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How It Looks Going Back
In 1949, taking a break from San Diego’s post–World War II bustle, the Knowles family went camping in Canada. Heading home through northwest Montana’s Yaak River country, they found a two-bedroom, story-and-half log cabin on a small lake.
There was neither electricity nor plumbing. Access was via dirt road, slow at best and iffy during the long, hard winters. Darwin Knowles saw a peaceful life, and adventurous wife Marilyn agreed. Third-grader daughter, Dee (for Doris), could attend the one-room school, and three-year-old Bob (Barbara) have a safe place to play. Enthusiastic but ignorant of wilderness living, the family moved in that fall—working together to cook and heat with wood, hunt and fish for food, haul water, and wash clothes by hand.
They stayed for six years, during which son Stevie was born. Dee’s reminiscence of her childhood in “the Yaak” presents quirky neighbors, growing girls’ adventures, wildlife huge and tiny, and especially one loving family. As she writes, “It was a cozy, scary, painful, hilarious, dangerous, interesting, and grand time, and the most fun I ever had.”
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WHEN THE MEADOWLARK SINGS
by Nedra Sterry
Born in 1918 in Fort Benton, Montana,
Nedra Sterry has crafted a remarkable memoir of life
on the Montana prairies and a childhood defined in equal
measure by poverty and grace, hard work and family ties.
Sterry's memoir traces her family through the homesteading
boom, the Great Depression, World War II, and more.
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GRACE
STONE COATES: Her Life in Letters
By Lee Rostad
Grace Stone Coates is the extraordinary
story of a demure Montana housewife and writer (Black Cherries)
and her personal correspondence with William Saroyan (The
Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze), as well as Montana
literary lion, H.G. Merriam, Frank Bird Linderman, James
Rankin, and many others. It is a very engaging adventure
that reveals the brilliant, passionate woman that is Montana
writer Grace Stone Coates.
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FLOATING
ON THE MISSOURI:
100 Years After Lewis & Clark
By James Willard Schultz
An entertaining travelogue of the 1901
float trip on the Missouri River along part of the same
route of Lewis & Clark along with a collection of frontier
stories, memories, and Indian legends.
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GIVE ME MOUNTAINS FOR MY
HORSES
By Tom Reed
Tom Reed has a real affinity for horses
and wilderness, and it shows on every page in his true
tales about trail riding, horse packing, and great mountain
horses. Even if you have never saddled up, you will be
drawn into these heart-tugging stories of special horses,
their remarkable abilities, and the inescapable bonds that
develop between horses and humans.
“You’ll reach the end of the book wishing there were a few more chapters,
a few more recollections, a few more horses. If you’ve ever had the slightest
desire to have a horse of your own, this book is a must-read. It evokes feelings
all horse lovers have felt, whether they could put words to those emotions or
not.”
-Ty Stockton, Wyoming Wildlife
“Every once in a while I come across a book that swallows me whole. Each
time as I reluctantly put it down, dragging my eyes from the pages leaves me
disoriented as my mind is full of the images that I’ve just read about.
Tom Reed’s latest book is one of those rare books that takes readers on
a journey with each chapter.” -Cara Eastwood, Wyoming News
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THE STORY OF MARY MACLANE
By Mary MacLane
The sensational book that turned a Montana
teenager into a worldwide celebrity. A breathtaking tour
de force about life, love, and longing.
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