Maggie: From Indiana to Montana A Pioneer Woman's Story

In 1892 Maggie Halbert left her home and the newly-settled farmlands of North-central Kansas for the rugged and unsettled regions of the new state of Montana. She bravely ventured from a reasonably-civilized community into rough-hewn and hastily-built mining and ranching habitations resting in the valleys and on the mountainsides around Wise River Montana. The youngest of seven children Maggie faced this unknown and untamed environment to take her first teaching job fresh out of high school.Maggie Halbert Hand was a contemporary of Laura Ingalls Wilder author of the Little House on the Prairie books. Like Ingalls Wilder Maggie was a recorder of the history of her people and times--especially regarding the settlement of the American Old West. Her compilation details the stories of an American familys survival growth and experiences during the settlement of the U.S. frontier. It is a story of courage perseverance and determination not uncommon to American families but thoroughly recorded through the eyes a frontierswoman. Maggies winsome story details how one family was affected by and left its own mark on such great American experiences as the Gold Rush of 1848 the Civil War of mining and ranching in Montana the Great Depression and the first and second World Wars. She introduces her readers to quirky characters family dynamics and the indispensable solace and support of the community in the lives of pioneering women. In the first half of the book Maggie gives a rare glimpse into the lives of post-Revolutionary war pioneers--especially that of her mother Susan (Shirley) Halbert. She presents her mothers resourcefulness industry savvy foresight and determination to hold a family together especially during her husband Enos Halberts absences from Southern Indiana prospecting soldiering and scouting for a better life for his family. Maggies father displayed his own ambition and moxie vision and leadership as a skilled farmer Civil War captain and wagon train foreman.The second-half of the book details Maggies domestic life in Montana from her meeting courtship and marriage to Horace Hand to early mining ventures and establishing ranches in Southwest Montana. Maggie recounts aspects of raising children improving property and life industrial growth economic ebbs and flows and technologic developments from the turn of the 20th Century to the first hints of the Cold War.Maggies story is enhanced by the tireless efforts of her great-granddaughter Myrna (Shafer) Carpita who painstakingly deciphered and typed Maggies handwritten manuscript and annotated it with family letters diary entries legal records photographs newspaper clippings and interviews. Carpita chose to preserve the charm of Maggies stories by transcribing Maggies accounts word-for-word maintaining Maggies idiosyncratic spellings and colloquialisms. Maggies matter-of-fact style will leave readers feeling like theyre sitting at the kitchen table listening to Maggie Horace and their friends and family spin their yarns of yore.As Maggie herself declared Those days are only remembered by a few now. The first settlers are the ones that stand the hardship of faraway places. It takes a real pioneer to venture in a new country.