Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation



Montana DNRC Oral History Project______________________________________________________________________________Interviewee: Helen CareyInterviewer: Brad HansenDate of Interview: November 4, 2017Location: Tom Carey Cattle Company, Boulder, Montana.[00:00:00] Brad Hansen: My name is Brad Hansen and I am a volunteer with the Montana Department of Natural Resources & Conservation. Today is November 4, 2017. It's four degrees outside and about sixteen inches of snow on the ground. I am with Helen Carey at her ranch. And the name of the ranch is...[00:00:34] Helen Carey: Tom Carey Cattle Company.[00:00:39] Brad Hansen: And, it's located between Boulder and Whitehall near mile marker 21, I believe.[00:00:47] Helen Carey: And the Ranch Bed and Breakfast. [00:00:49] Brad Hansen: And the Ranch Bed and Breakfast. Thank you. Helen, just for the record will you give us your name, spell it out, and then your date of birth. [00:01:01] Helen Carey: Helen Carey, 11/16/1938. [00:01:13] Brad Hansen: Helen, do you remember your place of birth? The city, county, state? [00:01:19] Helen Carey: Williston, North Dakota. And it was in Williams County. [00:01:30] Brad Hansen: Okay, a little family history here. Your parents' names and places of birth. [00:02:10] Helen Carey: Cecelia Fry Greutman (married name) and she was born May 5, 1915. She was born in a little house on the prairie near Alexander, North Dakota. My dad was Herman Greutman, January 23, 1913. He was born in Williston, North Dakota. [00:03:12] Brad Hansen: The Greutman name, do you know where that name comes from? [00:03:14] Helen Carey: I do. My grandparents immigrated from Switzerland, from Schaffausen on the Rhine, Switzerland. [00:03:27] Brad Hansen: Do you know when they settled in North Dakota? [00:03:31] Helen Carey: My grandmother was married to the one brother, and they came to this country and were in San Francisco during the earthquake in 1906, with a tiny baby. They were displaced and moved up to Seattle where he died and left her widowed with a tiny baby. Her only means of support was to clean houses for people so she could take the baby with her while she was working. She got in touch with his brother who lived in Williston, North Dakota. And, like they do in Europe, the brother sent for her and married her. They had my dad. My dad and his sister were first cousins and they were half siblings. Shared a mother, but different fathers who were brothers. That was kind of how they did it in Europe in the olden days, I think. The next brother in line would see to the support of the widow and any children. [00:04:47] Brad Hansen: Where did they farm and ranch? [00:04:52] Helen Carey: My paternal grandparents? They lived right on the outskirts of town and had a milk cow and gardens and were really self-sufficient. A little later on they had a commercial green house. They had huge gardens and fruit trees. They raised grapes in North Dakota! They had a vineyard. My grandmother made wines and jams and jellies and juice. By the time I was born there were other houses around, but we were on the very edge of town. [00:05:41] Brad Hansen: Just to clarify, Ceceila and Herman, those are your parents? Your grandparents, I didn't get their names. [00:05:53] Helen Carey: Bertha and Herman Greutman. You probably don't need her maiden name, but if you do it was Vogelsanger. I think it means song bird. Her father, she always used to say, was a musician. [00:06:24] Brad Hansen: So your grandparents, they were from Switzerland? [00:06:27] Helen Carey: Yes, and my grandfather was on the Olympic gymnastics team, but it was just for the entertainment of the upper echelon. They didn't have Olympics, I don't think. Maybe they did, but he was on a gymnastic team in the 1800s. I always thought that was very interesting. He had a lot of medals that he had won. [00:07:15] Brad Hansen: So, it was your grandparents who immigrated to the U.S. from Switzerland? And they settled on a farm or ranch? [00:07:18] Helen Carey: Well, grandpa was working...they lived out of town for a while and he was the caretaker of the water plant. [00:07:39] Brad Hansen: Where was that? [00:07:40] Helen Carey: Out of Williston. Their place when I was growing up was just on the edge of town. That was always when they mild cows and gardens and stuff like that. That's what I grew up with. Outside of town would have been when my dad was growing up. My mother's parents, maternal, her mother died when she was in the seventh or eighth grade. She had to drop out of school and raise three younger sisters. One of them was only six weeks old when the mother died. Some of the relatives took them and the older girls stayed with my mother. Her dad was a sheep shearer. He was even doing that when I was growing up. He had a little sheep wagon that he pulled in back of his Model A. He'd travel all through Montana. He was on the go all the time shearing sheep. They grew up on the flatland prairie. They homesteaded their land. [00:09:16] Brad Hansen: We have your paternal grandparents, Bertha and Herman, what about your maternal grandparents? What were their names? [00:09:21] Helen Carey: Roy Fry and Mamie is what they called her. [00:09:40] Brad Hansen: Do you remember whereabouts they homesteaded? [00:09:44] Helen Carey: It would of been in McKenzie County, North Dakota. It would have been just north of a little place called Charbonneau, named after Charbonneau from the Lewis & Clark Expedition. It was probably close to Alexander. They were buried in Alexander. [00:10:15] Brad Hansen: Let's go back to when your parents met? Did they meet in North Dakota or somewhere else? [00:10:23] Helen Carey: My mother was...I'll have to tell you this because it's too funny. It doesn't have anything to do with the price of rice in China, but my mother and her cousin had seen this advertisement from this place in Minneapolis wanting fresh young farm girls. They applied for the job and went to Minneapolis, rode the train. They went to this hotel and the lady who ran the hotel hired them to clean the rooms. Mom said there were a lot of women who lived in this house and a lot of activity. It was a big hotel. They did the cleaning. She said the ladies were always very kind to them. All of a sudden one day the uncle back in North Dakota that had been looking after the older kids after the mother died, my mom was like eighteen, nineteen, something like that. All of the sudden the door came open and my uncle flew in and he grabbed those girls and he hauled them out. It was a whorehouse. [00:11:56] Brad Hansen: Oh no! Fresh young...Oh my goodness. [00:12:02] Helen Carey: They had sent a postcard of the place to my uncle and he had researched it and found out what it was. My little mother died at the age of ninety-four. She lived in the house over there the last four years of her life and we took care of her. The kids just howled, she would tell about when she used to work in the whorehouse. Is that not too funny! Uncle Emery hauled them right back to the farm. Mom then got a job working at a little eating place called The Castle. Dad used to come in with his friend and get a hamburger and they would take a long time to eat because of that cute little waitress. Finally, the friend intervened and he told her that his friend here wanted to know if she'd go out with him, and the rest was history. [00:13:14] Brad Hansen: Do you remember what year they met? [00:13:19] Helen Carey: Probably just a year before they got married. They got married in May 1937. They probably met a year before that. [00:13:37] Brad Hansen: So this is during the Great Depression. [00:13:41] Helen Carey: Yes, mom told that after I was born the dust would blow in. If they had to go somewhere in the car they'd have to bundle me all up. In the house, they would wet towels and blankets and put over all the windows and doors. She said dad would pull right up to the door so all they had to do was step out and into the house. There were some really, really, tough years through there. Actually, when I was growing up one of our biggest fears was prairie fires. I'll tell you, you'd have a drought year and everybody's eyes were on the horizon for the sign of smoke. We lived right on the edge of town. From there on it was just prairie. [00:14:43] Brad Hansen: For those who will listen to this history and read it. Can you give a brief description...when you say the wide open prairie, what does that look like to someone who has never seen it before? [00:14:55] Helen Carey: There is a beauty to the prairie. As a child, we used to go and pick crocuses, a little lavender plant that grows near the ground with a little lavender flower and the leaves are kinda fuzzy. We used to go pick crocuses and take them to our neighbors who were shut ins. The minute I got out of school I never had shoes on until the following fall. We just lived outside. We hiked and played baseball up in the field. It was called Jackson's field. It must have been the name of the guy who owned it. From there it was just prairie the whole way. There were a few little hills and there would be a stream coming down, but nothing like here. There was a beauty to it. [00:16:06] Brad Hansen: What did you parents do for work? [00:16:07] Helen Carey: My dad retired after forty-two years with Montana-Dakota Utilities. He was the gas supervisor over nine towns when he retired. My mother was a mother. She sewed and canned and did all the neighbors’ hair. She was a mom. [00:16:37] Brad Hansen: Did any of the side jobs or projects turn into businesses for your mother? [00:16:46] Helen Carey: No, she always did for others. ‘Til the day she died she always did for others. I was the oldest of seven kids and we were all like four years apart except for the last two were just a year apart. Born when she was in her forties. [00:17:09] Brad Hansen: Four years apart, seven, twenty-eight years? [00:17:12] Helen Carey: The last two were born a year a part and she was well into her forties. After the little girls got grown into where they were in junior high, mom went back to school and went to the Junior College in Williston and took math classes. She always like math. She got a job at Penny's as a clerk in the supply room. She worked there for several years until she retired. She had never gone beyond an eight-grade education. [00:18:07] Brad Hansen: Watching your mom do that, did it influence you? Watching her go back to school and peruse that dream? [00:18:15] Helen Carey: I hated school. I wanted to be outside doing something. I did not want to be sitting. After I graduated I went a year to Carroll and got out of there. I thought, "There has to be a better way." I got a job out here at what is now the Developmental Center in Boulder. It was the state training school for the mentally retarded at that time. I taught music there and that's when I met the most eligible bachelor in Jefferson County and ended up marrying him. [00:18:54] Brad Hansen: Before we get to that can you tell me who your brothers and sisters are. [00:19:03] Helen Carey: Jack, Jim, Richard, Mary, Theresa, Bonnie. Bonnie and Theresa are only a year and two years older than my oldest son. My mother and I had toddlers together. Is that not too funny![00:19:36] Brad Hansen: It sounds a lot like that movie I grew up watching, Father of the Bride. Where do you fit in? [00:19:49] Helen Carey: I'm the oldest. I actually was gone from home before...Theresa was born when I was in Carroll and Bonnie was born six weeks before we got married. Richard was only four years old then. I was gone when they were toddlers. [00:20:17] Brad Hansen: There is a question here that I think might be interesting. Having a big family with a lot to do, how did the division of labor work between your parents? [00:20:30] Helen Carey: My dad was so versatile, he'd just tie a towel around his waist and cook or clean or do whatever. The minute he got done with work he'd be home and helping out or hanging out with us kids or doing something. A lot of times he'd come home from work and say, "Go help mom pack a lunch and let's go on a picnic." We'd go out to Spring Lakes, or we'd go out fishing. We lived outside. In the wintertime, we skated and skied. We built igloos. We were outside kids. [00:21:27] Brad Hansen: It sounds like he enjoyed that as well. [00:21:30] Helen Carey: Oh yeah. He thought he was going to retire at 65 and the company said "You're going to retire at 63." In his mind he'd gotten fired. Of course, later on he said it was the best thing that ever happened to him. Mom called and said, "Can I just send dad out to you for a while?" I picked him up at the plane in Bozeman, it was during calving. We got home and it was in the afternoon. We were chasing our tails doing calving. He helped with that, and helped me out in the calving barn. Late at night we ended up with a cesarean, it was just nuts. Finally, about 1 'o’clock in the morning we got back in the house and dad said, "I just hate coming out here, there's never anything to do." We used to laugh at him. He started coming out. We ran cattle up on the continental divide up by Basin. [00:23:06] Brad Hansen: This is you and your husband? [00:23:11] Helen Carey: We ran cattle up on the continental divide so in the fall, back in those days, Tom and I would leave every morning at daybreak, ride all day long and drive back and forth. Later on we got a camper, so that was downtown. Dad would come out and he'd cook for the guys up at cow camp. When we started out of the hills he would get us started in the morning right after breakfast. I drove back and forth because I had the kids to get to school. He'd pull out ahead of us and he'd go to where we were going to be at noon and he'd have a hot meal waiting for us. That is how he spent the last years of his life until he was not able to do it anymore at the age of ninety. I think dad was ninety-five and mom was ninety-four. Dad might have even been ninety-six. [00:24:32] Brad Hansen: There is a section here on your childhood. Was there something that happened in your childhood that was memorable? Any fun vacations, trips, adventures? [00:24:45] Helen Carey: We frequently went on a vacation. Of course, dad would have vacation time. I remember going to Denver, Yellowstone Park, to Minneapolis to visit family. I can remember going to Wisconsin to visit family. After I got into high school I worked for the city recreation department in the summertime as a camp counselor and playground director. My childhood was ordinary I think. It was just being a kid in that town. Not now, with the oil boom. It would be really different now. Back then you never locked a door. The only time there was any kind of crime was the day after a circus had been in town and the Gypsies came through. They'd go up and down the allies and steal clothes off clotheslines. Get your clothes off the clotheslines or the Gypsies would come through and steal them otherwise! [00:26:30] Brad Hansen: Your house growing up...[00:26:31] Helen Carey: It was right next door to grandmother's. Just across the alley.[00:26:39] Brad Hansen: Did they have land? Were they ranching at all? [00:26:43] Helen Carey: By that time they owned the alley and my folks owned three lots. Grandma owed three lots, and also owned other lots. The greenhouses, vineyards, were all here. She had a big strawberry patch. When I was a little kid she'd come over in the early morning. Of course, nobody wore jeans or pants, she had a house dress with an apron and pockets. She'd come over and say in broken English, "Look what I have for you." She'd reach in her pocket and bring out this great big strawberry. She'd clean it all off and hand it to me. It was still warm from the sunshine. Oh my gosh, I can still remember how that strawberry tasted. I loved strawberries. We had a park only a block from the house. At one time they had a little zoo. It was just a square city block. We'd go up and torment the badgers. They had bears at one time. They had monkeys. We'd go up and play. We just lived outside. [00:28:47] Brad Hansen: Moving up to when you met Tom. I have notes here that you met...I don't have that yet. Tell me the story of how you met Tom. [00:29:04] Helen Carey: Well, I was working up there at the state school. Some of the teachers I was teaching with said, "Oh, you know, there is this really nice guy, we want you to meet him." I said, "Okay," and so they set up a meeting. He was up helping his brother-in-law ship calves. They said, "She really likes to ride horses. So if you bring a horse along we'll introduce you to this gal." I was down at his sister's house. He came there and he'd brought an extra horse along so we mounted up and we took a ride down clear out east of Boulder. All of his little nephews and nieces were following halfway down the road saying, "Uncle Tom got a girlfriend." He was so embarrassed. It didn't bother me. My brothers and sisters would have done the same thing. We started dating. [00:30:19] Brad Hansen: I guess there is a piece of the story I'm missing. From North Dakota to the Boulder area...when did you move or your family move? How did you end up in this area? [00:30:32] Helen Carey: I'd gone to school at Carroll and I met Sally Westwell. Her dad was the superintendent out here at the school. One weekend she invited me to come home with her and took me on a tour of the school. I thought, "I think I could really like a job like this." I got back and wrote a letter to her dad and applied for a job and he hired me. Back in those days if you were traveling you wore a dress and a hat, wore gloves and carried a purse. I rode the train. I had everything I owned in suitcases and boxes and totes. They dropped me off the train, there was this galloping goose thing that went from Great Falls to Helena. It was a one car thing that had an engine and a caboose and a car. It was just a one car outfit. They dropped me off up at the depot. The depot agent was inside and so I went in and I said, "Could you give me a number so I can call a cab." There were no phone booths, no nothing, not even a place to sit inside the depot. He was just in this little thing behind the cage. He said, "A cab, lady are you nuts!" I'm looking at the town, and it was two miles down this rocky road, and me in high heeled shoes. I was thinking, Jesus Mary and Joseph, now what! I didn't know a soul. I said, "Do you have a lock or something I can put my luggage in while I walk down and make arrangements to come pick it up?" He said, "Hell, you can just leave it sitting there in the corner." I took as much as I could carry and I wobbled down...Boulder's main street wasn't even paved. I walked all the way out to the state school and the supervising teacher gave me a ride back up to claim my stuff. Talk about an experience! Where I grew up in town you called a cab, you have a city bus. Even though it was a small town they did have public transportation of a sort. [00:33:27] Brad Hansen: Do you remember what year you started working? [00:33:33] Helen Carey: I graduated high school in 56' went to Carroll in 56'-57' and I started up here in 57'. We got married in 1958. So, in this coming May it will be sixty years. [00:33:50] Brad Hansen: Congratulations! You met Tom and he was working...[00:33:58] Helen Carey: He was here on the ranch with his parents. He was born and raised.[00:34:03] Brad Hansen: He was born and raised on the property that we're on right here. [00:34:06] Helen Carey: Actually, their house was a couple miles down the road. They had just remodeled the house and it burned in a fire January 1941. He was eleven years old. They lost everything except that piano and a marble top table. The top was broken, but that was about the only thing they saved. Not very many pictures or anything. [00:34:35] Brad Hansen: Do they know what caused the fire? [00:34:38] Helen Carey: They had a stove in the kitchen and the hired man came in early in the morning, probably when he brought the milk in from milking. He started a fire in there. It went up through the ceiling to the second story and some of his brothers were sleeping up there. It was twenty below and the water was frozen. The first thing it did was burn the telephone line so they couldn't call anybody. They couldn't get anything started because it was cold. They basically had to stand and watch it go. His dad owned a huge amount. He and two of his brothers split their family's ranch in 64'. We ended up with 10,000 deeded acres. After that we acquired some more. [00:35:59] Brad Hansen: When you met Tom he was working on the family ranch. [00:36:06] Helen Carey: He had gotten out of the military. He was in Korea 52'-54'. All he'd ever done was ranch. [00:36:20] Brad Hansen: When you met him, what was it about him that drew your interest. He was handsome and dashing I'm sure.[00:36:30] Helen Carey: He was quite a bit older than I was and he was ready to settle down. We shared a common faith. All I had ever wanted to be was to raise a big family. I knew what I was looking for. [00:37:38] Brad Hansen: So you met in 57' married in 58.' After your marriage did you move directly to the ranch? [00:37:50] Helen Carey: To this very house and we've lived here ever since. We've remodeled it one room at a time for almost sixty years. We raised our eight kids here. [00:38:05] Brad Hansen: What are their names? [00:38:07] Helen Carey: Tom Jr., Chris, Robin, Heidi, Shannon, Megan, Erin, Margaret. They've all got nicknames so it sounds like we've got sixteen kids instead of only eight. [00:38:37] Brad Hansen: So, nicknames. [00:38:39] Helen Carey: We call Tom Tim, Chris Popper, Robin Rob, Heidi, Shannon, Bun, Megan Muffy, Katie, Molly. [00:39:02] Brad Hansen: You knew you wanted to have a big family and it sounds like you were able to accomplish that goal. [00:39:07] Helen Carey: In twelve years.[00:39:12] Brad Hansen: Do your children still live in the area? Where are they at? [00:39:19] Helen Carey: Do you want to hear the biggest blessing? Out of all those kids the farthest away lives in Bozeman. She can be home in an hour. Out of twenty-one grandkids the farthest away lives in Helmville. She can be home in an hour and forty minutes. [00:39:37] Brad Hansen: Family is obviously very important, and having family close is very important. [00:39:42] Helen Carey: Very important. [00:39:46] Brad Hansen: Is that something that was instilled in you as a child? [00:39:49] Helen Carey: I think so. My mother where they had homesteaded, on Saturdays, the farmers would go to town to get supplies to the house and visit. If they came in on Sunday mornings to go to mass they'd end up at our house for coffee afterwards. There was always that connection with family. My dad's sister lived in town. Of course, my grandparents were right there. We spent all our holidays at grandma's house with auntie Bertha and her kids. My cousins on my dad's side were more like siblings. We had a really close connection there, too. They just lived blocks away. We could walk back and forth. We walked everywhere. Nobody had cars back then. When you were in elementary school you rode a bike, but otherwise walked. [00:41:09] Brad Hansen: You mentioned that Tom came from Irish stock. [00:41:15] Helen Carey: Both his parents, all his grandparents, they were all Irish Immigrants. [00:41:23] Brad Hansen: Just briefly, how did they come to own the land here? Did they homestead?[00:41:28] Helen Carey: His dad went up to Alaska during the gold rush as a young man. Back up. His aunt on his dad's side had come out to Basin to teach school. She became the first superintendent of schools in the state of Montana. She wrote back to her folks in Eau Claire Wisconsin and said, "Oh you have to come out here." So they did. They loaded up everything. That piano I think came up the Missouri on a steamboat. I'm not sure, but that would have been the logical way to get here. To Fort Benton and then come by wagon. The family moved out here. The dad and the two sons, Tom's dad and his brother that ended up dying very young, they worked in the mills around Idaho, Wicks, Corbin, etc. The dad bought the place where the house burned. That was the original place. He bought that from a guy named Barney Cooney. From there his dad took up a homestead and after he married the mother took up. That was kind of the way my mother's family did too. Dad took up one, then the mother took up one, then her mother and then they put together a workable thing. As different places became available in the valley, those were tough years and some people couldn't make a living, his dad was able to buy up. I'm sure at one time he owned a good portion of the whole valley. [00:44:18] Brad Hansen: That leads into my next question which is: when did the land transfer from Tom's father to you and Tom? [00:44:29] Helen Carey: Not to me and Tom, it was to Tom. That would have been? Tom said it was before he went to Korea so 52'. What the dad did was deed the three places to them, but the overall thing they ranched together. The operational part of it was split in 1964. [00:45:13] Brad Hansen: You and Tom were married and moved to this home and started your family. That brings us into the next section which is: Tell me about your ranch and how you got it going, kept it going. I know there was some inflation going on during that time? And, when did you have the idea to start the bed and breakfast? [00:45:40] Helen Carey: Let's see. I always worked outside. I also cooked for a lot of hired men. This table was way out and we had eight kids and usually three of four hired men. [00:46:06] Brad Hansen: You were cooking for fifteen people a day, every meal. [00:46:12] Helen Carey: You couldn't really count the kids. Some were toddlers and some were babies. During the winter you might have one or two hired men. During haying season you might have more. Sometimes in the evenings, just to get out of the house, I'd buck hay for Tom up in the field, just to get away. If we had to haul salt, if we had to go check on cows in the high...We had forest permits in the Bull Mountains, the Elkhorns, and on the continental divide up there above Basin in the Lockhart. There was quite a little bit of riding and checking. We' d just load up the kids and take everybody with us. That was before seatbelts had been invented. We'd have kids on the floor of the pickup and off we'd go. In 1971 our youngest baby was two months old and Tom was injured a horrible backhoe accident. He went into kidney failure and he had to be air lifted to Spokane. He was on dialysis for about three weeks until his kidneys started functioning on their own. My parents came out, dad took his vacation and came out and took care of the kids and I stayed with Tom in Seattle. It was this time of the year when he came back. We had just shipped calves the day before. It was a horrible time. He was pretty much recovering for the rest of the winter and not able to do a whole bunch. We had a couple of hired men who had been with us a couple years and they were a godsend. At that time I found my role was changing. Instead of relying on what he told me, I was in a position I had to make decisions outside the kids and the house. [00:49:05] Brad Hansen: Business decisions. [00:49:06] Helen Carey: I became more active during that time as far as the cows. The oldest child was only twelve years old, the kids were in school. From then until we split the ranch I was doing a lot of that in addition to riding and handling cattle. [00:49:48] Brad Hansen: About how many head of cattle were you running?[00:49:53] Helen Carey: Before we split up, about 750 cows. [00:49:56] Brad Hansen: What type? [00:49:57] Helen Carey: Blacks mostly by then. Over the years we'd done a lot of genetic things. We started out with Herefords. The calves were nice calves, but really light weight all the time. We crossed them with short horns and got short horn bulls and bought short horn cows. We got a little milk bred back into the Herefords, then started in with the Angus. Now we are totally Angus. During those times I had to do a lot of studying on herd health and genetics and breed characteristics. [00:50:56] Brad Hansen: You mentioned you have your own brand. [00:50:58] Helen Carey: Yes.[00:51:03] Brad Hansen: Separate from Tom's brand? Why did you decide to get your own? Was it business related? [00:51:12] Helen Carey: I think early on maybe Tom started me out with a heifer or two. I can't remember. Probably to keep me interested. I'm just kidding you! I think that's what it was. And, I have kept it. It gives me a little bit of an income on my own that I can do things for the kids and grandkids. But anyway, the last couple of years I haven't done a lot of riding because my role has changed now to taking care of him (Tom). He'll be eighty-nine in December and requires quite a little bit of care. I still work with cattle. To me that's a vacation. That's how I get away. I help our oldest son doing the vaccinating and working cattle and helping out. I like to cook for him and his kids. His wife works in town and so I have them eat here at noon so I can bring him {Tom} in and set him at the table and he gets some stimulation besides me. [00:52:52] Brad Hansen: When did you decide to start the bed and breakfast? [00:52:58] Helen Carey: I don't remember the year, but it was shortly after we split the ranch. I thought, here we sit in this huge house, just the two of us rattling around. I didn't have as much to do. When we had all the cows together I was busy with the herd health program, doing everything you had to do there, the business stuff. Then all of the sudden I had fifty head of cows. What am I going to do with the rest of my life? So that's when I thought I'll do a bed and breakfast. We don't travel. I don't like to travel. So, it's more like the world comes to us. We meet wonderful people. For the most part, middle aged to later age couples. Mostly Christian couples, which is really nice to have. Interesting! They all have their stories to tell. [00:54:30] Brad Hansen: How do they find your bed and breakfast? [00:54:33] Helen Carey: I have no idea! I don't have a computer. I still answer the phone and write letters. That's scary! We're on a major highway north to south for Canadians going through. They see my little sign there. Sometimes I have walk ins. Sometimes in the summer somebody will say, "I always wondered what you were doing here." I have a little ad that goes in the newspaper down here has a summer edition that they put in racks. I love to cook. I think the biggest challenge was to have something that could feed a dozen people on a day we were working cattle, where I could make everything come together. I'd be working out there on the chute doing stuff and then come in and voilà, everything would be ready. That was always a real challenge. I just loved to that. I enjoy cooking for crowds. [00:55:53] Brad Hansen: Well obviously if you don't do any active advertising and you're staying busy they must love the food![00:56:03] Helen Carey: A lot of mine are repeats. Fishermen from Wisconsin and hunters. I had this little bunkhouse out here. The fishermen and the hunters just love it. Their wives wouldn't be caught dead in there. I tell them if they bring their wives they better allow a little more travel expense and house them in the house. I have a regular renter out there now. Our grandson lives in that little house and looks in on grandpa. If I'm gone he comes and checks Papa. On Monday I'll be out all day from early in the morning weighing cattle because it's shipping day, working down at the scale. [00:57:06] Brad Hansen: Thank you for that overview. The next section, final section has to deal with the ranch and conservation. Since it is a DNRC...[00:57:22] Helen Carey: I love to talk about this. Way back in the 70s they were using Newland Creek over by White Sulphur Springs as the pattern for a dam they hoped to put up the Little Boulder that called for huge canals that ran down and everybody would have to pool their irrigating rights. We did a lot of work on that. It never flew because we couldn't ever reach an agreement with the agencies that we had to. By the time that came up the cost had risen too much, it wasn't feasible. It was for supplemental irrigating water. I testified before the legislature trying to get extra funds and worked on that. I was voted the first women conservationist of the year in Jefferson County. I got a nice plaque. Now I've signed up for EQUIP. Are you familiar with that? [00:58:48] Brad Hansen: No. [00:58:50] Helen Carey: You would set aside ground that you have adjoining the river, thirty feet on each side, to provide wildlife cover, wildlife forage. The idea was where we had water gaps that went down, cattle watered in the river and you had a water gap that they went down. The goal was to drill wells so they would water in the pens and not be watering in the river. We had a feed lot up here along the road and it was too close to the ditch. These things had been here for years and years. But, there is a little better way of doing it now. You could get cost share assistance from DNRC. We had this massive thing, it's been going for five years and we're just about to the end of it. Now we've got those set aside areas down by the river, we've got good wind breaks on both sides to help with cover, we've got wells and water tanks out here. The feed lot up there, they were able to put in a culvert and fence down across the ditch. They dug berms so the dirty water goes out and fertilizes the field. The clean water from up here comes down here and goes out and irrigates in case you have any rain. It's been a massive project. It's just coming to an end now. I was telling you I've been trying for four years to get a shelterbelt going and I can't. Tommy and I signed up for that shelterbelt the same year. The same day we planted up at his house in the morning in solid rock. It was solid rock. Down in ours it was on the edge of an alfalfa field on the edge of a ditch. Nice soil, not very many rocks. We planted his in the morning and we went in and ate lunch. We came down and planted mine in the afternoon. His is as tall as the ceiling now and do you think mine have even grown? I've planted golden willows, I've planted black cottonwood, I mean, who can't get cottonwood to grow? I've planted conifers, chokecherry and lilacs. I planted caragana’s finally last year. I hate them so bad, but I have to get something in there. I planted caragana’s and I can't get the caragana’s to grow. What is going on? I think the ground is so good that the weeds compete and choke them out. I'm about fed up. I think maybe I'll just let nature irrigate it now. All these years we've done rest rotation grazing. I tell the kids all the time that ranchers were conservationists before there was even a movement afoot. You have to take care of the land. If you don't you're losing it. [01:03:07] Brad Hansen: It sounds like this program EQUIP, is it a state program? [01:03:15] Helen Carey: I think it's federal. [01:03:17] Brad Hansen: It sounds like based on what you said, the idea is to decrease the impact ranching has on the landscape while still maintaining the success of the ranch. [01:03:34] Helen Carey: And also to improve wildlife habitat. Another thing we do with that program is instead of going into a field and starting to hay we go into the middle and cut out. That allows wildlife cover to move out ahead. If you go from out to in they can only go in and then you are liable to wipe out birds or deer or anything nesting.[01:04:08] Brad Hansen: Since you've started the program have you noticed an increase in wildlife on the ranch? [01:04:15] Helen Carey: We've always had so much wildlife here it might be hard to tell. We've had bear come right past our family room window. Wild turkeys, deer, moose, elk. I just can't tell you the impact that the elk have, not so much ours because ours our right close here, but on our oldest son's up above and our youngest son's out in this country. Out here the elk are just, the last few years have just really proliferated. [01:05:06] Brad Hansen: Do they do depredation permits or some sort of mitigation? [01:05:12] Helen Carey: They do. The younger son does some outfitting. The oldest son is in block management and depredation. The youngest son, one of the daughters was hunting, and John Carey is the next place down, had some of the ground out there and she'd jumped some elk out there. They crossed over into Chris's and she knew that he had leased it to an outfitter so she called him. I don't know whether he had a time limit, I don't know what the boys do. That was a gift and it was gone. He just told her to go ahead and walk in. She and her friend both got their elk that day, both got spikes. There is just a tremendous amount of wildlife. [01:06:23] Brad Hansen: That seems to be a testament to conservation here, that they can exist here along with ranching operations. [01:06:38] Helen Carey: When we had the whole shebang we were in block management for years. The only thing was we didn't like people to drive because of weed problems. That's another thing we were always big on, controlling weeds. Spotted knapweed, leafy spurge, boy we sure didn't want that to get started anywhere out in the boondocks where nobody would notice it until it got established. [01:07:16] Brad Hansen: I would imagine that that is a large part of what you have to spend time and money on. [01:07:31] Helen Carey: A couple of years ago one of the guys up this way got a really bad hoaryalyssum infestation. I didn't realize that it was noxious. [01:07:41] Brad Hansen: What's the name of that? [01:07:41] Helen Carey: It's called hoaryalyssum. It got started along the field at that place where we had the wheel line. Tom's wife and I went up and picked it by hand all along the edge of that field. We got it in bags and got it the heck out of there. Now you don't see it. When you do you want to get rid of it because it takes over like crazy. [01:08:34] Brad Hansen: Thank you for sharing. We are here to the last page of questions. Maybe we can end with a question about your legacy. What legacy do you want to leave for the next generation? How do you want to be remembered? [01:09:45] Helen Carey: I want to be remembered as a hard worker. I don't think anybody has any idea at all how hard ranch women work. Even ranch women who don't work outside like I did work hard. I can remember a good friend of mine said that an old ranch lady that she knew told her, "You know I always worked outside in the fields with my husband, but the hardest I ever worked was in the house." I don't think people really understand. I do all my own yard work. I do what has to be done. By the time you do the laundry and the cleaning and the cooking and work outside with the cattle; I don’t' think people realize how much effort goes into making things run smoothly. The legacy I'd like to leave with my kids is the absolute most important thing is family. Family, faith, and your freedom. [01:11:15] Brad Hansen: Well said. Just to summarize, this oral history project, From the Ground Up, is collecting stories from Montana women who have histories in agriculture and ranching. It's meant to highlight their experiences. What does it mean to you to have your story recorded as part of this oral history project? [01:11:51] Helen Carey: I certainly feel honored. Of all the women I know, or have known in this valley that have inspired me, gosh I feel like I can kinda tell part of their story too. [01:12:13] Brad Hansen: You can be a voice for the women who didn't have chance. [01:12:17] Helen Carey: We were moving cows up in the Elkhorn and that was before horse trailers had been invented. Very often our days on horseback were twelve hour days in the saddle. This one day we were moving cows with this couple, they were an older couple. When I packed the lunch I put everything in a brown paper bag and put it in my saddle bags. If you haven't eaten warn tuna fish sandwiches, you haven't lived! Anyway, we'd rode since early in the morning and we might have rode from here clear up in there. It came time for lunch and she swings out of her saddle and she had a little table cloth that she put down on the ground and she and her husband had celery sticks and carrot sticks and sandwiches and grapes and they had it all on this white thing. We sat on a log and ate our warm tuna fish sandwiches. What I did was more like brute and she was more refined. The one thing that I really love to do is ride with my grandchildren moving cows in the high mountain pastures. When you get them to where they are going you have to wait until they mother up. To lay down in the cool grass beside the creek and just lay there and look up at the sky. I tell the kids, "You know, this is as good as it gets." [01:14:37] Brad Hansen: It's hard to beat. [01:14:41] Helen Carey: Sometimes not much of a living, but it's a wonderful way of life. [01:14:47] Brad Hansen: I think that covers everything I have here Helen. Is there anything else you want to add before we end? [01:15:06] Helen Carey: Like I said, my role has changed in the last couple of years. I don't have the luxury of saddle time any more. Every now and again I get a chance, but usually something else happens. I have a jazzy little four-wheeler that the horses ate the seat out of it, but it will turn on a dime. My grandkids covet that four-wheeler. When the kids are here I just kinda back off any more and let them take my horses and take the four-wheeler. I get a chance every once in a while to ride, but usually somebody overrides me. Otherwise I sure enjoy still working cattle. Just love to do that. I've often wondered if there was any way to count how many vaccinations I've administered in sixty years! [01:16:30] Brad Hansen: I'm sure there is a way, but it would take some time![01:16:32] Helen Carey: Back in the olden days before we had plenty of help, I would do four at a time. I'd just tuck them under my arm. My brothers moved over to Sheridan and the vet over there was telling him, "My god I worked cattle with them one time and there was a gal there who was administering four shots." Jim said, "That was my sister." I'd be curious to see how many I'd given over the years, quite a bunch. ................
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