Tall Tales of Montana Homesteading and Beyond

About the Book

A biography and moving story of a remarkable lady, who is an avid horsewomen since the day she was born. Homesteading days in southeastern Montana on the prairie is about a strong hard working family surviving hardships and heartbreak including love along the way. The mode of transportation was usually a horse or horse and buggy. No electricity, inside plumbing or water just the light of the kerosene lamps.
During the depression years the family made their own good times with many humorous stories and made the best of the bad. This story takes you to Missoula, Montana then to Grand Coulee Dam as it was being built then later to San Francisco during World War 11 where she raised her three teenaged daughters and then the fun began.

About the Author

Thelma Van Hook was born in 1911 in South Dakota, traveled with her family to their homestead in the Chalk Buttes area near Ekalaka, Montana in 1915. Attended the Van Hook, Foster and Willard country schools. The Willard country school was taught by my Mother, grades 1-8.I met my first husband Darrold Grant Johnston at Ekalaka High School, we married and had two of our three daughters delivered by Dr. Sandy of Ekalaka. Surviving the adversities of the great depression I moved west to California in the 1940’s and worked in various occupations. I married David Kirkish in 1959. Now a widow and a Century old, I decided to write my story. I currently live with my daughter in Orangevale, California. I had three daughters, two step-daughters, nine grandchildren, fourteen great-grandchildren and seven, great-great-grandchildren.