Our day began with a hearty diner breakfast with
extra transfats, then we went to the Teddy Roosevelt National Park in Medora and snapped Nana pointing to the map of TR's ranch. Right next door on the map is Margaret Roberts' (Nana's grandma's) Ranch-- they were good friends.
Next stop: the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame. Here's Nana in front of Margaret Barr Roberts' plaque. Only a few women are in the hall of fame, and Sacajawea is the only woman who comes before MBR. She raised five daughters alone after her husband left one day and never came back. It's presumed he ran into the wrong Indian or group of Indians. Anyway, she was one tough cookie-- Nana remembers her from her youth when she was living in Dickinson; she died when Nana was 18.
We stopped to take pictures of the Painted Valley on our way to New England.
New England, ND. Here's Nana sitting in THE HOUSE SHE WAS BORN IN! This is the very room: her father's surgery. With her is Teresa Tarpo, who's lived in the house since 1975. She's a sweetie, and an intrepid historian of all things New England. She whipped out a phonebook-sized history of the town with a paragraph on Dr. Sarchet. The big news: we learned about his FIRST WIFE! Nana had always heard people ask about a first wife, but knew nothing about her or if she even existed. Now we know: she was Martha Gilgan of Caldwell, Idaho. Don't know how long they were married or how they parted (Nana suspects divorce), but now the cat's out of the bag. Can't wait to tell our Sarchet genealogist friend from Florida....
The house. I000 Main St New England SD
The Sitting Bull Memorial located across from Mobridge on a butte overlooking the Missouri. The plaque says: "Sitting Bull was originally buried at Ft. Yates, North Dakota. On April 8, 1953, surviving relatives with the aid of the South Dakota Memorial Association moved his remains to the present location." Nana knows the real story, however. Big Sister's good friend Julius (with whom she lived during her later years) went with some friends in the middle of the night and STOLE SITTING BULL'S REMAINS from North Dakota, hauled them down to Mobridge, buried them and covered them with several tons of concrete, so no one else could steal them again. So far, so good. Score one for the "South Dakota Memorial Association!"
Had too much dinner at a restaurant with this guy in Mobridge on the shores of the Missouri River (behind through the window). Now in a motel room with too many flies, dad was bitten by a horsefly, and the internet is not working....hmm.
I love the story about the midnight raid by Julius and team to bring Sitting Bull's bones back home!
ReplyDeleteI found this bit about Grandma Roberts - thought you might like it. I had heard she sold garden flowers to the restaurant of the hotel:
Margaret Barr Roberts’s story demonstrates that an energetic and enterprising woman could manage well on the land. She married J. L. Roberts in Iowa in 1871, and they moved to western Dakota Territory in 1877. By 1883 they had bought a badlands ranch on which they raised livestock, but in 1886 J. L. Roberts left home and never returned. Margaret Roberts hired help to work the ranch. She fed herself and her five daughters on wild game, wild fruits, and garden vegetables. She produced butter, eggs, and meat and sold these items as well as surplus vegetables, wild fruit, and garden flowers. She sewed, knitted, and washed clothes for pay. She also had the help of the county commissioners who did not tax her ranch one year. Utilizing available resources, she managed to keep the ranch and raise her family without her husband.
From “Women of the Northern Plains: Gender and Settlement on the Homestead: by Barbara Handy-Marchello