Kelly Ambrose Kelsey, Mattie Bartlett Ambrose, and Colleen Ambrose

Recorded June 3, 2020 Archived June 3, 2020 38:46 minutes
0:00 / 0:00
Id: mby019784

Description

Mattie Louise Bartlett Ambrose [no age given] speaks with her daughters, Kelly Ambrose Kelsey (64) and Colleen Elizabeth Ambrose (65) about her family's history moving from Ireland to the United States and establishing their own farm in Montana.

Subject Log / Time Code

MLBA talks about her family's Irish heritage and the establishment of their family farm in Montana.
MLBA talks about how her family founded Rexford, Montana, which was meant to be Wexford.
KAK talks about her grandfather's marriage to the Sullivan family.
MLBA talks about the schoolhouse that her children attended, before it was burnt down.
KAK shares memories of her grandfather, who she describes as "established".
MBLA talks about getting married at 16 and having children.
MLBA remembers her husband.

Participants

  • Kelly Ambrose Kelsey
  • Mattie Bartlett Ambrose
  • Colleen Ambrose

Transcript

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00:00 I'm Kelly Ambrose Kelsey. I'm here. I'm 64 years old. I'm here with my mother Louise and my sister calling while we're in Bigfork Montana and see what else do I need?

00:16 The date is Wednesday, June 3rd 2020.

00:24 Louise Bartlett Ambrose

00:27 I was born November 8th 1934. Where in Bigfork Montana.

00:33 Is that in the date June 3rd 2020. These are my daughter's calling and Callie.

00:43 And Colleen Ambrose, I'm 65, and it's Wednesday, June 3rd, 2020. We're in Bigfork Montana and I'm here with my mother Louise Ambrose and my sister Kelly Ambrose Kelsey.

01:00 So what we kind of wanted to talk about was our family history. Our family is Irish came over from Ireland, and so a lot of what we're going to talk about is stuff that we've heard that's been passed down from generation to generation. So it's the oral history, but my mother has done quite a bit of work looking up marriages marriage certificates birth certificates and death certificates. So we've been able to verify some of it, but the family's been in the Flathead Valley for a hundred and forty-four years. I think we figured and so go ahead and tell us how you were call Grandfather coming from Ireland great-grandfather.

01:41 William Ambrose came from

01:44 County Waterford

01:46 And we thought he'd come to New York when he was 21 years old, but I think he was younger than that. He became a cop in New York. Then he moved to Boston.

01:58 And was working in a woman Factory you married a woman whose maiden name was Crowley and had one daughter and that woman passed away and he came West.

02:17 What year did Buddy came West to he was going to set up a wall on a sheep is going to rage deep in Montana and he got off the train in Columbia Falls Montana and that's as far west as he lands and they did not start start a sheep Ranch.

02:38 What happened instead mother?

02:41 You matter when or what a woman who had four daughters in Creston, Montana.

02:47 And which was Nick is is near Kalispell Montana and they married in 1891, but she had started the she had a shooting Homestead homesteaded an 8-minute. It was located on a of a property in 1886 and live there alone with her four daughters. Her husband went back to Butte Montana and was killed in the mines and she was living alone with $4 in Creston Montana and he met her and her name was her name was Hannah.

03:26 Harrington Murphy and

03:30 They were married in 1886 or 1891. I'm sorry and had three more children on Thomas Ambrose Winifred and Bill Ambrose.

03:44 And Tom Thomas our grandfather. So the farm that our mom lives on was the farm that was homesteaded by our great-grandmother. But the one who signed on me, the homestead was our great-grandfather approved approved up even though she's been living there first.

04:08 And then

04:10 So then from there we had our great-grandfather. I'll tell her a little bit about the great great grandfather in Ireland teaching.

04:21 William Ambrose is father.

04:25 Was teaching Gaelic in the hedgerows?

04:29 In Ireland and he was murdered by the British for teaching Gaelic. They were not supposed to be teaching not supposed to be speaking Gaelic. Do we have any idea? I don't know and then so and then grandfather or great-grandfather. You said used to go back and forth to Ireland and why was that

04:52 They could only bring money out of the country a certain amount of time. So he would go back to Ireland and always brought money back to Montana.

05:04 Bought a lot of land

05:08 And so then also when they used to take their cattle describe how they took the cattle up to Eureka. They he always wanted to live somewhere besides Creston and they drove the cattle. I would say 80 lease taking miles. They heard of the cattle from Creston, Montana to Eureka Montana by horse back.

05:42 We don't know how many days that took or how many people went along with them.

05:48 But then he started the town of Rexford Montana, which was supposed to be Wexford from Ireland County Wexford County Wexford named after that when the paperwork came back, it's at Rexford. So

06:04 And history and Rexford has kind of its own history. It's been moved twice or three times.

06:12 Probably twice the cemetery and all had to be moved when they put in the Libby Dam and it did it burn one time to or why. Did they move the first time?

06:24 There were two times it moved.

06:27 I can't remember the other time. Do you remember about great-grandmother the woman who homesteaded our place she had she had three daughters and then Jane was she was pregnant with Jane when her husband died and he was born in January and he saw her the last time he saw her was when she was 8 months old. Okay, you can and that was in August and he was killed in the mines in Butte.

07:06 He had taken another man's place in the mind that day and was filled okay.

07:12 So but

07:15 So great grandmother.

07:18 Ambrose her her name was Hannah Laura Harrington Murphy for daughter's first and Main and Annie and James and Kate and me where did they end up?

07:45 Rexford and they had a hotel. Yes both of them or just one just one have the hotel but they were together and Annie had a homestead in yaak Montana. They were all three of their times.

08:02 But Caden meme.

08:05 Passed away in Rexford. They stayed there and who did Kate marry?

08:11 Jack McCaffrey

08:23 Tom Handley and they had two daughters.

08:27 And they grew the daughters and the docking living, Montana.

08:32 And they were who Nora?

08:40 Pajama, and so then we learned that great grandpa died in Rexford. So we figure he took the cows up. They took the cows up there and he must have stayed there and passed away up there. But then his body had to been brought back down to be buried there most of the families Mary buried at the Conrad Memorial.

09:07 So then

09:10 The property that you live on ended up going to the two daughters Annie and Winnie never married one was.

09:24 Rheumatoid arthritis and the older one and the one with the arthritis was Ambrose. Anna Murphy the half sister took care of her all the rest of her life. And if and when he was bedridden for 45 year to 5 years, but she had she had arthritis.

09:48 Animals going to school in Missoula at Sacred Heart Academy and her child's locked. They had to bring her home.

09:57 Who's taking care of the rest of her life?

10:02 And so then you okay. So Grandpa ended up a mile up the road on the hands are on the grant grant place and Janie had the half the homes next to them. And then okay, so Grandpa ends up marrying his neighbor Elizabeth Sullivan. They grew up together. What what about the sound of what about the Sullivan family?

10:33 The Sullivans came from Ireland as well. Mary Hussey Sullivan married Mortimer

10:41 Sullivan in Anaconda, Montana

10:45 And they grew up across the road from each other. They did not get along. Well, do you want to hear all that?

10:55 Our home was across the road from the Sullivan place.

11:01 And they didn't get along. So they roll that home to where our home is now on Logs with horses. That's about a half a mile and a half a mile basically to get away from a Sullivan who had

11:17 My husband's mother was one of of 611 Sullivan.

11:23 And they

11:27 Elizabeth Sullivan and

11:30 Tom Ambrose married one day before she was 30 years old too was married on June 6th and 1923 and

11:41 Next day. She was 30 years old. My mother told us we could never get married till we were 30 because we had to live our lives. And so we got her that I'm married on my 30th birthday. I tried to get married the day before my 30th birthday, but it didn't work. I got married if my husband is living we would be married 69 years since a lot.

12:10 So we had a lot of family growing up that was older and we did a lot with the old people. I'm so we heard these Irish stories.

12:21 Over and over and over again. So we they were repeated and that's how we kind of keep going with these history because we kept hearing it. I feel like we were part like Angela's Ashes but shop talk about the building of the barn on the place. Mom. The barn was built in 1913 by an Irish Man by the name of William Ryan who had come from Ireland to Nova Scotia and he feels our barn

12:54 From Timber that was Saint off the land cut off the land and son at a neighbor's some of the Jessup mail mail and he built the barn for $389 and he furnished the nails. It's a big barn that is photographed a lot by people because it's a really striking Barn that people notice in the valley because of the setting so when we go back to great grandma and she had two sisters that also were Homestead and where were they

13:40 One was just across the road.

13:45 The song of Hannah Johanna

13:50 Harrington Harrington, she was a Harrington who married a Harrington?

13:55 And

13:58 That was the icing place. Yes, the Icee place across the road from the house and then they lost it kind of lost it and they moved eventually to Utah and

14:15 Daniel Harrington have borrowing money from Grandpa Ambrose and eventually and Grandpa Ambrose ended up with that hundred and sixty-eight.

14:28 It said that he gave that to his son with him with him Ambrose and his wife and am and Clary Ambrose who had

14:39 They had two sons together and Bill. It's 41 years old with high blood pressure.

14:47 And left her pregnant with a daughter and the two sons.

14:53 She had thought she was a teacher at school teacher. And actually they had they have an interesting history as well when you property and Annie and when he got property and William cup property did Grandpa not get anything at all. Not until they died 4180 the grant 80.

15:21 Jay and one of the original cast of Murphy the youngest daughter of

15:27 Sam's and Pandora Murphy

15:30 Had married a neighbor right across the road and they divorced.

15:37 Which is very unusual.

15:40 And she she acquired that property.

15:45 Well, then she was losing that's so she borrowed money from Grandpa Ambrose Grand Theft Auto.

15:56 And

15:58 When he died in 1926 she thought she would get the money that the property back at 80 acres, but he didn't he left it to his son Thomas and Rose who is our grandfather. My husband's father. So that's so they never spoke again. She lived off everybody because she was broke.

16:26 She would have lunch with Anna Murphy and Winifred Ambrose and they should have supper with Tom with Tom and Liz.

16:35 Sit across the table from you know, how Irish men are and they would never speak.

16:43 Great history of Irish people

16:46 Let's see.

16:48 Well, I meant you had another sister that had up on the Gordon place that Homeless stay up there, but she had never proven up on the property. So yes, you're probably going there's not one thing that makes sense here is there.

17:06 Okay, so they had come from Ireland.

17:20 To New York and Hannah and Nora

17:26 And her husband they came from New York to the mines in Michigan to Leadville, Colorado to Butte Montana. And while they were living in Butte they had a locator who would locate land for you and that's how they got to the Flathead Valley.

17:47 And the three girls came to the Flathead and the East had a homestead but only two proved up on them.

17:55 And that's how are at least our place to get started in our family? And where was Laura Harrington and her sisters from Oshie came from County Cork and she knew Grandpa Sullivan on the other side on on the other side and in Cork.

18:19 Grandma one came from County Kerry Waterford and two from Cork the grandparents.

18:27 So I'mma Sullivan side so we are family is made up of Sullivan's in Ambrose's. So on the Sullivan side, the youngest son Jerry went to World War 1 and so tell us about how you know, he he how he was kind of trained and he got sent over there when he just tell us the history of that whole thing. He left the 1st of July 1918, and he was killed in October.

18:57 And when they sent them over they had nothing to train them with they they traded their their guns that they trained with we're brooms.

19:07 And he

19:11 Hit and he had to get gas and was put in a prison camp and died of pneumonia in October and we have letters that my husband's mother wrote to him. We could have been his sister in December saying why don't you write you could just write a few words and she went through the Red Cross and so it was probably after the first of 1919. He died eight days before the armistice.

19:47 West side and she probably her last letters are in December to him that they sent home.

19:55 A razor and his prayer book. They said they ended up and they were the first he was the first boy brought back to the Flathead Valley the first Soldier very large military funeral.

20:19 And she has to work to get two people back Auto Schultz a friend that had listed with them. They were both killed and so she successfully got both of their bodies back to campus.

20:38 Talk about the echo school where it was located who all went there how big it was and all of that.

20:48 Back, then all eight grades were in.

20:51 One school the school was built in 1896 and Our Generations Tom William. My daughter's my my four daughters and then the school house burned down so they had to change schools with all those the school was about Grandpa's quarter by quarter mile. And so we so our grandfather our dad and all four of us girls all went to that school. It was a great great country school and then like she said somebody burned it down when I was a senior in high school.

21:32 But so Tom and Lizzy married

21:37 And they had how many children they had Mary Elizabeth William Francis and James Thomas. The only three names I think they knew from our of anybody. So we have many many about state names in our family. So of that generation William Ambrose had a William Ambrose. He had a William Ambrose and

22:07 James and yeah, yeah, but then he got married to Elmer rutschman and they met during the war over in Great Falls right now Jimmy Jimmy passed away when so it was Mary and then William and Colleen Kelly K Kathleen and Patricia.

22:45 And then Uncle Jimmy.

22:49 Castaway a bachelor at the time of his death when he was you could only have been in the 30s.

23:01 He died December 18th, 19th 1959.

23:08 When kahless

23:10 I was pregnant with with path.

23:13 He died in a car accident.

23:18 Anyway, that was pretty devastating to Dad and I were very very close. But everyone thought they were twins because as largest his little brother.

23:35 So and if one of the things that you didn't talk about with our great-grandfather William Ambrose, he was his initial marriage to Wells Crowley. He had one daughter and what was her name? And then she was when he came out here to Montana what happened with his daughter or after his first wife passed away what happened? He had one daughter in Boston. He married a crowded girl and had one daughter and his wife died and he left the daughter when he came in last she is married, but they caught me on me. He left her with the Crawley sisters in Boston. It's the first time she came to Montana to our to see her. Dad is her dad.

24:27 Was in 1913 after she married Joe Haverty, but we ended she's just discovered that they did their honeymoon out here. Yes, that would have been the same time that he probably visit her every time. He went back to go to Ireland recently. Probably stop by later Taken in Boston. He had to a visit with the family probably girls

24:52 And then me and Joe would come out and visit very often. He worked on the railroad, Baltimore and Ohio and they can quite often to visit.

25:08 Very well. They like they were the city people on that. We have to have visit to come out to see you at the gym in Boston. And Maine was a really good photographer. So we have quite a few photographs that she provided or took over the years one of which one some sort of a prize or an award. What's your thought that was that wasn't me? That was the killer it was probably the picture of a bunch of bunch of cousins and they're dirty and dirty faces and you can send the and I want some kind of photography contest way back when

25:57 I love that picture. So and also the Sullivans there like you said Lizzie Ambrose was one of six so there were two girls and four boys to girls and most of them stuck around the Flathead or the state of Montana.

26:21 Deborah Jerry, Jerry would have been the only one that the one that was killed in the war so that John and Hazel move to Arizona children with that later in life after we were married. I only saw John and Hazel are Rodger and Isabelle John and Hazel dad and Mildred.

26:47 Anna Keller and Liz, okay

26:52 So so Dan had

26:56 Two kids and then Cecil and Louis

27:11 Ireland

27:13 These are all about either related by marriage or by Blood tab. Most of the people in the valley and my dad probably was a pallbearer every week when we were growing up to somebody I figured it at the funeral director didn't if they didn't have anybody to be a pallbearer. They just had bills name on the they were going to hire him because one year, he was a pallbearer. They said they might just as well. I mean being an old-time family here. They knew everybody on what was it Grandpa did in the court. He was the public administrator County public administrator meaning he would handle the Estates of are probates of Estates of folks who died without a will or I think about nature so he he

28:13 And he had these four granddaughters and he would take us to town with him. He must have gone to the court and wait for him to get done and then he would take us to this restaurant called the temple team room, which was wonder if we just thought it was wonderful and we built in our barn we took and built a restaurant that a sign written Temple Tea Room was there for years. I don't know when it fell down but we would go out to the Garden get the vegetables and would make soup and pretend like we were cooking for that little restaurant. We made it look like the temple theorem. I loved it. I loved it.

28:54 Now then he would come home and somebody had spilled their food.

28:59 He wasn't really happy meaning of us are girls. Always somebody yelled or told I told you that we did something bad at the restaurant. We never got to go again. I don't know who that was. But I'd like to know the name of the person.

29:20 And he dressed the girls quite often but dresses alike.

29:26 Unfortunately, he died. How about Levi was he was 75 / we though it would have been.

29:33 Find 96065 work had this watch that we would call mrs. Rabbit on this watch to talk on the we talked on it. Like it was a telephone but we also would calm his hair and we get on the back of the couch and this poor guy. We take his hair and we lifted up in the, then we supposed to come back down into this hair and we stopped across his lap and step on him and he'd have tears running down his face, but it wouldn't yell at us.

30:15 No early.

30:21 How much time you have I guess you got married in 51. He was 16 and my dad was 25 when they got married and I think that's really why she said we had to wait till we were 30 so we could experience a bunch of stuff before we got married. So but so when you got married to Dad Grandma Lucy was still alive then where did you live or when you first got married tell you we lived it would live on the same hole on the homestead.

31:07 The two spinster aunts have been living there and one fell and broke her hip and they had to leave the home. So we married and moved into the Homestead Place, which is just a mile from where my grandmother grandmother and grandfather lip and then my husband's mother passed away suddenly in 1952.

31:29 November and we had to move in that's the way you do it.

31:34 We moved in and I took care of my husband's father and brother for 4 years calling was born while we were there. Kelly came a year later and

31:47 I said we were going back door on home. So we did Mom that's not exactly how she said it. She said she wouldn't go home with Dad unless they know you moved out of place then so then we moved into the homestead house, which was an old old farmhouse hundred quite old because it was

32:10 Parts of it were moved there and then in 1910 they built on to the house and Grandma Ambrose was standing outside. They said saying higher higher. So it was one of these T-Model TV houses with an attic that was a full house never used never used an upstairs and they also built what they called a parlor.

32:39 In 1910 as well that made the tea and

32:45 That became a bedroom for grandfather Ambrose William Ambrose because he had arthritis so bad.

32:54 The neighbor man who were old Bachelors from Ireland would come in and turn him in the sheets.

33:03 Daily

33:06 2 because he couldn't move himself or if he was a giant of a man and

33:13 But then he became better because he took their cattle with arthritis.

33:26 Okay, so then that house so we lived in this house and it had one bedroom that downstairs cuz I didn't do this and so it was Mom and Dad and Colleen and I am I spend K & K before you added on the bedroom for a 1965 and that is still our bedroom and it still it was the parlor that became a bedroom will then they finally you tore the house down in 2010 built the house still are farts.

34:12 So then how old are K? What year did Dad have his accident with a tractor?

34:19 1957 and what happened? It was a his leg between the tractor tire and backing up to a piece of machinery.

34:31 Forgot the poster Sarah's Dad was with him and he backed himself. It had a hand clutch, which he stood on the ground and back to tractor and a crush just leg between the charger platform and this big post and is dad still there and saw the whole thing and he couldn't turn off the tractor. My husband had to reach up and turn up turn off the tractor. So and I was okay. I figure I was how old were year so here is mom and dad trying to farm with two little girls and my dad's leg is crushed in May.

35:20 And he's bedridden for Donald M on November and his leg was never set properly. So my dad always had a bent leg and he had to have a shoe built up and everything and so is whole life he had this crippled leg until he went to Mayo Clinic in the apparatus. They put in his leg just fell out in a few years. He had a good leg before he passed away.

35:49 So a man named my dad had a stroke when we were what how I was in the sixth grade is 41. I can't imagine what it was like for you as a mother of four daughters to have a man who had a stroke that you didn't even know what he was going to survive. What was that like

36:10 Scary you didn't wake up in the morning. And what what did you say? Yes, but when it happened he was wide awake looking but course he was paralyzed him. I would go to the phone and I'd say all this is just a nightmare. Don't call the doctor and then we didn't have 911 so you didn't have an ambulance to call you were just have to call Grandpa or somebody and

36:45 Call for help you man, but I just I can't imagine the feeling of did you even think about that or did you just what did you think like when you went to Spokane and Spokane? Did you think that he was going to survive? I mean, they didn't tell you it was going to be very good didn't think it was going to be a high percentage of Survivor, but when he had the stroke in the beginning the stroke.

37:15 When they had went to Spokane there and the doctor wrote it up and showed me on a Kleenex box with what they have done, but we call the night before and the only said, you know, I've never had the surgery before and the doctor said I've never done it before the Carotid artery. So you survived.

37:42 So, you know and then you guys course bought the property that actually from Annie and Winnie we bought it after we move back down. So you've been there. I was thinking today in 44 years. I think we figured time on the farm. And and now we were just talking to the other day of all mom's friends and people that she knew on that highway from the time. She got married. She's the only one left that still alive. That is an original person on in probably 20 miles.

38:27 He's our last last bit of history that we can to.

38:32 We have to question her a lot.

38:38 Equidone, okay.

38:42 How did you do you go like? Oh my God was