Bess: A Pioneer Woman's Journey of Courage, Grit and Love

by Charles Cranston Jett

  Doc seemed unconcerned about Bess or the children and continued to focus on his walking, and riding his horse. One morning after breakfast, two weeks after he had the cast off, he simply said, “I’m going over to the horse ranch. Be back in a few days.”

  Bess said nothing as she watched him put on his coat and hat, grab his cane, and scurry out the door. That same feeling of anger rose up from the depths of her soul, but she said nothing. Instead, she sat down at the kitchen table and lit a cigarette without even so much as a casual goodbye.

  Doc was gone for six days and when he came home, he was drunk. He’ll never change—he’ll never learn! Bess thought. She simply ignored him as he hobbled straight into the bedroom, put down his cane, and fell into bed.

  He left late in the afternoon of the next day after walking for a while and riding Tony around the pasture. “Goin’ to the horse ranch,” he said bluntly as he left the house, mounted Tony, and this time galloped off.

  Doc came back five days later, but this time he wasn’t drunk when he walked into the house. He didn’t say much during supper, but smiled at the children. After supper, but before he went into the bedroom, he turned to Bess and said, “I’m sorry, Bess.”

  Bess was nursing Sidney and just looked at him, saying nothing. Then he went into the bedroom and went to bed without saying another word.

  Surprisingly, for the next few days, Doc was sober and worked around the homestead. He made a few repairs to the shed and fixed the wooden fences down in the lower sheep pasture with Jim Edgar. It was late May and the weather had been warm and dry.

  One morning after breakfast, Doc said, “I’m gonna sell the horses. Take ’em to St. Louis on the train.”

  Bess was surprised at this. Even though she knew the horse business was failing, she had expected that Doc would continue to deny it. “Oh,” she said. “You’ll need some money to go, I suppose.”

  “Maybe two hundred dollars,” he said.

  “Fine,” Bess said. “Get it at the bank.” She didn’t tell him which account he should use, because she didn’t want him to know that she knew about his private account.

  The next day, Doc went into Haley and came back with two hundred dollars. “Got the money. Gonna take the horses to Gascoyne tomorrow and put ’em on the train. Will go to St. Louis to sell ’em. Probably take two or three weeks.”

  Gascoyne was a stop just east of Scranton on the Milwaukee Road and they had stock pens there where you could load cattle, sheep, and horses for shipment back east. Ranchers usually sold their cattle to the stockyards in Chicago, the sheep in Sioux City, Iowa, and horses in St. Louis. When shipping their livestock, the ranchers always went with the load to the sale. So Doc would be traveling on the train to St. Louis.

  He left early the next morning and barely said goodbye to Bess and the children. He told Bess that a couple of the ranchers were going to help him take the horses up to Gascoyne, but she didn’t really care. Bess was thinking that it would be nice and peaceful with him gone for a few weeks. Hope it’s a month, she thought.

  Shortly after Doc left, Bess wrote a letter to Mama and Papa. They had moved from Cando to Conrad, Montana, up north near Great Falls. Papa was managing the grain elevator there and Bess told them about her problems with Doc—the drinking and his seeming total lack of interest in the family, but she didn’t tell them that he had hit her.

  Mama wrote back a week later saying that Papa was still managing the grain elevator, but he was nearing the time that he would like to quit and maybe find something else to do. Bess wondered if that something might include living on a homestead … my homestead. A wave of excitement rushed through her body.

  Bess went into Haley about two weeks after Doc had left and took only Sidney with her in the shawl. At the bank, she saw Anna again and her palms grew sweaty. She walked over and said hello.

  “Hello, Bess,” Anna said with a smile. It appeared that she was very happy to see her, and a good feeling rushed over Bess.

  “Hello, Anna.”

  They chatted for a short while about the upcoming winter and how that might affect the schoolchildren. “You’ll have that problem next year,” she said with a laugh.

  Bess smiled and invited her to come over to the homestead some weekend so they could chat some more.

  “I’d like that,” Anna said. “Just over the state line, right? Near that stone Johnnie on the hill?”

  “Yes, just down the hill on the western side,” Bess said happily.

  They planned for Anna to visit in three weeks on a Sunday. On her way home, Bess couldn’t stop smiling at the thought of Anna.

  Doc returned twenty-three days after he had left for St. Louis. He stumbled into the house after Bess and the children had finished supper, drunk and disheveled.

  “Doc!” Bess said in awe. “What happened to you?”

  “Nothing,” he mumbled. He then threw off his coat and went into the bedroom. The side of his face was a bit bloody, and there was blood spatter on the sleeve of his coat. She didn’t say anything—just hung up his coat, sat down, and had a cigarette.

  The next morning when Doc got up, it was tense. Bess could sense that something had gone terribly wrong and she begged him to tell her.

  “I got into a fight last night,” he said. “I’m OK.” He got up from the table, put on his coat, and left the house.

  Later in the day when she went outside to feed the chickens and collect the eggs, she saw Jim Edgar standing by the shed.

  “Doc tell you?” he asked.

  “About what?” I replied.

  “He lost money on the train back. All of it.”

  Bess was stunned. “Lost money?”

  “Looks like he was gambling with some fellas. They took all of it.”

  Bess was furious. She went into the house, slammed the egg basket on the table, and broke a few. Lost the money … the money from the horses … all of it? … Our money! Damn him!

  She waited for a couple of days for Doc to return. He came into the house, drunk as usual, and Bess confronted him. She told him that she knew about his losing the money and that she was fed up with his being drunk.

  “I’m sick of you, Bess,” he said. “Sick entirely.”

  “Damn you, Chris,” Bess screamed. “Sick of me? I’m fed up with you!”

  “I’m gonna go home,” he said.

  “Home?” Bess exclaimed. “Aren’t you home?” she shouted.

  “Back to Galesburg. Maybe to Chicago with Pearle and Frank.”

  Bess was stunned, but somehow relieved to hear that he would be leaving.

  “Get out! Get out now,” she screamed.

  Doc left the house and didn’t come back for a couple of days. When he did, he was sober.

  “I’m finished with ranching,” he said. “Finished. Going home.”

  Bess paused, reaching for the right words. They had been together for almost seven years and this was the end. “Fine with me,” she said.

  The next day they went into Haley to the bank, withdrew a thousand dollars for him to take with him, and he closed his account. He had just sold his homestead and he had plenty of money to take with him.

  When they were finished, they went outside,

  “Goodbye, Chris,” she said sternly. “Don’t come back. Ever.”

  Doc just looked at her and shrugged his shoulders, saying nothing.

  Bess left him standing in front of the bank. He’ll probably hitch a ride to Gascoyne with someone, she thought. I’m glad he’s leaving. I don’t want to see him again as long as I live. The children might miss him at first, but it’s not as if he was ever a proper father to them. Our hired man Jim Edgar has been more reliable than Chris.

  The next day Bess bundled up baby Sidney, asked Jim Edgar to watch over Billy and the girls while she would be gone for a couple of hours, and came back into Haley directly to Mr. Byrne’s law office. On Wednesday, July 14, 1916, she filed for divorce and to change her last name back to Parker. She had been married for
six years, lived on a ranch that she owned, and had four very young children.

  Bess began to look forward to a future without Chris Stewart in her life.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Bess went back to the homestead—Annabel slowly walking. She was deep in thought. She had been married for six years, lived on a ranch that she owned, and had four very young children.

  Billy was having fun with Jim Edgar pitching hay in the shed, and the girls were busy in the house playing with paper dolls. Bess thanked Jim for watching the children and busied herself feeding the chickens with the girls and straightening up the shed.

  After supper and after putting the children to bed, she sat down, lit a cigarette, and began to think. She was tired, had made an enormous decision about her life, and figured she could think more clearly after a good night’s sleep.

  Thursday, July 15, 1916: Bess Parker’s Homestead Near Haley, North Dakota

  Bess awoke to the sound of meadowlarks greeting the new day. The morning was crisp and clear with just a few clouds in the crystal-blue sky like puffs of cotton on their journey to the east. The charming scent of freshly mowed hay wafted through the window, tickling her senses. It’s a new day—a new life, she thought, as she got out of bed and quickly dressed. She put on her slippers and walked quietly across the rough-hewn pine floor toward the front door. She didn’t want to wake the sleeping children.

  She made her way outside and stood in front of her sod house and looked to her left at her buildings, her corrals, and at the grazing sheep and cattle slightly down the hill from the ranch. She looked at the sheep wagon where there was a slight wisp of smoke coming out of the chimney. Jim must be up, she thought. She raised her arms and puffed out her chest to greet the new day. She smiled. Seems as though I’ve been here before, she thought. A little over seven years ago.

  A fresh, cool breeze blew through Bess’s hair as she surveyed the rich prairie grass and the Teepee Buttes about five miles directly west. This is my land, she thought, my family, my home. My homestead.

  She thought about her dreams so long ago. Travel west, homestead, and be successful. Those were my goals. She smiled. I’ve made my dreams come true.

  Sure, she thought. There were bumps along the way—and things that weren’t in my plan. The heartache of losing Linda. A failed marriage to Chris Stewart. Four beautiful children. One little angel, little Nellie, whom I never got to know. That thought brought a tear to her eye.

  But I did it! she thought.

  She stood silently and enjoyed the cool breeze, the pleasant sound of the wind blowing across the waving grass, the happy birds, and the thought of the sleeping children inside.

  She rolled a cigarette and lit it. Taking in a deep breath, she reflected on her accomplishments.

  But it’s not over, she thought. By no means is it over. Maybe Mama and Papa will come to join us. We’ll be a whole family—a family of ranchers!

  She smiled. I’ve faced a challenge at a young age and I met it successfully--head on. But like that day in April so long ago, Bess knew that she was no fool. Many more challenges loom in future, she thought. Challenges that I welcome. It is exhilarating. Thrilling.

  She thought back to what Papa had told her when she boarded the train in Leeds. “Live your life,” he said. It sounded so simple.

  I’m living my life! she thought.

  Then she smiled.

  She crushed out the cigarette and went back inside.

  To her home.

  The End

  Afterword

  Writing this book was like taking a trip back in time—to actual experiences and real conversations with some of the characters.

  I was born in Bowman, North Dakota and lived on a prairie ranch between Bowman and Haley for the first six years of my life. I then spent every summer on that ranch until I graduated from high school in 1959. So I know this part of the country very well—but did not actually experience it in the early 1900s.

  Instead, I have relied on countless stories told to me in rich detail during my childhood and later years. My sources include homesteaders who settled in the area in the early 1900s, my grandparents who homesteaded in 1904, my mother (one of the real Bess’s children), my father, my aunt and uncles (also the real Bess’s children), her husband, and many of the residents of the area over the years.

  Yes, I knew the real Bess very well. She was my grandmother and, after I passed the irritating years of early elementary school, she became one of my best friends—and I, I think, one of hers. Bess and I played a lot of Scrabble, tickled the piano ivories together, and talked for many hours about the early homesteading years and the hardships she and her family endured. She told me many stories about her children back in those days as well as stories about her mother and father, Nellie and Giles, although they had died before I was born and, sadly, I never had a chance to meet them.

  This book is not a biography of the actual Bess. Rather, it is historical fiction. So while many of the stories are true, many of them are also fictional. The book is loosely based on her and her family, and portrays the life she and her family lived on the actual homestead.

  Charles Cranston Jett

  Chicago 2016