Rick Pyfer and Sara Pyfer Fowler

[00:00] RICK PYFER: She's going to point. My name is Rick Pyfer and I am going to be 70 years old on June 17 of this year. I was born in 1952. Today's date is June 8, 2022, and we are in Missoula, Montana. I am with my daughter, Sarah Pyfer Fowler.

[00:23] SARAH PYFER FOWLER: I am Sarah Pyfer Fowler. I am 46 years old. Today is June 8, 2022, and we are in Missoula, Montana. And as stated, I'm with my father, Rick Pyfer And dad, I brought you here today and signed up for this conversation so that we could talk about you and we could talk about your history, your family life growing up. You're a descendant of immigrants from Yugoslavia, your grandparents that came over to east Helena, Montana, where you were raised, the small smelter town. So I just wanted to talk with you about your upbringing today. So if we could start with telling me about your grandparents, how they came over and why they came to the United States of America.

[01:22] RICK PYFER: Well, thanks, Sarah. This is an honor and pleasure. Love to talk about my family. My nana and pa, we called them. Nana was my grandma and my mother's mother, Mary Sasek Pyfer Excuse me. Her name was Mary Lasar Sasek, and she came over from the old country, Slovenia. She was preceded by my grandfather, and his name was Joseph Sassick, and he worked at the smelter in East Helena. East Helena is a smelter town, and it was a town which was built by immigrants from Slovenia and Croatia, Italy and Austria mainly. And the families of those settled into the little town of East Helena, which was my hometown, a population of about 1500 when I grew up. A 1 mile long town with highway twelve running through the middle of town and a business district with eight bars, a liquor store, a candy store, post office, a couple of grocery stores, Lucky's fountain with a candy and games drugstore. And probably the most prominent was the East Helena VFW building, which housed the war vetshe, who came in from World War Two and really built the town just before I was born. So anyway, my folks were. My mother was the only child of my nana and pa grandparents, and they lived at eight Pacific, which was a block away from where I was raised. My father had drawn the plans for our home, our family home, which were finalized in 1952, the year I was born. And so we lived a block away from my nana and pa for my entire life. And my mother was a very loyal and dutiful daughter to my grandparents. So anyway, that was kind of their background. They came from Slovenia. And actually in 1965, my father took us all back to meet the family members, and we met a couple of my grandma's sisters and a brother. And also my grandfather's family was there. But he just lost his only brother. Fresh flowers in the grave before we got there. It was 40 and 60 years since they'd seen their families in Slovenia. So anyway, another point. My dad sponsored two brothers to America. They were in their teens or, and they were at risk in holding refugee camps in Yugoslavia after the war. And these two Lassar brothers ended up raising very prominent families. They came to east helenan state at my grandparents place, sponsored by my dad and Stan and Joe Lazar. Stan actually had five children. The oldest boy, Dave Lazar, became extremely prominent as he was the president of Halliburton, succeeded John, Mister Cheney, the vice president of the United States, at that job. So it just goes to show you the success of these families that were brought here by my father to my grandparents place. And they were all related. Dave, as I say, went on to be the, after many things, of president of Halliburton. And a number of others were really high achievers. His family was raised in Wisconsin, and Joe's family was raised in Missoula, Montana. But anyway, back to my parents and the family. Yeah. So that's kind of the background of my grandparents and growing up, you talked.

[05:11] SARAH PYFER FOWLER: About how when they came to this country, they tried to assimilate as much as they could. But it was such a heavily populated community with immigrants that your grandma, your nana, really never learned the language, the English language fully because she maybe didn't have to, because there were so many yugoslavian, which is now Slovenia, immigrants there, that it was just a really concentrated community. And how that was for even your mom growing up in basically a bilingual family, right?

[05:52] RICK PYFER: Yes. They had the Streckel family, Smith's family, the Langenfusses, and they all were immigrants, and they could speak the slovene language. So you're right. My mother and my mother learned the language. My mother went to grade school with two being bilingual. Her prominent language was slovenian, so, but she, of course, learned English. And then my grandma, because she leaned on my. That language so much, really felt awkward with the english language and was embarrassed because her English was not very good. So counted on mom to shop for her and do many things for her. And so they were extremely close, talked every day and they would talk on the phone in Slovenia. It was pretty funny. I didn't really learn the language that way. But a friend of mine, Tom Janko, did, whose parents were slovene but the community, as you said, was fully slovene, so everybody raised their gardens in there and canned foods and ate out of the gardens, made wonderful meals. I remember my grandma making this thing called Gansa cornmeal with sauerkraut. The sauerkraut, of course, came from cabbage from her garden. And it was. And my grandpa they raised, they had trees in their yard with plums and apples, and he made apple and plum wines. And it was just. And they also had a lot of gatherings in their homes, and accordion music was prominent, and they danced to the accordion, polka music. And eventually my mom taught me to play a few of the songs on the accordion. I'll talk about that in a minute, but, yeah, tremendous. And mom went to school. We had a catholic grade school, and when she started school, she was bilingual.

[07:37] SARAH PYFER FOWLER: Then I guess moving in to kind of into your early childhood, and you mentioned the catholic grade school that your mom, my grandma went to. But you also grew up going to the catholic schools because that was the faith that was brought over by all the immigrants from. From Slovenia and kind of how that shaped you, I guess, as a person and your community. And the community.

[08:07] RICK PYFER: Right. By the way, I had. There were four boys in our family, my brothers, Don and Bob. Don was five years older, born in 1947, and Bob was three years older, born in 1949. They had been born before we built the new house, and they lived in a little house behind my grandparents at Eight Pacific. And then when the house was built on 16 East Pacific, where I actually live now, too, that house, we all moved into it. And then Bill, my younger brother, was born in 1957, five years younger than me. We all went to the catholic grade school. My mother graduated from that school in 8th grade. She was the only graduate. So there's a picture of her with the priest and a bunch of flowers to fill it in. It was kind of funny because. But when I got there, there were 20 in my class, and it was a wonderful class of children, great friends. We were all very involved, very athletic, did a lot of sports and had a lot of fun in East Helena together. But the catholic faith was a huge part of my family's upbringing. And my mother was very prayerful. She set a rosary a day. And she was extremely dedicated to the catholic church, which was called St. Cyril and Methodius Church. And that church in East Helena is dedicated to the patron saints of Slovenia. When we visited Slovenia and Ljubljana, the capital of it, we, later in life, we saw a cathedral of St. Cyril Methodius, again, the patron saints of Slovenia. And by the way, we had Croatians. Yugoslavia was a communist country, of course, and broken down when they became democratic in the 1990s. And Slovenia and Croatia and the various parts of it were broken out into other, their own countries. But we were slovene, and that's the northern part of slope Yugoslavia. I also. I just wanted to mention, I didn't. I've talked a lot about my grandparents on my mom's side, but my father grew up in three forks, Montana, at the headwaters. They had a home at the headwaters of the Missouri river, which was interesting. And right now there's a road there called Pyfer Road that comes transects from the frontage when you go to the headwaters and then comes out right at the headwater visitor center where the Madison, Jefferson and Gallatin rivers form to start the talk. Beginning of the Missouri river. And I had a St. Louis roommate in college, and he always kids about, yeah, I was at the top of the three forks, the beginning of the river. He's down at the bottom of it, down in St. Louis. But anyway, dad was raised very poor, and his grandma, or my grandma, his great grandma, start again. My grandmother and my great grandmother drove cattle over to three forks area to homestead there. And so there were. And her brother as well. And so they own land around the headwaters state park. And dad was raised and went to three forks High school. He was a really smart man. He didn't have much money, but he went to a poor person's college called Chillicothe in Missouri, and met his best friend, Paul Kleffner, who's a notorious farmer in Helena, East Helena. And they came to East Helena after college and became best, best friends. And Paul owned the Kleffner ranch, which is very historic here in east Helena. And dad and he were partners and built well developed land between Helen and East Helena over many years. And that sleeping giant development has names of family members, including my grandma Lola on there. So I just want to touch base on dad and his family, too.

[12:01] SARAH PYFER FOWLER: Well, and speaking of your dad, so your dad was huge into service and always wanted to provide things for the community, acts of service, through all his volunteering and his service clubs, and provide experiences for you and your brothers growing up. And one of those experiences, I think, is a very unique one. And when you were young and you guys won a contest in Montana to be the all american family and go compete. So if you could kind of tell me a little bit more about the all american family.

[12:45] RICK PYFER: Yeah, well, I will, and thanks. Yeah, that was classic. Oh, my gosh. And a wonderful trip. I was eight years old, and we were able to fly on an airplane all the way to Florida. But just before I do that, I just want to talk about my parents a little more. I actually, when dad died, and they had been married for 59 years, and my dad died in 2005, and mom died actually in 2020, just as Covid was starting at 98 years old, but they've been married 59 years. They were a wonderful couple. And of course, like I say, raised us four boys, and my mother being an only child and having no brothers and by parents, you know, it was a real challenge. But she was amazing. So these amazing parents of mine in east Helena were prominent in east Helena. And dad, because he was the involved with the Galusha accounting firm and a CPA, very involved in the community. My mother was an organist in the church for 65 years. From age 16 into her eighties. She played all the weddings, funerals, lots of catholic services in our catholic church, forever, for free, basically. And they were so dedicated to the community that Dick Sampson of the East Telena Kiwanis thought we would be a great candidate family for this pageant that they had back in the day. And it was called the all American Family pageant. And we won the Montana contest. So we were the representatives for Montana to this pageant where 50 states had families there. And we all met at Fort Myers, Florida. They had a week long competition. We'd all eat all our meals at the same place, and they'd watch you, you know, and, oh, boy. But it was. It was interesting to watch the disintegration as time went on, where families, they were so polite and well mannered and dressed and then became disheveled. And the fights, you know, it kind of broke down as time went on, but it was really fun. They had a swimming pool there, and we stayed by this swimming pool. They had lots of fun games and events. We got to go to the everglades and see the alligators. Extremely fun thing. And getting on an airplane for the first time on a big jet to go all the way from Minneapolis to Florida was real fun. But again, that was a lot because dad and mom were so service minded and such great family oriented people. Frankly, I don't know what kind of petition or form they had to fill out to get it, but it was really a fun experience. And as my dad always wanted to have us experience various things, that was a highlight.

[15:32] SARAH PYFER FOWLER: What did you guys do as your talent as part of pageant?

[15:36] RICK PYFER: Yeah, well, my mother was a tremendous, not only organ player, but she played piano. She plays her stylings on the piano and the music of swing time and all that in the fifties and sixties and forties music. Oh, she was a wonderful piano player as well. In fact, she played for all of our Christmas pageants at our grade school. The nuns didn't have a musical talent. So my mother, by the way, we were taught by sisters of Charity of Leavenworth, Kansas, came out and taught us in that little grade school, uh, my k through eight. And mom, every Christmas, would play the pageant. So anyway, we were. Our talent was my mother playing the piano and us singing songs. Uh, montana is a song. Montana, Montana. Glory of the west of all the states from coast to coast you're easily the. Anyway, you get the idea. My father was always off key. So he just made sure. He just mouthed it and lip synced. And that was our talent. And it was fun.

[16:36] SARAH PYFER FOWLER: So then, I guess, really the burning question, did you guys win?

[16:40] RICK PYFER: No, we did not win. But probably because my brother got on the Ted, this national radio program, and he was asked a question. He said, do you have a joke? He said, yeah, I got a joke. Some people said, and my 13 year old brother Bob said, some people said, my dad isn't fit to eat with the pigs. And I said, yes, he is. And I thought, where did that come from? So if we hadn't lost it already, that story lost it for us.

[17:15] SARAH PYFER FOWLER: But then coming back around, so, like you were saying, your parents were just so involved in the community and doing so much for other people in service and for your family inexperiences and. And such hard workers. And that really seemed like it was part of all of the mantra of a lot of the immigrants that came over and their families and descendants. They were here to work and to make a better life for themselves and for their future generations.

[17:46] RICK PYFER: Yeah, absolutely.

[17:47] SARAH PYFER FOWLER: Here. And then how did that theme, I guess, play into kind of where you went with your life, especially going into high school?

[17:57] RICK PYFER: Well, as my father and mother were so service oriented, that really embedded in me the idea of serving community and community service. Dad was a Kiwani and, in fact, ran for international president of Kiwanis. During our years growing up, we went to national conventions regularly. And then dad actually formed the East Helena Kiwanis Club, which was a vibrant, active club of all the business leaders in East Helena. And also was part of the Helena Kiwanis Club at the time, which had a huge membership and did tremendous service. Mom was, you know, involved in everything, all the drives and fun drives for charities and things in East Helena. And, of course, like I said, her service to the church was just over the top with all the work and playing music that she did for choirs and choir practices and everything else. Anyway, so as a result of the two of them, that kind of influenced my work. And also dad in high school helped form a service club that's sponsored by Kiwanis called Key Club. And our Helena Catholic Central High School had the first Helena Key club, which I ended up being a member of and then eventually became governor of the key clubs for the state of Montana, which was a really great experience for leadership training and service. And so that. And it was a lot of influence by my dad and his long time service of that sort. By the way, we went to. Made some great trips and traveled to the convention in Denver, convention in Los Angeles. And then my younger brother got to travel with them after I went to college to other conventions of Kiwanis. But, yes, that's probably what influenced is that experience. And we mentioned experiences. Dad always used that word, you got experience. So he'd take us out to the golf course with the pro who he did his CPA work. And by the way, I think I said, dad built this CPA firm, Galucia, Higgins and Galucia, to the biggest firm in Montana, opening offices throughout my youth in Helena. Excuse me, in Missoula, Bozeman, Billings, Montana, and Glasgow in Idaho Falls, Idaho. So they were about 100 people. And so he was very, very involved and a tremendous accountant and estate planner. My mother was, of course, raising the kids and doing all sorts of involvements with us. And it was just. But he would always involve us. And he'd take us hunting. He'd take us fishing. He'd want us to learn different things and skills. Tennis bubble got brought to Helena. He helped finance it so we could all learn, play tennis. But anyway. So I'm kind of rambling.

[20:46] SARAH PYFER FOWLER: Well, yeah, so, experiences. And he then had the foresight to purchase a lot on our nearby lake, Canyon Ferry Lake, which was a lake created by a dam on the Missouri river.

[21:03] RICK PYFER: Right. That was a big deal and still is. And Sarah and family still use it. I actually took it over. Dad was involved. It was. What happened was the Missouri river got dammed after the war. And there's a little village in. Down in canyon ferry town in a crossing there over the Missouri. But that went away with the flooding of the area to have Canyon Ferry Lake. And so in 47, they started allowing people to get leased lots and develop cabin sites along the place. And then in the two thousands, they actually allowed us. Dad and others got involved with Max Bacchus. Our senator, and Holly Luck, a tremendous aide and friend of ours to Max and a group of folks and were allowed to buy our places. So we own the lots on Canyon Ferry Lake. So this lake is, like I said, a river dammed up. And what we've done is we built a dock. And dad always loved to have the kids work, so this was great opportunity. When he bought the lot, it had a wood floor, which he had the four boys tear apart and build a double wood dock with it. And wow, that was week after week. All we did was go out there and work, and it was eventually it became fun. But my dad loved to see us work and I was the nail straightener because you save everything and we take the nails off that and we save and reuse the ones we could to build the double dock with oil barrels under it first. And oh my gosh, now, of course, EPA, there's no way that would happen.

[22:39] SARAH PYFER FOWLER: But you were about ten.

[22:42] RICK PYFER: I was eight years old when we bought it. And then over time, of course, grew up with it. We used to have the Galucia picnics there. We'd have a lot of family events every year in the summertime. This is a wonderful summer place for our family and others and to entertain and then eventually the Pulley family. My brother married into the Pulley family and we always had the 4 July pulleyad Pyfer out there, but just the source of all sorts of fun and entertainment. We, of course, had a boat. We'd water ski, teach others to water ski. My dad water skied and he had these beautiful little floaties. Remember those where he put on his glasses? He put little bobber floaties on his glasses in case they came off so he could find his glasses. Yeah, with electrical tanks.

[23:28] SARAH PYFER FOWLER: Electrical, which is what he used to make everything.

[23:32] RICK PYFER: Electrical tape. Yeah, we got water from the lake for a long time because he'd pump it out and he'd have to tape the pipes and have us work on the pipes. I eventually had a well drilled, so it'd make it a lot easier out there. But that's been a great source of family for us. And of course, all our families and extended families have used that over many, many years.

[23:53] SARAH PYFER FOWLER: Your grandparents, because your grandparents were alive until you were in.

[23:59] RICK PYFER: When college. Nana died when I was in college. Pa died when I was in high school, but. And my nana, my grandmother Lola was, gosh, I think in high school it was cheap as. Yeah, we all used it a lot. But anyway, so the music thing I mentioned, music I wanted to mention too. That the music journey was not just my mother's. We all took piano lessons, my brothers and I, and eventually my brother Don took accordion lessons. And then I kind of struck out with my first two piano teachers. And his wonderful teacher, misses Lou Hart, said, ricky, why aren't you playing music? And I said, well, I told her about my sad story of my other piano teachers and she said, well, why don't you just let me teach you some popular music because it was classical and blah, blah, blah. And I just wasn't tuned in because I wanted to play baseball. And so anyway, she taught me popular piano and I still play to this day and courting and that was in just pre sixties when the rock music scene came in and my brother was playing accordion. And she actually gave me a year of accordion lessons, too. So I played in bands. She had a junior and senior accordion band. And we go around and play in rest homes and the VA and various things. And I still do play the accordion now, but the piano, too, led to kind of playing in a rock band because I end up getting a keyboard and playing in rock bands. And my brothers played in a surfer band called the Invaders and they practiced in our house. My brother Don was a drummer, Bob was a guitar player, and their band practiced. And then my band in the sixties, after them played, you know, we played born to be wild, light my fire all the great Inegada devito, all the sounds of the day. I was the keyboard guy and we practiced there and played a lot of dances around the city and state.

[26:00] SARAH PYFER FOWLER: And this was all through high school. Yeah, but your high school, you only went to Helena Catholic Central until junior year.

[26:13] RICK PYFER: Yeah, that's one of the traumas of my life. It's a sad thing. And for our family and for, actually, the community was too bad. Catholic schools were closing, the nuns weren't paid, and it was just hard to get teachers and pay the money that it took to keep those schools open. So unfortunately, my catholic grade school closed while my brother was there, Bill, in the early sixties. And then our catholic high school was rebuilt. We built. My mother grew up and went to Cathedral High School by the cathedral of St. Helena. And then a new high school was built and it was only there four years, called Helena Catholic Central. It's now the site of Sun Haven or, excuse me, Helena Capital High School and the Bruins. But that was built as a catholic high school. And my brother Bob went there all three years. I went there three years and the school closed my senior year, which was traumatic because we had a tremendous pride and spirit. Our football coach came in and built a wonderful pride in the student body, and our football team won five. One was 53627 and one ready to win state. My senior year, I was the quarterback and worked out all the time and with my friend Mike van Diest, who was a wide receiver, by the way, Mike from East Helena ended up being a really famous coach. He's in the hall of Fame of coaches. Mike went on to be the. He played football at Wyoming, then coached elsewhere, came back to Helena when his mother was sick with cancer. His mom, Bea, was a great lady, and he won six national championships for the Carroll College fighting Saints as coach. And I adopted the team as the Carroll crazy accordion guy, leading cheers and getting the fans involved, and went to six of the championship games on the airplane charters and played my accordion on those. But we were at the Helena Catholic Central High school playing football together, and junior year, we learned, after beating the team that won the state championship, Butte Central, we learned that the bishop was going to close our school, and it was really a downer. We went to Helena High and it was different, but it was a sign of the times. And also Vatican II had happened my freshman year, which was a big change in the catholic teaching and faith made it difficult for many of us. A lot of people left the church and made it difficult for Leann and I, my wife, to Sarah's mom, to bring our kids up in the faith because we really kind of were lost in the how to teach Catholicism at that point. Anyway. Kind of rambling a bit.

[28:57] SARAH PYFER FOWLER: Well, then after your senior year, you went to Notre Dame.

[29:04] RICK PYFER: Yeah. So, yeah, I was fortunate, actually, to get there. My grades weren't great and I didn't test real well in the SAT, but I always kid that they were looking for geographic diversity in this guy from Montana. Oh, that clock's fine. Yeah. So I went. We went there to school, and my wife Leanne, who was my high school sweetheart, went out and transferred to St. Mary's. And we had a great time in college there. Met some wonderful friends, saw great football and entertainment. It was a tremendous experience and good base for me to go to law school, which I went to law school at University of Montana. But in between, we had an interesting year, a couple of years, actually 74, we were in DC working for a congressman and then downtown for the veterans administration. Came back to town, or then we traveled across the country to Gonzaga, where I spent a year, and then went to law school in Missoula for three years. But I kind of want to fast forward. Back to Helena is where we came and settled in and raised our kids. My daughter Sarah, was born in Spokane, then Chris, my son, was born in Helena. And they each have wonderful families. They're beautiful kids. Sarah has a daughter named Vetta, who is now nine, and Chris has a son named Athens, Samuel. And Samuel was my dad's name, so he kept the name safe. Leanne and I came back and raised our kids in Helena. Great place. And unfortunately, we had illness in the family and some troubles. Leanne had a lot of trouble with Epstein Barr monovirus, and we ended up divorcing. But I went on to do a lot of service work in the Helen area and be involved, and eventually I returned after I retired and practiced law for 40 years as a plaintiff's personal injury lawyer. I now am back in East Hill in the family home, so it's kind of returned to roots. And my family life is so wonderful with the grandkids and Sarah and her kids being here in Montana City. We're going to join Chris and his family in Brooklyn, New York, for my 70th next week. But it's. I just have so much pride in my kids and their accomplishments. They've done marvelous things. Sarah graduated Colorado state. Chris graduated Notre Dame, went to law school. Sarah ran a business in Spokane before marrying. She's done many wonderful things and does wonderful things for her family. So back in East Helena now, I'm in my family home, and it's kind of interesting. I remodeled it, and I'm involved now again in east telling of things and look forward to helping with things in the future, because we were super, a super fun site. Now they had a cleanup, they closed the sarco plant, and it was a super fun site. And the prickly pear land trust is a trail system, is just going to put in. I'm going to help with fundraising. One of the things I do in my service is a lot of fundraising. I've been involved is a board chair, united Way, three times on the y board as a chair and different things, and Kiwanis club president. So I a lot of service orientation, and now my service is being directed, in part to East Helena. The historical society has revamped the old railroad depot, and I took over my grandparents home last year, actually, and did a remodel. And my home in east Helen, I'm hoping to help with the revamp of the fire hall, which was where our community hub. But East Helena is bigger now, and we have a high school, but it's still got that core base of families from the old country and a lot of the family. In fact, the mayor now is, and several mayors have always been connected that way to the old country, Slovenia, which again, we were fortunate enough to visit. I've been there three times, took the family, and it's been nice to have that connection back to the Slovenia and all those folks, too.

[33:30] SARAH PYFER FOWLER: Well, I think the story of your life and the story of East Helena is really an american story. I mean, it's the story of what made America. Immigrants coming over in a microcosm in East Helena. All the immigrants coming over, working hard, making a better life for themselves.

[33:53] RICK PYFER: Yeah.

[33:53] SARAH PYFER FOWLER: Future generations.

[33:55] RICK PYFER: Right. And he's telling it, too. Sorry to cut you, but the veterans, if we have the two parades for the local area, memorial day and veterans Day, the veterans are very highlighted here in East Helena. And the veterans of foreign wars puts on lots of activities through the rec council over the years. And my dad was a world war two vet, my grandpa was a world war one vet. And, yeah, so it's a very important part along with the spiritual part of the communities, too, and the churches. So just kind of wrap up the situation as far as, as my love and family came from my parents because they were so close. I had a book done by called Two Peas in a pot about my parents life after my dad died. And that's a wonderful published book. There's a book called Prickly Pearland trust, which I put an article in. And we have a family about our family in the family section, that very wonderful book about east element history. And I did a segment about my growing up in east Helena. I love the town. My buddy the coach used to say, it takes a village, and it really did. When he spoke to the chamber or others about growing up there, all the families were close. And my parents taught family values to me and I hopefully taught those to my children. I think they have wonderful families and have done the same. And the pride and love of family and closeness spiritually that was brought up, brought to me during my lifetime growing up in east Helena and now returning to East Helena has been a big part of my life and I think my family's life.

[35:49] SARAH PYFER FOWLER: So, yeah, I would agree. I'm very proud to be descended from immigrants. I'm just so appreciative for all of the sacrifices they made to move over to this country so we could be here and have all the amazing opportunities that we do have. And it is a real sense of pride.

[36:18] RICK PYFER: My nana, my grandma came over. She had a boyfriend there, and she was 18, and she had to get on the ship and take her one back of wicker basket of a suitcase and come to america, land of opportunity. And she met my dad. Grandpa. My dad. My grandpa married him, and I think life was good for her, and my mom made it good for her. My mom made life great for all of us and just had amazing parents and upbringing here in east helena. Or in east helena. I'm actually talking from missoula, but I'm talking about eastone.

[36:56] SARAH PYFER FOWLER: And it was the melting pot of the culture that they brought over, the slovenian culture, the customs, the foods, the way of life.

[37:06] RICK PYFER: Oh, yeah. Pogotica. The juice, all the breads and dishes. Yeah.

[37:12] SARAH PYFER FOWLER: And then melding it with the american customs, and I. Right.

[37:19] RICK PYFER: Yeah. And we were our own town east, 3 miles from helena, so we were all our island, and we loved it.

[37:27] SARAH PYFER FOWLER: Well, thanks, dad, for.

[37:29] RICK PYFER: Yeah. Well, it's a joy to talk about what I loved my family, and I love you, sarah. Thanks so much.

[37:35] SARAH PYFER FOWLER: I love you, dad. I'm so proud of you.

[37:37] RICK PYFER: Proud of you. Are we done? Oh, whoops. It.