JESSE FRANKLIN AND ROSA COOKSEY

From 'Fanning the Embers', published 1971, Range Rider Reps, Miles City, Montana

By Muriel Cooksey

Jesse was born into a family of four, Mar. 20, 1873, in Stronghurst, Ill. His wife, the former Rosa Daisy Scrivens, was born Feb. 26, 1883, in Lander, Wyo., moving to Nebraska as a child. Jesse ran a butcher shop in Beaver Crossing, Neb., and also bought and sold cattle. Rosa worked in a millinery shop in Omaha before her marriage. They were married in Nebraska in 1906, and came to Montana in 1918. They bought the Ed Miller ranch including livestock with brands Bar HF for horses and Bar Heart T for cows, which brands are now used by his son, Jerome. This ranch was west of the head of Pumpkin Creek in Powder River County in the Selway community. He also operated a store at the ranch hauling goods from Miles City. They lived there several months, coming to Miles City in the fall of 1918, where they maintained a home while still hauling goods to the store. He owned a monument business in Miles City on Tenth Street behind where Crouse's Gun Shop used to be across from the library. He set many stones in the cemetery. They then ranched in the Pine Hills on the Wolf Creek Road, 18 miles east of Miles City from 1924 to about 1935. They raised remount horses for the U. S. Cavalry and cattle. They had the following children; Arch married Ruth Fear of Ashland and managed the Yellowstone Lumber Company in Jordan from 1926 to 1936; Claude, who rode bucking horses for the 101 Show for three years, was a barber by trade and was married to Selma Venable, daughter of J. M. Venable, old-timer in the area; Mrs. Mary Danver, of El Paso, Tex.; Mrs. Ada Alvarez of Los Angeles, Calif.; Jerome F. married Muriel Dahlin, daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. John H. Dahlin who came to Miles City about 1916; Frank J. married Mildred Chesworth, whose parents Mr. and Mrs. Robert Chesworth were old-timers in this area, and Cecil G. married and lives in Los Angeles, Calif. Claude passed away in 1937 and Arch in 1969. There are 16 grandchildren and several great-grandchildren. His sister, Mrs. Alvin (Mamie) McMillian and her husband, both deceased, homesteaded on Pumpkin Creek. Grandmother Rosella Scrivens in her later years made her home with the Cookseys until her death in 1928, she is buried in the Custer County Cemetery. Jesse Cooksey sold his ranch in the Pine Hills and came to Miles City to live again. In 1937 they went south to Texas and Arizona ending up in Vancouver, Wash., where they resided for 12 years. There Mrs. Cooksey passed away in 1953 and Mr. Cooksey in 1956. Both are buried in the Park Hill Cemetery in Vancouver.