Montana Books

This review applies to the 1973 1st edition.

Big, comprehensive, and attractive.

Large format, heavy paper, 286 pp with about 80 black and white illustrations. Printed by a real publishing house, Caxton Printers, this book avoids the "yearbook-y" appearance of many of its peers.

Table of Contents

The Earliest Years
The Building of the Railroad
The Young Town: What Was it Really Like?
The Young Town: How Did it Grow?
That Memorable Year, 1910
1911-1918
From WWI Through WWII
Since WWII: The Ski Thing
The Schools
The Churches
The Hospital and the Medical Professions
Organizations
And What of the Future?

Appendix: 1913 Telephone Book Listings
Appendix: Whitefish Library and Library Association Officers

Bibliography
Index

This review applies to the 1973 1st edition.

Big, comprehensive, and attractive.

Large format, heavy paper, 286 pp with about 80 black and white illustrations. Printed by a real publishing house, Caxton Printers, this book avoids the "yearbook-y" appearance of many of its peers.

Table of Contents

The Earliest Years
The Building of the Railroad
The Young Town: What Was it Really Like?
The Young Town: How Did it Grow?
That Memorable Year, 1910
1911-1918
From WWI Through WWII
Since WWII: The Ski Thing
The Schools
The Churches
The Hospital and the Medical Professions
Organizations
And What of the Future?

Appendix: 1913 Telephone Book Listings
Appendix: Whitefish Library and Library Association Officers

Bibliography
Index

In economically depressed Jester, Montana, twelve of the local merchants each chip in a dollar every week for the Big Bucks Multi State Lottery. When one of their numbers hit, they win over $1 million each after taxes.
In this third installment in the Millionaire, Montana series, Jennifer Faulkner inherits her grandfather's share of the jackpot. As a child, Jennifer spent summers and holidays with her grandparents but has not been back for ten years. On her first day back in Jester, Jennifer literally runs into the love of her life, Sheriff Luke McNeil. Each believes the other dumped them ten years ago. Can they work out their differences and rekindle their love?
This is the best book in the series so far. The relationship between Jennifer and Luke sizzles. Luke's sister Vicki is a good secondary character who never gives up on trying to reunited her close friend with her brother.

This slim volume of stories by a young Montana writer focuses on the perspectives of youth - first romances, newlyweds, relationships between parents and children. His mastery of the craft of storytelling makes them sparkle with precision, and his knowledge and apparent love of hunting and fishing give them a dimension not often found in fiction.

My favorite in this collection, "Broken Flock," weaves together the story of a boy and his divorced father, duck hunting together, and a lesson about life that draws an analogy between shooting into a flock of flying birds and the excitement of romantic conquests. A close second, "Bone Yard," concerns a game warden whose nights in a cemetery watching for poachers are an excuse to stay away from a failing marriage.

Tyrannical, self-absorbed, and absent fathers figure in several stories, like the uncle in "Trash Fish," whose rage has made him the black sheep of the family, finally alienating his nephew while they are fishing. The spirit of a dying father attends his son and the old man's friend as they hunt turkeys in "Spring," and an already dead father leaves a bitter legacy to his three sons in "Eulogy."

Infidelity is the subject of other stories, as the wife of an unfaithful husband in "Bean Time" waits patiently for him to end an affair and only then experiences a change of heart about him. The discovery of an unfaithful wife sends her buttoned-down husband on a cross-country trip to New Orleans in "Mardi Gras." A young fisherman struggling with guilt and remorse over an extramarital dalliance is caught in a storm-tossed lake in "Storm Clouds."

Meanwhile, the sweetness of young love finds plausible and quirky expression in "Eloping," as a lawman welcomes his L.A. bride-to-be to Montana. In "Breathing On the Third Stroke," a swimmer comes to terms with his basketball playing young wife. In "Shooting Stars," a broke but optimistic couple has car trouble at night on an Indian reservation. And in "Mighty Mouse and Blue Cheese From the Moon," a young wife copes good humoredly on a fishing trip with her not-so-bright husband.

A well-written book filled with many small pleasures, a depth of compassion for people of sometimes limited resources, an understanding of heartbreak and resolve, and a love of the outdoors.

Aptly edited and with an informative introduction for contemporary readers by Kenneth N. Owens, A Tenderfoot In Montana: Reminiscences Of The God Rush, The Vigilantes, And The Birth Of Montana Territory is Frank Thompson's autobiography detailing his experiences in the upper Missouri country at the beginning of the Montana gold rush. Avoiding the Civil War, Thompson had headed west aboard a steamboat from St. Louis in 1862, arriving at Fort Benton (in what would eventually become the Montana Territory) and lived their for two and a half years searching for gold, running a Bannack mercantile business, traveling to the Pacific Coast, serving in Montana's first territorial legislature, and speculating in mining properties. Having a relationship with sheriff Henry Plummer, Thompson draws upon his intimate personal knowledge of one of the deadliest incidents of vigilante justice in American frontier history. A Tenderfoot In Montana is a welcome and informative contribution to 19th Century American Western History Studies collections and highly recommended reading for anyone with an interest in how the Montana Territory developed during the mid-1860s.

Aside from Jomo Kenyata's treatise on his tribe, the Kikuyu, I am not familiar with any other anthropological tribal study by a scientist who is also an ethnic member of the tribe he is discussing. For that reason alone, this book is worth wading through, although for anyone not schooled in anthropology jargon it can be very heavy going at times. Perhaps the author was bending over backwards to enhance the impression of objectivity, as his "informants" were probably either relatives or friends. However, it is a fascinating discussion of a subject that normally is not discussed with outsiders, and for anyone who is interested in Rio Grande pueblo culture, this is an indispensable volume and well worth the candle.

I just loved this book. The honesty was inspiring and it gave help and hope as a parent and a wife.
It is a story of tremendous courage and I could not put it down. thank you Ellen Waterston for sharing your family's journey.

In the second book Kayla leaves home and gets a job at a dude ranch out west. When she is out riding she discovers a horse carcas. She is mortified on who would be killing these magestic horses. Then when her own life becomes endangered can she discover who it is in time to save herself? I discovered the answer- can you?

A fast-paced, wide-open space adventure with a no nonsense young woman and a boy trained as an expert with a Winchester traveling across the wilds with a somewhat slow-witted but kind giant of a man who can stand feet-to-feet and fist-to-fist with the best of them. A must read for the western fan.

This was one of the few titles I lacked of MRR. I ordered, and it was back-ordered for so long that at one point I didn't think I'd get it at all. But I did and I'm really happy to have it. This book tells of many of the real-life adventures Mary Roberts Rinehart and her family had--back when the great Northwest really was only becoming known. She brought the cowboys, the trail drives, the friendships--and the dangers--to life wonderfully.