“I was born poor, didn’t have any attendants at my birth, except my mother and 13-month old sister, Sylvia. Mighty cold in Montana during the winter; my Dad walked out on snowshoes, but didn’t get back in time with the doc. Poor Daddy—another girl. So I got my name, Harlene Jessie. I was ordered from the Sears Roebuck Catalog, as all my brothers and Sylvia were.”With these words my mother began writing her girlhood memories. Her authentic accounts are sometimes funny: her story of the runt pig, miraculously waxing fat after eating the crankcase oil out of a Model T Ford. Sometimes bad, like “the worst day” in her life when her brother blew off his hand by hammering a dynamite cap with a rock. Another brother almost died from eating carbide cookies. This girl had an unusual childhood, growing up near a dying mining town called Jardine, not far from Gardiner, Montana, on the edge of Yellowstone Park. Her book is a must-read if you are interested in the disappearing Wild West as seen through the eyes of a little girl.
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