My grandmother passed away this morning at her home in Arlee, Montana. She was 96. Born in New York but raised on the desolate prairie in Saskatchewan, her parents sent her to live with family friends in New York City in her early teens so she could have a better education and learn about the world. She returned to the West in 1928 to attend college at Montana State College (now the University of Montana) in Missoula - also my alma mater. She graduated with a degree in journalism in 1932, one of few women at that time to do so. She worked on a gorgeous ranch nestled in the Jocko Valley outside of Missoula in a little town called Arlee, which is on the Flathead Indian Reservation. She married the man who owned the ranch, and never left it - she lived on that ranch for over 70 years, the last 39 years by herself (my grandfather died in 1966). She loved literature, reading The New Yorker, and all animals.
I'll write more about Cornelia soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment