Garfield County, Montana

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My grandmother was born in 1922 in Dilo, Montana.  When I told my grandmother I could go there on my drive she said "Oh, honey, there's nothing there.  There were only 50 families and now there's nothing, just a post office."

Dilo, Montana no longer exists except for a post office, and some GPS coordinates online.  It was a town of homesteaders who were told that you plant wheat, and then you just sit on your porch and watch it grow.  It turned out that this was not quite the case.  The market for wheat became flooded and the price of wheat dropped before the dust bowl, which of course followed the overproduction of wheat and the attempt to settle and plow every inch of the continent.  The railroad was meant to build a rail through Dilo, which they never did.  So, the 50 families who were there left.  My great-grandparents moved there around 1913 because my Aunt Geneva was born in 1912 and she was a baby when they moved there and Uncle Cecil was 2.  They had been born in Virginia.  Cecil went to the 4th grade in Dilo before moving to Weippe, Idaho and then to Bakersfield, California.  So they were in Dilo for about a decade, from 1913 to 1925.  Grandmom was 3 when they left, and they cried over having to leave their clydedales.

I departed from interstate 94 from Glendive.  I was nervous about my first foray with my equality and refractive light bumper stickers into small town Montana but, as I had reasoned to myself before embarking, it couldn't be much different from driving around Michigan.  I saw wild pheasants running over railroad tracks, and had a close encounter with an antelope.  The clouds you see here would lift after a few hours.

It felt vast- not only did I not see anyone immediately around me, I could also see for miles.  So you really know that you are alone.

After about two hours' worth of driving almost entirely within one county, I reached Jordan, MT, the county seat of Garfield County.  The gas station/restaurant attendant told me how to get to the courthouse and actually called over to the library to make sure it was open.  I went first to the courthouse and inquired about old records.  The very kind women there started pulling out books and an old hand-drawn map that had been damaged in a fire.  They then started thumbing through homestead records upon which we found the penciled handwritten records of William and Maude Surgener, my grandmother's parents, in some very large, heavy record books.

I had forgotten my great-grandfather's name, and I knew Grandmom said the homestead was in her mother's name.  So I was looking for Maude Surgener.  We came across Wm. Surgener in penciled script.  I was on the phone with my grandmother and said "Grandmom, who is William Surgener?"  She said, "that's my father."

I took as many pictures as I could and got some copies of the document deeding the homestead to William Surgener.  It says "WHEREAS, a Certificate of the Register of the Land Office at Lewistown, Montana, has been deposited in the General Land Office, whereby it appears that, pursuant to the Act of Congress of May 20, 1862, "To Secure the Homesteads to Actual Settlers on the Public Domain," and the acts supplemental thereto, the claim of William Surgener has been established and duly consummated, in conformity to law, for the... three hundred seventeen and eight-hundredths acres...."  It was "Filed for record the 5th day of Nov., A.D. 1920, at 1:41 o'clock P.M." and the names at the bottom include Woodrow Wilson.  It also says "NOW KNOW YE, That there is, therefore, granted by the UNITED STATES unto the said claimant the tract of Land above described; TO HAVE AND TO HOLD the said tract of Land..." just like a wedding.  Is it ok to say in a wedding if it's two people owning each other rather than unidirectional?

In 1924, William sold the land to Maude for one dollar.  I have that too, Deed Record No. 7 titled WILLIAM SURGENER TO MAUDE M. SURGENER.  I don't think anyone alive knows exactly why they did that.  My uncle thinks William was hiding from creditors.  Grandmom does not think so.  On a tax deed record from 1930, they owed $57.26 in taxes, and the court records showed the land was lost to taxes.  That was after everyone had left the town just about, including my grandmother's family.  I believe by 1930 they were settled in Bakersfield and so observed that end of the Grapes of Wrath as owners of an established dairy.

From the courthouse, I went to the library, which was guarded by three unleashed noisy dogs.  When I walked in, the librarian looked me up and down and said "you must be the one looking for Dilo."  Small town.  Turned out the librarian's mother went to Dilo schools.  She commented that "The government lied to people to get them to come out here.  It must have been lonely."

It must have been lonely.  Grandmom said her mother was homesick here.  They had a sod house.  She was born at home and a midwife came to stay.  When her little brother was born the midwife scared her by telling her that the boogie man was going to get her.

At the library, we looked through digitalized microfiche and found the Jordan Times newspaper from January 20, 1922.  There was not a newspaper every day so this is the closest one to January 14th, Elvy's birthday.  One of the front page headlines is "County is in grip of genuine winter" with temperatures down to 21 below.  Other front page headlines were "Miss Graves bride of Mr. Geo. B. Hart" with a bouquet of roses and sweet peas, and "Albert Nergaard is injured from fall."

Kids kept popping in and out of the library, returning books.  The librarian was telling them that she would call their parents because the tv would be fixed soon and they would restart Friday morning movies.  The schools only go four days per week because the county is saving money that way.  So, she tries to keep them busy on Fridays.  It was sad, and nice that they can walk to the library themselves.

I knew I would not have cell service after leaving Jordan until I got back to I94/90.  I used my cell service in Jordan to coordinate delivery of my stuff in Seattle, and to tell Misa I was still alive.  "Oh good, well if they were going to kill you they'd have done it already."  (She'd given me mace before my trip for bears and aggressive republicans.)  While I was in Jordan, my family was reading a wikipedia article about how Garfield county is historically the most republican county in the US.  Good thing they moved away or Grandmom would have been really lonely.

All you can hear out there between towns is the wind, and meadowlarks.  Demo on the lack of air signal (for the record, 99.5 was a Jesus station):


 
Dilo in the "Names on the Face of Montana" book:

This one's for Misa:

The library, guarded by some noisy dogs:

When the settlers are in living memory, the historical narrative begins with them:

Me and the librarian who spent a long time looking through microfiche for me:

Jordan's one stoplight:

My lunch.  The very young-looking person who served me my hamburger told me, "I would drink the bottled water.  Our water here's not too good."

Montana is very proud of its dinosaur fossils.

The very nicest buildings in Jordan were the courthouse and the church.

Dinosaurs.

Tumbleweeds piled on a fence.  Dilo is out over there somewhere.

Sand Springs is the existing town on the highway nearest to where Dilo used to be.  The post office was closed.

These are just sky.  And landscape.  And meadowlark song.

Grandmom remembers going to Lewistown, because it would have been the nearer large town.

Tree, road, sky.

Old man fence.

I just took this in a town I went through because it says, obviously handwritten on the building, "Sheriff," and "Under-sheriff" on what must be their parking spots.

Back to Billings: back to vegetables.  This asparagus had bacon on it, and a poached egg.

I feel like food says a lot about where you are.