P a g e 4 G h o s t T o w n s a n d H i s t o r y o f M o n t a n a N e w s l e t t e r Can you imagine the fun that those kids had living in Garnet during that time? Not too far from their cabin was an old Model T Ford, and of course, those three young girls created a wonderful place to play. Sharon was the driver, Terry was the tour guide and Bonnie sat in back and enjoyed the trip. They all read a lot of books and wherever those books took them, well, that’s where they went in that Model T Ford. They traveled all over the world. Garnet was a friendly place, the kids could run in and out of the houses of families living up there, one of the best places was Ole and Marion Dahl’s house, as she cooked really good and would share with them. Bet it was cookies! Feeding a large family wasn’t easy during those days, but her dad built hutches, under a lean-to in the back of the house, for rabbits to grow big and fat, to eat for supper. The kids all had jobs, like hauling wood; they got water to fill up the metal box on the side of the stove to keep warm water for washing; plus hauled drinking water from the creek, which you can see running in town today; picked huckleberries, and their dad taught them to shoot a gun in case a bear came along. Not to shoot the bear, but to shoot up in the air to scare the bear away. The kids even picked huckleberries to sell to the miners, they got some coins and the miners smacked their lips. There was a ranch down the mountain and in the summer months the rancher brought up the cattle to graze. There was a big mean old bull, and one day the bull found the rabbits food, pellets and ate them. Well, Bonnie chased that old bull and the rest of the herd, down the road and got rid of them. She talked a little about what their dad taught them about the dredge down in Bearmouth. That the gold sat on the bedrock, big nuggets, and when they brought up the nuggets they put them according to size, in quart canning jars. The bedrock sloped and the overburden was deep, the sides caved in often as the water was very deep. Today we can see all the rocks from the dredge along the side of the road in Bearmouth. Photo by Jolene Ewert-Hintz The kids all read a lot, one of the magazines that they read came from the prison in Deer Lodge, called “Knocker”. When it rained, they couldn’t wait to go up on the hill behind the Visitors Center, there was a little slanted pit up there and the clear crystals, purple crystals and garnets would sparkle, laying in the dirt, exposed in the sunshine. The kids would gather them up and keep them to play with them and use their imagination to what they could build. Bonnie Worley and Florence Smith (her mother), wrote a book about Marie Johnson escaping from Siberia to a life of Triumph in America. Published by Stoneydale (Stevensville) called, “A Cup of Tears” and it is a true story about Marie. A big Thank You to Bonnie for sharing her many stories about Garnet, her family, and what Garnet was
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