FAY ALDERSON

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

My parents were Walter and Nannie Alderson. My father was part owner of the Zook and Alderson Ranch at Birney, Mont. Mother returned to western Virginia for my birth Aug. 8, 1886. 1 was six or seven months old when we returned to Montana. We came by train to Miles City and to Birney in a covered bobsled. The first Zook and Alderson homestead located at Lame Deer had been burned by the Indians and the ranch was relocated at Birney. Father and John Zook later dissolved partnership and we moved to Muddy Creek. When I was old enough to go to school, we moved to Miles City. My father was killed there by a horse about two years later. Mother kept boarders until I was in high school in a house we built on Palmer Street. Among her boarders were Austin Middleton, Sydney Sanner and George Farr. When mother moved back to Birney to run the store and post office, I lived with the George Farr family until I finished high school. I taught near Sheridan, then Mother and my brother bought a ranch on Young Creek, 18 miles from Sheridan. After teaching school several terms on Young Creek I was elected Rosebud County Superintendent of Schools in Forsyth. I served there for six years. After various other jobs I went to Hardin to teach in 1919. The next year I was elected Superintendent of Schools of Big Horn County. I did not run after one term, but went to California to finish college. I became sick and took a rest near my sister and her husband, Mr. and Mrs. Bill Eaton, at Wolf, Wyo. Then I taught at Sheridan, Wyo., for over 20 years, taught six years in Basin, Wyo., and retired in 1955. I live at Wolf in the summer and in Sheridan in the winter. The ranch at Birney was run by my two brothers as Alderson Brothers. It is now a cow ranch and is owned by Irv Alderson and his son, Allen. Big Bones now runs a ranch at Big Horn, Wyo. They were raised by a wonderful aunt, Mrs. Cox.