#20 Nature-The Good and the Bad-Homestead Years

#20  Nature. The Good and the Bad

A dryland farm in Montana is a tough place to live but a drought during homestead years made life tougher.  Montana’s drought began in 1916 following years of rain which had created the record farming yields.  Advertisements for the prosperous farming conditions in Montana had been an inspiration for many to move to the plains and homestead.  But in 1916 weather changed and the rain quit falling beginning the series of events leading to the dirty 20’s & 30’s.  Even though the advertisements raved about the crops that could be grown, no one considered what a drought might do. 

My grandmother, Della Kurtz Shaffner, and her brother, Oliver Berlin Kurtz, found themselves living on homestead’s in Montana.  But a brother and a sister made the best of their homestead life with their families.

Oliver moved to Dillon, Montana about 1900.  He married Bertha Fjelsted in 1901.  They filed for a homestead, receiving his patent in 1916. In 1911 the family had moved to a dry farm southeast of Dillon, where they lived until 1921, except for one year in Sheridan, Montana where Oliver worked to get money to put in another crop.  That crop was never harvested because of the drought. By 1916 Oliver and Bertha had 4 boys and were trying to eek out a living on mediocre ground.

Oliver & Bertha Kurtz and sons

Oliver, Norman, Lester, Jim, George & Frank

(birth order)

Della followed her brother to Dillon in 1913 where she married her husband John Shaffner in September.  They were lucky as he had a job with the railroad as telegrapher.  As soon as they married they moved to Simms, North Dakota where he was stationed with the Northern Pacific Railroad Co.  One son, George, was born there.  But family was closer in Montana than Pennsylvania where the rest of the family lived.  And land was free if you homesteaded.   So west they came beginning with a telegrapher job in Custer, Montana.  

John & Della on dryland farm where they homesteaded

John filed for his homestead in Beaverhead County in 1915.  Oliver Kurtz was a witness on his filing paperwork.  His final certificate was filed in 1921, where he received a patent to the land. He completed a house on the land on September 1, 1916.  He stated that he and his family lived in town during the cold winter which enabled him to work for wages as a telegrapher for the Union Pacific Railroad.  When the drought  hit, he and his family moved to a farm north of Dillon for several years.

Shaffner Homestead Cabin

John was lucky to have the job and he was then able to buy other homesteads when the owners dried out and left.

Oliver’s homestead was about 10-15 miles from his sister’s and his brother in law.  It was rough country, still is.  Not suited for farming but for stock raising.  

The dry years hit and took a toll on homesteader’s trying to make a living from the land.  John was lucky, he had a railroad job in Dillon.  He & Della had 4 boys to feed by 1924.   Oliver & Bertha struggled on 280 acres with 6 boys to feed.  He moved off working for neighboring ranches.  But with 6 growing boys to feed, he eventually took a job as janitor at the high school in Dillon.  Oliver was so loved and respected that the students gathered money to pay for his headstone.  

Don Shaffner had many recollections of Oliver & Bertha.  Don remembered the house at 249 N. Railroad which had a front room with a pump organ.  The Shaffner's rented a house next to it for one winter.  Don told of many holidays that the family shared together.  Many in the family rave about Bertha’s cooking.  And yet, no recipes have been passed down to the next generation.  

Thanksgiving Day 1934

Shaffner & Kurtz Families

The families stuck together during tough times and holidays.

¹LORNA THACKERAY.  Dreaming on the Land.   Billings Gazette, https://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/dreaming-on-the-land/article_86e65bab-dc0c-5a44-a9d3-19fe8a256fa6.html, 15 May 2005,