BE: Two full days to get that stove up, and that's quite a story. Next time our listeners are up at Granite Park Chalet they might keep that among the many stories in mind. Do you have any other memories of the park that come to mind, Angus?
AM: I guided a party from New York City. There was seven in the party, and Mr. Brewster— that's the head of the horse concession boy—asked me if I wouldn't take this party out. I said, "Yes, I'll take them." There were seven in a party.
"Now," he said, "treat them good." He said, "They're people from New York City and so on. Treat them good."
I said, "All right." So we started out from Glacier Park Hotel. We went up over Two Medecine Hill there, Mount Henry, down on the other side to Two Medicine Chalet the first night. The second night we made Cut Bank Chalets, and the third night we made St. Mary's. The fourth night we made Sun Camp—Going to the Sun. They called it Going to the Sun. Then from there we went up over Piegan pass down to Many Glaciers, and we were there four days visiting Iceberg, Cracker Lake and Ptarmigan and so forth. Then we left there. We went up over the
10 Angus Monroe and Lilly Monroe Interview, OH 138-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. past, Swiftcurrent pass, to Granite Park. We were there two days at Granite Park. They visited around by foot. See, this was all horse back then. They visited round by foot, and the third day we left and went down the hill—off of the hill—to go down to Lake McDonald. On our way down to McDonald we took a little side trip. What's that little lake?
LM: Avalanche.
AM: Avalanche. We took a little side trip to Avalanche Lake. Then that evening, we got into Lewis Hotel, and they were there for a couple of days. I was there with them with the horses, see. I stayed until they told me I was done. They said, "Well, we're going to send Mr. Leeming," he was the head of this party. Mr. Leeming said, "Well we're through here, but I'm going back with you to St. Mary's. Me and my two boys."
I said, "Okay, that's fine. We'll go back." We went back over Gunsight Pass. The first stop we made was that little Sperry Glacier, and we had lunch there. We went on after lunch and went down to Sun Camp—stayed there that night. The next day we went into St. Mary's. We stayed that night there, and he said, "Could you ride from here to hotel"—that's east entrance.
Now, I said, "Well, we're not allowed to do that. That's again the rules here. If you go back from here, you've got to go back into Cut Bank, stay tonight at Cut Bank, and then back to Two Medicine, Then into the park see."
Well, they said, "Well, our schedule is up, and we'd like to try and get back to the railroad."
Well of course, I'm a pretty easy fellow to talk into anything, and I said "All right, let's go." I left St. Mary's early in the morning. We rode from St. Mary's to Glacier Park that one day with the old man and his two boys. When we got there, everything was fine. We pulled in, and of course I heard from it the next day from the Brewster brothers. They jumped on to me about making that one trip. So, everything was all right. I said, "Well, just forget about it. Forget about it." So anyway, that evening...The next morning now, the Brewster's came to me, and they said "There's two girls that want to go to Two Medicine today. You take them?"
I said, "Okay, I'll take them." So we went up over Mount Henry down to Two Medicine, had lunch, back to the hotel that night. So in the meantime, while I was gone, Mr. Leeming went to my house where we were living at the park. Went and saw my wife and asked her if she wouldn't let me go east with them. When they asked me, and I said, "No, I can't go. I can't go. The seasons are short here, and I've got to make all the money I can through this the season." Short season.
They said, "Well, you're going to go."
I said, "No."
11 Angus Monroe and Lilly Monroe Interview, OH 138-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. Right about that time Mr. Brewster come to me, and he said, "There's tw o girls that want to go over Two Medicine."
I said, "I'll take them."
LM: (Unintelligible).
AM: No, that was second party. So, I took the two girls, and I figured I'd run away from this party now. I took the two girls over, and I come back to the hotel that night, and I thought, now, when I unsaddle my horses I'm going for the brush to get away from these folks. I didn't want to go to New York. Anyway, when I rode up to the barn they had these people stationed at every train that came into the barn. His party, see, so that I wouldn't get away from them. They didn't know I was going to hide, but they they caught me there. They said, "Well, you're going."
I said "All right." I said "I'll go up to the house first." I figured I'd try and get away there, but Mr. Leeming...Did he bring his two boys?
LM: Yes.
AM: Mr. Leeming and the tw o boys come up the house with me, and she got my grip ready and so forth and I went to New York with him. I was gone —
LM: Three months.
AM: —three months in New York City. I stayed with them. They had a nice big home and they were wealthy people, and we visited every day New York and Long Island everywhere we could travel.
LM: [unintelligible]
AM; So, I wrote to the I wrote to the missus one day. I was tired of New York City. I'm no city guy. After I was there a full five days, I wrote a letter to her, and I said, "Well, you write to Mr. Leeming and tell him that kids are sick, and I've got to be home and all this and that." Of course, when she wrote back to Leeming, she told Leeming to keep me there as long as he wanted to keep me. I didn't know this, see, but he kept me there until one day I said, "Well, I'll tell you, Mr. Leeming," I said, "I'd like to go home." I said —it was pretty late in the winter now—"I'd like to go back, and I got to go to work and feed him a family."
He said "You needn't worry about your family." He said, "I'm going to send you back home, but I'm going to send you back round the eastern part back in through the eastern states and all this." Had it all mapped out on the map to where I was to travel. Take the train and buses and so forth back into Los Angeles and round. Clear around the country. I said "No, I'll tell you
12 Angus Monroe and Lilly Monroe Interview, OH 138-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. something, Mr. Leeming." I said "I'd like to get home." I said, "You send me back home just as straight as a Injun goes to his back house"
He said, "Wwhat does that mean?"
I said, "I can't tell you but I said you send me home on this next train the way we come in," I said. So he did.
LM: He wrote and told me every day where they went and one thing or another. He said he got quite a kick out of Angus. His offices was on the 25th floor of the Woolworth Building, which at that time was the largest, tallest building in New York City. He asked Angus what Angus thought of the building, and Angus told him, "By god, that's some shack." [laughs]
BE: Angus what about some of your impressions as, I guess we could say, a cowboy in New York. What did you think about it, and more than that, what did they think about you?
AM: Well, I'll tell you something, Bob. He had a big office on the 25th floor, and this one room they had about...well, I don't know how many girls. Looked to me about 20, 25 girls all working, typing, so on. So we walked to the window there, and he says "Come over here." He said, "What do you think of the river down there?"
I said, "By Jove," I said, "that's some crik." Well, that's the way us fellows talk in Montana. You know, the old cowboys. Of course, I'm not a real old cowboy, but that's the expression that cowboys used to have. They just say those kind of words. Well then this building...about the building, why, he took me outside and we looked up and he said, "What do you think of it?"
I said, "By Jove," I says, "that's some shack." [laughs] Then of course everything that we did...he wrote a letter to her every day, and telling her about our trips.
LM: Angus even made the jail while he was there. Let me tell you.
AM: Well all right. I got tired staying up there. You know, he had me caged up all the time. He wouldn't let me out. So this one afternoon now I went up there, and he sat me down and he said you write a letter. He wanted me to write a letter every day, and I wouldn't do it, oh no. I said, "I don't have to write letters. She knows where I'm at." But he'd write, see. Well, so this afternoon though I thought, I'll get away from this old feller. I was sitting in this building every day. I was tired of it. So I sneaked out of the door. He was over there busy, and I sneaked out of the door and I walked around this 25th story. I didn't know how to get down now. I never knew about elevators—anything like that. I'd walk by and see fellers standing at a door and another over here, and there was a lot of elevators along there, see. Finally, I asked a fella, "How do you get down off of here."
He said, "Well, well when this door opens, you step in here."
13 Angus Monroe and Lilly Monroe Interview, OH 138-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. I said, "All right." So, I waited. The door opened, when I stepped in, he says, "Where do you want to go?"
I said, "I want to go clear to the bottom." Well, we went to bottom all right, and when you hit the bottom to come up on to the sidewalk, the street, you had to go up five or six stairs. So I walked up there and I looked around, and I felt pretty free looking around. I said, "Well, I'm going down this way." I walk down the street, and I met some boys sitting under these elevators...train where they...These streetcars run you know. It was a cool down there so I sat down and visited the boys. Well, when I got through there, I walked on down towards the river, and I looked at the river there a little bit. There was a nice big bar there. Nice place, and I walked in to get a glass of beer. It was hot and I walked in there, and there was three old fellers sitting in this bar. When I walked in I...Of course naturally it's...whenever you walk into a bar those days years ago—I don't know if they do it nowadays—you know if there's anybody in there, "Come on boys, have a drink with my," something like that. I asked these old fellers up, and they never came up to the bar. They just sat there and looked at me. The bartender said, he said, "You're from the West."
I said, "Yes."
"What part?"
I said, "Montana."
He says, "They don't do that here." He said, "They don't know what this means." He said, "What do you want?"
I said, "I want a glass of beer," small glass. He gave me a...They call them schooners. About that high, that big around, and a handle on it. He set in the front of me. I said, "Gee, I only wanted little bit."
He says, "You drink what you want." [laughs] He said, "We don't sell small glasses." He says, "Schooner, it's only a nickel to you." I drank two, three sips of it, and then I quit and went out.
Anyway when I went out, I went back to this building—Woolworths. Well, I got lost, of course naturally. I wanted to get lost I guess, I don't know. Anyway, by gosh, I was standing on a street, and I could see people going in a hole. They're go in there and go down the hole. Well, I walked up and I'd look and I'd look, and I was watching all the time. Pretty soon I saw some come out, and then these would go down. So, I said, "By god, I'm going to watch now. There's a feller there, there's a lady there with a red dress on. I'm going to watch. If she comes out, I'm going to go down in there and see what's down in there. There must be something." Well, big old burly police walked up to me, and he tapped me on the shoulder. He said, "You better walk on." That's all he said, and he walked away. So, I didn't pay much attention to him, but I walked
14 Angus Monroe and Lilly Monroe Interview, OH 138-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. probably 10 or 15 feet or so. I stopped and I was watching that hole, but I was watching for that girl to come out. Well, she never came out, never came out. So policeman came along, and he said, "Come with me," and he just hooked his arm in my arm. He said, "You'll come with me."
I said, "Oh my god, wait a minute here. I haven't done anything."
"Oh come on," he said, "you come with me," he said.
I said, "All right." He looked three times as big as I was so I thought, I better walk with him. He took me down...He didn't throw me in jail [unintelligible, but he took me down to the police station. In the meantime, this old feller that I was living with lost me, and he was calling all over the New York City. Calling everybody, calling the police and everybody. Give them my description. All this time this policeman had me, see, he took me down to the police station. So he took me in there, and I said to...There was a fella sitting pretty high on a shelf there, and I said to this fella, I said, "Are you the judge, or what are you up there"
He said, "I'm the judge."
I said, "W hat'd that fella throw me in here for?" I said, "I haven't done anything." I said, "I'm a stranger here," and I said, "I'm from Montana."
He said, "You just sit right there." He said, "Sit right there." All right, I went sat there, and I thought, well, my gosh I better do as he tell me. He might throw me in jail. I sat there, oh, about an hour. A fella walked in—a young fella walked in—and judge said, "Here's your man." That was Mr. Leeming's brother-in-law—this fella I was with. So this young feller said to me, he says, "Your name Monroe?"
I said, "Yeah."
"What is it?"
I said, "Angus Monroe."
He said, "You're the boy I'm looking for. Come on."
"All right." He took me up to his house. I don't know where it was at—somewhere in the city. He put me in a room and he locked the door, and he seen that the windows were all locked and the outside windows was locked. He put me in there and he said, "Now, you can lay down here. There's a bed and everything here."
Heck I said, "I don't want to lay down." I said, "It's early." I said, "I want to get out and look around."
15 Angus Monroe and Lilly Monroe Interview, OH 138-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. He said, "You stay here." He didn't tell me what for. I stayed in that room there all night. He didn't feed me, so next morning Mr. Leeming came. That's the man that I was with. He drove from Long Island. It's 30 miles out there to his place. He come walking in there, and this fella opened the door and Leeming met me and he just throwed his arms around me just like a girl. By gosh, he was glad to see me, and oh gosh, he didn't know what to do. Of course, he was afraid I suppose, that I'd pull out or leave or get lost or something. But anyway, he said, "Come on.
LM: Well tell them [unintelligible].
AM: Oh, I never got to see what was down there. It was policemen. Well, it's the subway. Well, this hole was a subway, you see. There's streetcars under there and so forth. But anyway, this Leeming took me out, and of course, he had a chauffeur. Put me in the car, and we started out. I said, "Say, Mr. Leeming, I haven't had anything to eat since yesterday noon," I said.
Well he said, "Didn't that boy feed you?"
I said, "No, nobody fed me." I said, "I want to eat." So we went and had a little lunch, and then he took me back to his office up the 25th story.
Now he said, "You stay here." He said, "We're going to leave this afternoon." He said, "We're going to take a trip."
I said, "All right, I'll be here." So I sat there. That afternoon he took me out, and we went down and visit the Statue of Liberty. Took a boat out there, and we visited it, and we walked up to the arm and out there and so forth. He said, "How do you like this?"
I said, "This is great. This is fine," I said.
He said, "W e're going home little early. Tomorrow," he said, "we're going down to Long Island—the other end of Long Island." It's 100 miles down there. He said, "Would you like that trip."
I said, "Anywhere at all. It doesn't make a difference to me. I'd go anywhere." I said, "It's all a trip to me. I've seen the scenery and seen the ocean," and all this and that. So we made the trip.
LM: He was a horseman too.
AM: So that evening we got back home, and that's when he had this marked out to send me home. I said, "Oh no, you not sending me that way. You send me back this way on the Great Northern. You send me back the way..." [laughs] So anyway that's. Let's se e -
16 Angus Monroe and Lilly Monroe Interview, OH 138-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. LM: Mr. Leeming was the importer for what they call Bengay now—analgesic balm—and his son carries the business there. Leeming Mileage Company in Montreal [Leeming-Miles Co.]. He was a...They called him th e —
DF: How do you spell that name?
LM: Leeming?
AM: L-doulbe e-m-i-n-g.
LM: Yes.
BE: Concluding this discussion today, we thought it'd be kind of interesting to ask Angus and Mrs. Monroe some of their memories of the towns as they remember them way back when. So, Angus, you had some memories of Cut Bank.
AM: I don't remember how old I was, but I went down there with my dad. Teen days, quite a while ago. Well anyway, as I can remember the town was down on the river bottom where the bridge is today. It was a wooden bridge in those days. There was four or five tents. They called them saloons in those days—I remember then—and there was a tent there. They had a store— a little store there—selling little groceries. That was the town of Cut Bank those days.
BE: What about Browning?
AM: Well, Browning. I really don't quite remember too much of Browning, but she can tell you.
BE: Let's ask Mrs. Monroe.
LM: I don't remember much about Browning, but I do know this much. We were living right where Harold Scriver (?) lives today west of Browning, and my mother boarded the carpenters that built the agency when they moved up from old agency there. My mother boarded them there. That was around about 1893 or '94 or '95. There was no Browning. My dad had...Where Browning stands today was my dad's hay meadow.
BE: What about some place like Dupuyer? Did you remember that?
AM: No, I do not remember anything about Dupuyer.
BE: What about Shelby, yeah?
AM: Well, Shelby, as I remember, there was just a few buildings at Shelby. Just one of the building still stands today, I think is that old hotel. I don't—
17 Angus Monroe and Lilly Monroe Interview, OH 138-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. AM: But the trains used to stop. There was what they call a junction just west of Shelby there. They called it Shelby Junction. The narrow-gauge used to come from Lethbridge down to Shelby and then back. That was the tow n—part of the town.
LM: And Cut Bank was never called Cut Bank. It was always called Cut Bank Bridge.
BE: I wish we had more time. My guests today have been Mr. and Mrs. Angus Monroe. Angus Monroe, the grandson of the first white man who ever came to this area, and he's probably the only man around who ever talked with the first white man who came to this area. He's also, he and Mrs. Monroe, good friends of Charlie Russell. Some memories there, and also some memories of a cowboy in New York. I've thoroughly enjoyed talking with Mr. and Mrs. Monroe, and I hope you've enjoyed listening to it.
[End of interview]
18 Angus Monroe and Lilly Monroe Interview, OH 138-001, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula.