Browning Newspaper Notes 1945 - 1947

August 31, 1945
When July 4th comes around in the future, Edward Big Beaver, Jr. will go through them with mixed emotions since his war wound was suffered last July 4 when he was shot through the hip by a “die hard” Jap in the Philippines. “Hell!” shouted Big Beaver the other day, “Getting shot on July 4th in a battle is more sensible than having it happen in peacetime!” Big Beaver put in approximately four years in the service of his country, most of which was in the hot spots of the Pacific. He received a medical discharge.

August 13.
Allen Spitzer’s doctoral thesis at Stanford is on “The Social Organization of the Blackfeet.”

September 24
Harold Douglas, expert electric welder, worked at Hanford and welded the atomic bomb -- blindfolded! [Don’t ask me how he did it. The article didn’t explain -- just that it was the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.]

October 3, 1945
“It was good. It was the biggest thing to hit this valley since the Japs,” said Pfc. Jackie Heavyrunner Jr. of Browning, MT. in an attempt to describe the Carabao Rodeo staged by the 126th Infantry Regiment’s 3rd Battalion near Arctao in the Cagayan Valley, northern Luzon. Heavyrunner, who ended the war on his 538th day of conflict with the 3rd (Red Arrow) Division was one of more than a thousand Red Arrowmen, guerrillas and girls who cheered Carabao #9, “Demobilization,” as he sped across the finish line leading a field of 8, to establish an all-time 500 yards record of 5:25:3. Horse-races, relay races, and other events were climaxed by a battle between the lovely ladies of Deupex and Aritao for the Cayagan Valley Softball Crown while a guerilla band furnished music and ice-cold Coke flowed like water. “The rodeos back in Montana were tame compared to this riot,” said Heavyrunner. “It was the first one I’ve seen since I shipped over here in September, 1943.” He saw action at Sardor and Aitape, New Guinea; Morotai, in the Dutch Indies; and Leyte, Philippine Islands, before going to Luzon. There the Red Arrowmen hammered General Yamashita’s forces for six months, killing 12,000 Japs before the Tiger of Malaya surrendered to the 32nd at Baguio.

October 19, 1945
“The Daughters of the American Indian”
Pres. Mae Williamson
VP: Mary B. Salois
2nd VP Pansy Cavanagh
Sec. Rita DuBray
Treas. Viola Upham
Kate W. Smith, Nellie Buffalo Chief, Lillie Monroe, Elizabeth A. Welch, Irene Salois, Nora Spanish, Jeanette Night, Lucy Sharp, Julia Wades in the Water, Emma Last Star, Maggie Croff, Mary Huntsberger, Sadie Kennerly, and Hildegarde Jessepe.


1946

July 12, 1946
Diamond A Studio opened by Bessette.
The Diamond A Studio, operated by A. E. Bessette, opened today in the building near the Bessette residence north of Buttrey’s clothiing department. The stock features horse models in miniatures as well as those of various wildlife in this section. Other stock includes paintings in oil and watercolors and pen & ink sketches.

July 19, 1946
Ewers gets job in Washington, D.C.

July 26, 1946
Tim McCoy and Wm Hazlett are making a movie.

Oct 1946
The Browning Fire Department early this week received a long-awaited fire pump, order for which was placed last spring. The pump will be mounted upon the fire truck and will enable the use of fog nozzles, the order for which was placed recently. The pump has a capacity of 600 gallons per minute as to throw water in a desired stream.

1947

Jan. 24, 1947
The comics have changed. Now they include a cowboy serial called “Broncho Bill.”
John McKay, because he is a veteran amputee, is given his choice of any new car with the price limit of $1600 value with the government picking up the tab.

January 21, 1947
The winter is very bad and Oscar Thronson is getting publicity from it.

(The story of Joe Kipp being the first Native Indian to buy a car and drive it up from GF in ten hours is revisited. Actually happened 8/3/10)

June 6
Comics have changed again. Now they feature “Mopsy” by Gladys Parker and “Nancy.”

June 20, 1947
Schultz, Noted Writer, Passes; Local Pioneer
James Willard Schultz, 87, now Montana pioneer and nationally known author of stories dealing with the early Blackfeet Indians, died at his home in Ft. Washougie, Wyoming, on Wednesday of last week, the body being forwarded to Browning, funeral services being held Monday afternoon by members of the Blackfeet Tribe. Lying in state at the Beck Funeral Home Sunday and Monday mornings, it was viewed by sorrowing Blackfeet as well as the deceased’s many white friends of older generations. The life of Schultz was perhaps as colorful as any American in pioneer history. Born at Booneville, NY, August 26, 1859, he was educated at Peekskill Military Academy in preparation for West Point. However, he forsook opportunity for a military career to come west and be one of the actors in the drama of Montana pioneering. His trip was by boat from Missouri to Fort Benton. In 1877 he was inducted into the Blackfeet tribe and named Ap-i-kuni, in the Indian tongue meaning “Far Off White Robe.” From then on for many years he was virtually a full-fledged member of the tribe, sharing their joys and sorrows and maintaining his fealty to them to the very day of his death. Learning the Blackfeet language, he launched upon a literary career in the middle 1900’s, among books produced being “My Life As an Indian;” “Bird Woman,” the life of Sacajawea; “Blackfoot Tales of Glacier National Park;” “Signposts of Adventure; “ “Rising Wolf;” and “The White Beaver.” Schultz named many of the peaks in Glacier National Park, including Red Eagle, Going to the Sun, Grinnell Glacier, and Grinnell Mountain. His first wife was Multsi Ahwatan Ahki, a Blackfeet, who died in 1903. A member of the Catholic faith, she was buried in the Holy Family Mission cemetary. To them was born a son, Hart, of Greer, Arizona. In 1931 he married his present wife, Jessie Louise Donaldson, former member of the faculty of the Montana State College amd now engaged as a social worker in the Indian Service at Ft. Washougie.

Noted Artist and Wife Here for Funeral
Mr. and Mrs. Hart Schultz, who were here from Greer, Arizona, to attend the funeral of his father, the late James Willard Schultz, were making their first trip here in several years. Prominent in art circles throughout the United States, Mr. Schultz uses mostly the northern Indians of the United States for conceptions in his creative work, dominant of which is sculpture. Most of his patrons are eastern residents, he said. Born on the Blackfeet Reservation, his early schooling was at the Holy Family Missiona and Fort Shaw. Later he attended the Chicago Art Institute and the Art Student’s League of LA. Several years ago he taught classes at the Agency, instruction being confined mostly to drawiing.

Aged Blackfeet Conduct Rites for White Friend
A living, breathing portrayal of long ago, with the simple, quaint Indian ritual praising him and committing him to the Eternity of Sand Hill, aged Blackfeet in their burial of their adopted tribesman, the late James Willard Schultz, Monday afternoon kept faith with him in death as they had done in life. Where these devoted Blackfeet buried their white friend is where others of this proud nation -- Red Eagle, Walks in the Middle, Diving Around, Strong Wolf, West Wolf, Many Good Trophies, UnderBull and Double Victory-- were also buried in years gone by. The site is upon a barren prosaic spread of mountain plains, two miles NE of Holy Family Mission. And were it not for a little clump of cottonwoods that chose to grow there, in defiance of forbidding things about them, Indians might never have buried their dead there. Hallowed by the dust of departed ones he cared for most, Schultz requested that it be his place of burial, too. In other days when waning robustness had made him realize the eventuality of death, he proposed to Yellow Kidney and Chewing Black Bone that they pray for him at his graveside, should he precede them in death. In fulfillment of a promise, this they did at Monday’s rite. Dick Sandeville (Chief Bull) who had known him since 1878, presented the coup sticks, one at the head and the other at the foot of the casket. Tokens of physical vitality, integrity and achievement attainable only in righteous death, the venerable speaker explained at length their meaning. The ultimate of devotion done, the casket was lowered into the grave, James Willard Schultz, Ap-i-kuni (“Far-Off White Robe”), being laid away with the full glory of a Blackfeet.