Days Gone Bye
A History of the Lame Jones Community of Southeastern Montana
Edited by Gene Leischner & Nancy Curry
Page 38
Berry by Ethel Berry Mitchell
My Father, Mother (Moses Grant and Mary Angeline Berry) and family came
to Box Elder Creek from Courtney, Oklahoma, with friends, the Ben
Sheffield's. All were expecting to file on land. I was 9 years old. I
had a sister, Sarah, and a brother, Emery. My oldest sister and husband,
the George Sparks', came also.
Mr. Lambert and family came to Box Elder to fish and pick berries. Hemet
my Dad and invited him to go home with them and look the country over up
there near his place. Mr. Lambert loaned my Dad a team and wagon to go
back and get the family as we had no horse or wagon.
We lived in Mrs. Hatton's house until Dad made a dugout for us to live
in. Later he got logs and built us a two roomed home up on Coal Creek.He
made an attic where I slept by climbing up a ladder to save the space of
a stair. We had no stock but did have 12 chickens. Mr.
Lambert loaned us a cow and helped Mother break her to milk. She
stepped on his ankle, breaking it, and putting him on crutches for
awhile.
We were the first family to come to that neighborhood. The Lambert's
and Berry's became lifelong friends. Mary Ellen and I are still, and
have been buddies for 80 years. We finished the 8th grade together.
Miss Breckenridge was my first teacher after we moved to Lame Jones
Creek. I started school at what was known then as the Lambert School.
When the new school house was built the name was changed to Lame Jones
School and Miss Josie Barrere was our teacher.
History of Ethel Mitchell by Nancy Curry:
Ethel was married to Carl Mitchell on December 12, 1919, at West
Plains, Missouri. To this union was born one child, Orval. Orval
married Vivian Fetch and they had one daughter Cheryl, who with her
husband, Wayne Warren, have two sons. Ethel now resides there with her
granddaughter, Cheryl, in Vancouver, Washington.
Page 90
Sparks by Nancy Greenlee Curry
George Washington Sparks, also known as 'Colonel', or G.W. Sparks, was
born July 4, 1888, at Petersburg, Indian Territory, Oklahoma. He was the
son of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Taylor Sparks. On May 17, 1908, in
Petersburg, Oklahoma, he married Bernetta Alma Berry, who was born July
30, 1891, at Lynn Creek, Missouri. The daughter of Moses and Mary A.
Berry, she was known both as 'Bernetta' and 'Alma'. G. W. passed away on
October 10, 1963. Bernetta passed away April 23, 1983, and both are
buried in the Lame Jones Cemetery.
The following is part of a history given by Bernetta on January 15,
1980.
We came here to Lame Jones from Petersburg, Oklahoma. We boarded
thetrain in Jefferson County, Ryan, Oklahoma. We arrived in Baker by
railroad car, with another family, the Ben Sheffield's, about October
10, 1909. My mother, Mrs. Sheffield, plus my sisters and brother (Ethel,
Sara, and Emery), had come with me on the train. We had to wait for 8-10
days for the emigrant car to come. While we waited for the car, my
mother worked for Mrs. Loverage who ran the boarding house
in Baker.
O'Fallon Flashbacks
Copyright 1975 O! 'Fallon Historical Society, Baker, Montana.
Printed by Western printing & Lithography
Page 499-500
BERNETTA A. SPARKS
I was born in Camden County, Missouri on July 30, 1891; the oldest
child of Moses Grant Berry and Mary Angeline Robertson Berry, having two
sisters and two brothers younger than 1. We were living in what is known
as the Ozark Mountains. When I was about four or five my parents moved
to Oklahoma (Waurika, Oklahoma on the Red River dividing Texas and
Oklahoma). We moved there by covered wagon, this trip took about three
weeks. Here, when I was old enough, I attended elementary schools at
West Point and Courtney, Oklahoma. I attended for eight years and did
not attend any high school or college.
It was here where I met and married my husband, George W. Sparks, on May
17, 1908. We traveled to Petersburg, Oklahoma in a buggy to be married.
We share cropped for R. A. Manton of Claypool, Oklahoma. The crops we
grew for him were cotton and corn. After the cotton was picked, longhorn
steers were turned in to fatten on the cotton stalks. These steers had
to be herded and ridden on in the winter months to keep them out of the
quicksand bogs and to keep them from bogging in the Red River, which was
so salty the cattle drank it and needed no salt.
We heard about the FREE homestead land in Montana and decided that it
was for us, "A home of our own!" So in September of 1909 we were in
Waurika, Okla. chartering an emigrant car to Montana. There were three
families coming to Montana: my parents, Mr. and Mrs. Moses G. Berry; Mr.
and Mrs. Ben Sheffield and we. If I remember correctly, it cost two
hundred dollars for the car to Baker, Montana.
On September 14, 1909, our oldest son was born in Oklahoma.
My father and Mr. Sheffield came with the emigrant car, which had our
household goods, plows, wagons, horses, cows and ! chickens. It took
over a week for the car to reach Baker, it was held up in St. Paul
for livestock inspection for two or three days. My mother and family
arrived and worked for a Mrs. Loverage, who ran the only rooming
house in Baker at that time. Her sons, Sam and George Pollock, ran a
livery stable. When the emigrant car came in Mr. Sheffield and Mr.
Berry unloaded and went to Box Elder. Mr. Sheffield had a friend by
the name of Mr. Perkins there, who had come from Texas the year
before and settled.
Mr. Rube Lambert (his first wife was a daughter of Ekalaka and Dave
Russell) was visiting on Box Elder and talked my folks into coming to
Lame Jones Community and look at homestead land. It was closer to
town and to the railroad. So they did, and when we (my husband, son
and 1) arrived in Baker they had left word with the Pollock's to
bring us out to the Lame Jones area. That would be where our
possessions we had sent on the! emigrant car would be.
We took homestead rights on the east half of Section 10, Township 5 N R
57 E, my folks taking the west half. We started building on the
line between so both families would be housed for the winter. We
lived in Mrs. Hatton's house for one month while ours was being
built. Our home was partly in the bank, three logs high making it
approximately 28 x 40 feet. It had a shed over the door of boards
with a window in the south side. There were shelves along each wall
in the dugout where we could store many items. While we were working on
the house, two weeks before Halloween some of the larger boys from the
Lame Jones School came after school Halloween night and hid some of the
tools. In Oklahoma Halloween wasn't celebrated so we didn't know what to
think. My father and husband were quite bitter because they were working
hard trying to finish the house so we could move in before winter set
in. When the boys heard this they came and apologized which made
everyone feel better. They still pull Halloween pranks here.
We took what was called squatters rights, as the land had not been
surveyed. There were springs on this land; water then was just as
important as it is now, maybe even more important since well drilling
hadn't been heard of in this part of the country. We always carried
water from these everlasting springs to the house. The stock went to
them to water. We carried the water to wash clothes and even to do
wash for some of the other women nearby.
We continued to live on our homestead and raise our family. The years we
lived there were both good and bad. My parents moved back South in 1916,
but we stayed on. The years of World War 1 (1914-1918) were hard for us;
then a flu epidemic lowered our resistance and we were a long time
recovering, even the neighbors were hit by it.
Previous to my husband's death we took a trip to Missouri and
Oklahoma. It was different than when we lived there and we decided we
didn't want to return there to live
