Montana History author, Roberta A. Beute will be visiting Big Sandy for a reading of her first book on Tuesday, February 15th at 4 PM at the Big Sandy Public Library. As It Was: A Common Thread began as an effort on Roberta’s part to preserve some of the stories of the ranchers in the Sweet Grass Hills. She began by interviewing her neighbors, many of them homesteaders or descendants of homesteaders. Before long, she was researching the various factors that brought all of the people and resources to our state and made it into what it is today.
“I started writing it many years ago, gathering the information for it because I was living in the Sweet Grass Hills. A good portion of the book centers around the Sweet Grass Hills, and the 49th parallel, Charlie Russell’s Ranch up there. I was interested in this because I had moved up to the Sweet Grass Hills and lived on a ranch up there for 22 years. I could see that the generations were changing for country that was pretty much untouched and there was transitioning going on. We were losing a lot of the first generation homesteaders that were there in the hills. Sometimes their sons stayed and sometimes not. The ranches for the first time were starting to transfer a little bit, and now through the generations, they have transferred a lot. I captured as many of the elderly people and interviewed them, just because I thought this was pretty interesting, this is a pretty interesting area, pretty much untouched.” This realization prompted her to expand her research and put as much into the book as she could in order to preserve the unique history of the area and its character.
The story chronicles the forces that brought the ranchers to the area, particularly the resources and homestead opportunities. From there, she explores the forces that have resulted in the area changing gradually. The large ranchers who began their lives in the area during the period of the Homestead Act had established large ranches and were able to stay in the area well as a result. “At that time, the land was still open range, so they could actually run thousands of head of cattle and not have to pay income or property taxes. Nothing was surveyed or fenced. Those old guys, the ones who got there first and homesteaded, some of them made it. But some of them did not, just because of the changing weather and the depletion of range and the running out of gold at Gold Butte. That was a big thing. A lot of people came to just mine the gold, but that ran out really fast. When that happened and everybody had to make a living off the land and the weather, just like all agriculture does. At that time, there wasn’t the technologies for that. When income taxes came in and property taxes came along, they had to fence and pay that expense. They had to cut down on the size of their herds. That all happened and a whole lot of people left for that reason. The ones who were left were second generation, with their parents having moved to towns along the Highline…” She spends time exploring the history of the small towns as well, looking at the various forces that shrank many small towns in Northern Montana and shifted populations to Great Falls and other cities.
Of particular interest to students of Montana History is her exploration of the various treaties and the surveying of the 49th Parallel as the border between the United States and Canada. This further shaped the Sweet Grass Hills area and left many residents uncertain of their own nationality for a time. “There were people who settled on the south side of the Milk River thinking they were in the United States. Until the 49th parallel got surveyed, they were kinda families without a country. It’s an interesting part of history that nobody really captured all in one place. You can find it in bits and pieces, like I did. Once I delved into it I found out a lot of the information I had before was not factual. I cleaned that all up and found some really interesting facts about the country, the trees, the laws that were passed and the people. Their real actual history.”
Roberta explained her approach to local readings. “I try and pick the area, like I’ll be coming up to Big Sandy on the 15th, and I pick parts of my book from that specific area. I try to give them a general… what I like to do at readings is, if I can get someone to ask a question I’m excited because that means they heard what I said and something in there was interesting to them.” When I asked about the Big Sandy specific information, Roberta related the interesting story of her 40 year research pursuit of Chas E. Morris, who photographed Charlie Russell extensively. One of the photos that appears in her book came to her in a folder labeled “Chas E. Morris, Big Sandy, Montana.” With great difficulty she was able to find information on Morris, who lived briefly in Big Sandy, later moving to Chinook. He was a close, trusted friend of the Russell family. Many of the photos in her book were taken by the former Big Sandy resident. She explained that this made our town of particular significance to her in the research process.
Her book is an interesting collection of stories, facts, and careful research resulting in a finished product that is more than a dry history read. It is the story of our area, told as a story. One reviewer remarked that it was obvious that Roberta lived in the area she was writing about. Her familiarity with the life and character of the ranchers shows through in her words. She explains: “I’ve never run out of things to talk about because I have actually lived this life. I rode horseback over the same territory. I did the same work that these cowboys did. Lived in the rural area… So I have those answers. Plus I did an awful lot of research. I know my material.”
Roberta pointed out that the book is a particular slice of Montana, which no other history book engages in the same depth. Beyond the fact that the history is all local, so is the source for the art and all of the photographs. “Everything is local. Everything is comprehensive.” This is why she is working so hard to get copies of her book in libraries and schools around the state. It is a rare and unique work of our Montana history. The reading is a wonderful chance for locals to learn from a student of our region.
