Preceptions of Time - Connections

The West Rosebud River Valley

The Fishtail Creek Drainage comes in at Fishtail, Montana

This is the area I call Home - Absarokee Country - Stillwater County
Crow country

We celebrated Jennie's birthday yesterday by watching Kimmy play basketball and then having  a Grandma Rose dinner here at the house.  I was showing them the post on the Brennan Ranch and talking about how it was then. A thought occurred to me after they had left last night for home.  I was discussing with them events that occurred 55 years ago .  My grandson Brandon is 10 years old.  As a way of comparison to my perception of time, I made the following calculations: a) when I was 10 years old the year was 1948. b) if my grandfathers (both of whom I never knew) had discussed with me at age 10 events occurring 55 years previous c) we would have been discussing events occurring in approximately 1893!  I know nothing of my grandfather Fredrick Chapman.  My grandfather John Kinsfather would have been approximately 68 years old.  55  years previous to 1948, he would have been 13 so he could well have remembered events occurring in 1893.  I wish I would have had this connection with my grandfathers and their life stories.  I wonder if my grandchildren will grow to appreciate this connection with the past. On the other hand, is it no wonder that we often times  mis-communicate with our children and grandchildren? 

When Mike and I visited the Brennan Ranch we stopped at the ranch just down the Sweet Grass  valley from the Brannen place to obtain the key to the next gate so we could continue on up the valley to the ranch.  I happened to be a classmate of the granddaughter of the owner of the ranch so I was able to strike up a "meaningful" conversation with the woman who was the "guardian of the gate".  At one point in the conversation I asked "how long has your family been on this ranch?"  She replied, "since 1883 ."   ~ that's 6 years before Montana statehood. She also noted to me that the four Brennan boys had trailed their stock including the angora goats up from New Mexico running from a range war.  She noted that this had occurred  after her husband's family had settled on their ranch.  She was proud to note that their ranch had never changed family ownership since it's inception and that the Brannen place had changed ownership only once - and that her son was married to the daughter who had inherited the place from Spike VanCleve.

I love stories.  They help to explain who we are and how we got here ~ as a person, as a society, as a Montana, as a nation, etc.  As a Montanan my "story" has always been influenced by the "land".  I was reminded of this once again on my trip back home.  The mountains of Montana are my cathedral. Western authors write about this sense of place Montanans, in particular, seem to have.  I understand.

Gordon, et.al.