Comin for a Visit

Oil on Barnwood
26.5″ x 21″
$1300
Contact to Purchase

Steffen Ranch
Ethel Sansborn and Laura Quick Andersen were best friends and neighbors to the Steffens, whom they would ride over to visit. Horses were the mode of transportation at the turn of the century, and these were capable horsewomen.

Ethel’s father, Sam, homesteaded on land adjoining Bill’s. She arrived from North Dakota a few years after her dad and before she married Bun Brody did the woman’s work on their ranch.

Just turning nine Laura, Gail, her elder brother, her Father, and the housekeeper, Amanda, left Cooperstown, North Dakota to claim their homestead outside of Glendive. Her mother had died and armed with furniture, belongings, and animals, the trip from Circle fluctuated between harrowing and downright disaster. Snow hampered their journey, and before it was over they had to abandon their calf and some of their furniture. When they reached their shanty they found it occupied by another family! They quickly helped the squatters complete their cabin so they might have a roof over their heads for winter, but it was not much of a place. With just a tar paper roof, all would awaken with snow upon them, for heat they would crouch around their tiny laundry stove which burned the buffalo chips they gathered. Having no well, they walked to get water from a spring, and their trusty horse slept next to their bed. Proper food was scarce, but Amanda always kept them fed. LuLu’s Dad married Amanda, but after two years of disasters and poor crops, they abandoned the homestead idea and returned to his original occupation – only this time he was sheriff of McCone county.