The small community in North Central Montana where I grew up was comprised of dry land farmers and small support businesses.  Dry land farming is a style of farming that does not irrigate but depends on Mother Nature to supply the moisture to nourish crops.  Because crop production per acre is significantly less tha irrigated land, dry land farmers compensate by farming more land.  In the area called the “Golden Triangle” it is not uncommon for a farmer to have one field in a 640 acre section.  Dry land farmers farm thousands of acres compared to hundreds of acres in irrigated farms.

The Homestead Act brought thousands of farmers to Montana from a diverse population of immigrants and Americans.  There were Norwegians, Scots, Danes, Belgians, Dutch, Native American’s, and Métis, Germans, Canadians, Irish and sometimes mixtures of those nationalities.

It is interesting to note that growing up in that area we never viewed ourselves as belonging to different cultural groups and nationalities.  We were loyal to our little home town as a group and that was good enough for us, and the extent of our cultural pride.  I never new or was even concerned with my ancestry until I was grown and long gone from the area.

Until I was in the Army and met new and interesting people, I had no fascination with names.  When I was in college my friends and roommates were the same from our little community, it was just in a different place.  I didn’t realize the interesting names my friends had until we had acquired friends from different areas.  One hometown friend was of Norwegian descent; his name was Ramsey Offerdahl.  I have no idea what the name Ramsey meant or where it came from and in school we didn’t view it as unusual.  I have never met anyone else with that name. 

Our school principal’s name was Sigurd Hefty (Sig for short).  He was our athletic coach when my father was in school.  Another teacher, our science teacher, had sort of an earthy name:  Tilford Corn.  The local body shop owner was a Norwegian named Ono Weringa, and his son’s name was Lude.  People asked why we called him Lude as if there was a story to be told------we call him that because that is his name. 

The name of our Junior High Superintendent was Hilton Utterback.  I don’t know the nationality of that name; his son Lynn is now the Conrad High School Principal.  Ed Valentine owned the women’s clothing store.  No one ever paid him special heed on Valentine’s Day.  Romey Jensen lived across the street from me; he had a sister named Zorita. 

Saratina Yellowtail was Blackfoot.  Waven Campbell was Métis.  George Marble and Terry Bakken were my best friends in High School.  George’s mother Elda was a WWII war bride from Italy.  Terry was Norwegian.  His father’s name was Selmer and his mother’s name was Gurina.  Cleavon Schultz was German.  My good friend that I pal around with now (he lives here in Bozeman) is Dan Maclean.  His grandfather came from Scotland as did my ancestors.  Dan is a farm boy from the little community of Brady just eight miles from Conrad (my home town).  His wife Jueleen Torski from Conrad is Norwegian. 

My father’s first name is Pershing (named I suspect after General Black Jack Pershing).  His whole life he went by the nick name “Pike”.  He never had a middle name, so in the Army they assigned the letter “A” as his middle name.  One of my high school girlfriends’ name was Judith and her father was a Norwegian named Gunder Pearson.  The local veterinarian was Rib Gustafson and he had sons Bar and Wiley.  The undertaker and ambulance owner was Eddy Wise.  The town’s kids of less fortunate means were Lester Beach, Basil Tweet and Leo Coughman. 

Rita Cheek was my first prom date.  I see her fairly often now; she’s a professor of nursing at the University of Montana in Missoula.  Deirdre McNamer is a writer and a professor of creative writing at the University of Montana.  She wrote the books “Rima in the Weeds”, “One Sweet Quarrel”, and “My Russian”.  Mary Yeager is German; she was a senior when I was a freshman.  She is a professor of history at UCLA now and married to actor John Lithgow.  A Danish couple that farmed west of town was Nells and Otillie Peterson.  The Hutterite Colony west of town was comprised of lots of Wipfs and Kleinsassers.    

It’s always a source of amusement to try to speculate what is in the background of a name, and how it came about.  I am convinced though, that my little hometown provided nearly all of the unique names that I have encountered.  It will be hard to convince me that someone with the name “Thurman P. Woodfork” didn’t hail from the small town of Conrad, Montana.

© 3/27/07 Terry Sutherland

Sans Peur

Terry