All but the waltz

the long version

Abraham Hogeland was born in 1855, in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. In 1882 he came into the Montana Territory with the railroad, but left it to start a ranch at the mouth of Spring Creek in Fergus County. He married Mary Walton. Beginning with her great-grandparents' arrival in 1882 in Montana, Blew relates the stories that make up her life. We learn of her grandmother, separated from her husband and young children, who spent three months alone in a remote one-room schoolhouse, and the headstrong aunt with a laugh like the summer who scandalized the family when she bought her own Buick. With simple poignancy, Blew tells of her father, who took a drive one day in his pickup and disappeared from her life forever.