Burning the Breeze by Lisa Hendrickson

Author:Lisa Hendrickson [Hendrickson, Lisa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HIS036140 History / United States / State & Local / West (ak, Ca, Co, Hi, Id, Mt, Nv, Ut, Wy), BIO022000 Biography & Autobiography / Women
Publisher: Bison Books

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Julia knew there were no business opportunities for a woman living in Toston, so she sold the house and bought herself a Ford coupe. She applied for a job with the Fuller Brush Company as a door-to-door saleswoman, even though such positions were listed in the employment section of the newspaper under the category of “Help Wanted—Male.” One such ad read, “WANTED—Several energetic, neat appearing young men for salesmen. Montana territory. Experience not essential as we train you. Small capital or bond required.”4

Although she was not a man, she certainly fit Fuller Brush Company’s description of “energetic” and “neat appearing.” She may have been attracted by the job’s supposedly lucrative potential. “A Fuller man makes good money,” noted one ad. “Can save and is able to give his family its rightful advantages. He is virtually in business for himself with all the possibilities that lie in such a situation.”5 Despite her gender, Julia was hired and assigned a breathtakingly vast sales territory that included all of Gallatin County and Yellowstone National Park. Bozeman was in Gallatin County, but the rest of the region was sparsely populated and required driving long distances on mostly primitive roads. Julia didn’t find the opportunity lucrative. “I tried it all summer but couldn’t make my salt,” she said. “It did one thing for me and that was cure all foolish pride.”

She sold her car and took several jobs cooking for people. When ski parties visited the Butler family’s Nine Quarter Circle Ranch near Bozeman, she headed up to prepare the place for guests and fix their meals.

In November 1921 the entire Bembrick family gathered in Toston to celebrate Doc and Lulu’s fiftieth wedding anniversary. He was ninety-three, and she was sixty-five. “Famous Pioneer Celebrates Half Century of Domestic Felicity,” read the headline in one Montana newspaper. “Both Mr. and Mrs. Bembrick hold their age remarkably well. Mr. Bembrick . . . takes his daily walk down town. He has never used a cane in his life. . . . His eyesight cannot be surpassed for a man of his age, but his hearing is slightly impaired.”6

Anson was back living in Toston as well. His running sore had worsened, and around Thanksgiving the following year, his foot was amputated at the hospital in Butte. “This amputation was necessary due to blood poisoning, resulting from an infection,” noted the Toston Times.7 Julia was far from Butte at the time, hunting with her nephew Bruce Huntley at the Nine Quarter Circle, where he bagged an elk.

She had only Marge to care for, since Don was enrolled at Montana State College in Bozeman. Julia took Marge to stay with Doc and Lulu in Toston, and in January 1923 she headed to the state capitol in Helena to work as a stenographer for the legislature, earning $5 a day. Her earlier training at the Helena Business College wasn’t helpful. “I wasn’t very good,” she recalled, “but did the job.” She needed the money not only to survive but

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