Tom Beavers…Get some Montana land and be rich

By Eva Hallam Solberg

Published in the PCN on Sept. 20, 1979

Tom Beavers celebrated his 91^st birthday on September 3, 1979. He was born to John W. and Mattie Beavers in Humboldt, Kansas, in 1888. “My birthday always seemed to come on Labor Day,” he commented.

During harvest and other busy seasons on the farm, his brother would stay home from school one day, and he would stay home the next day so that their dad would have someone to help.

He met Dolly Wells in church. Her family attended the same one as his family, only a quarter of a mile from their farm home. He took her to the Fourth of July celebration in 1907, and they were married on September 27, 1908. His father retired and moved to town, so he and Dolly lived on the home place until his father sold the farm two years later. They then rented an 80-acre farm which was closer to town and closer to his wife’s parents. That meant a lot to her.

Two years later Tom offered the shocked corn and baled hay in lieu of the $120 rent, but the landlady refused. “I knew then it was time to move,” Tom said.

His half-brother, John Richardson, who was a veterinarian in Malta, wrote a letter telling of the free land available in Montana. “My father read the letter and told us, “If I was you boys, I wouldn’t let no grass grow under your feet. I’d get right out there and get some of that land. In time you’ll be independently rich!”

Read the rest of the story in "Looking Back Again: Life Stories from the Prairies of Montana"
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