My Dearest Son,
I have attached a letter I wrote to you, concerning your walks alongside the rail yard of what used to be called the Northern Pacific Railroad. That was the railroad your great grandfather Ira Sullivan worked for while he helped his wife Lydia raise their three young boys Oliver, the oldest, Wilber, and Robert, the youngest.
Oliver and his younger brothers grew up in Laurel, Montana where their father worked in the hump yard of the Northern Pacific (NP) Railroad. He spent his days and nights, depending on his shift, switching rail cars from train to train, turning the occasional car that needed to be turned to face the other direction, so the proper door would open when the car was spotted at its final destination siding.
Out of Laural some trains went south towards Denver, some went west towards Seattle, and some went east towards Saint Paul and Chicago. Your great grandfather Ira helped sort those trains in the Laurel yard. If you are ever of the mind to write a nice simulation game I think a rail yard of the 1920′s and 30′s would make an interesting setting.
Your grandfather Oliver Sullivan was the General Yardmaster for the Billings rail yard of the Northern Pacific Railroad in the 1950′s through the 1970′s. As you walk alongside the rail yards I hope you will remember your ancestors, men who at your age used to walk those very same streets of Billings fifty to a hundred years before.
Should you need a place to call home you would be well advised to claim Billings, Montana as your ancestral home. Perhaps I will someday drive with you up to Laurel and I will show you your grandfather’s boyhood home. It is now owned by a cousin whose mother Mabel was one of the sisters of your great grandmother Lydia.
Mabel and Lydia raised their families a couple blocks apart among the 5 acre farm area east of Laurel, Montana. Lydia owned four five acre tracts. One for her and one for each of her three boys.
The two sisters grew up in Strum, Wisconsin. Lydia was trained as a teacher. Upon graduation she decided that she would travel upon the recently completed Northern Pacific Railroad on her way to Butte, Montana.
“Where are you headed, miss?”, the Conductor inquired.
“Butte Montana, I am going there to be a school teacher.”
“Oh miss. You don’t want to go to Butte. It is too rough of a town for someone so refined as yourself. Why don’t you get off at Belgrade and walk over to see the Superintendent of Schools. He is a friend of mine who will gladly hire you to teach in Belgrade.”
The railroad conductor put your great grandmother off at Belgrade, Montana with a reminder to introduce herself to the Superintendent. She did and was hired as a school teacher. She worked there until meeting Ira who wooed her and wedded her and moved her to Whitehall. They followed the railroad to Laurel.
Please see the attached photograph of your great grandfather in a wagon being pulled by a goat. The sign says 1917 when Oliver would have been two years old. Perhaps they lived in Livingston for a time or perhaps the picture was taken on the trip down to Laurel. And then please enjoy the recent picture of 91 year Oliver four years ago studying Vista.
Should you decide to claim Billings, Montana as your ancestral home, you can proudly tell people that you have railroading, coal mining, and computers in your blood. The coal mining comes from you other great grandfather Ralph Lumley, out of Red Lodge, Montana.
Should Red Lodge beckon you, know that it is the childhood growing up place of your grandmother Helen, who married Oliver. Between income from the Red Lodge mine and income from selling peas to the Red Lodge cannery and milk to the Red Lodge dairy Ralph and Mary Lumley raised their family in Red Lodge during the Great Depression. These and other family stories will each be told in their turn.
