ELIZABETH FINCH ELLIOTT
From 'Fanning the Embers', published 1971, Range Rider Reps, Miles City, Montana
By Mary Lab
Grandma Elliott and her mother, Marietta Finch, and sisters and borthers, L. to R. standing, Anna, Bill, Bert, Elizabeth, George, sitting great grandma Finch holding Amy, Harold, Helen Finch Collins and her husband Ben Collins.
Mary Elliot
My grandmother, Elizabeth Finch, was born in Douglas county, Minn., about 1876 and came to Montana with her parents in 1880. After her school years, she met and married Jack Elliott, a young cowboy. They worked out on ranches in Montana and then moved over into Wyoming with a cattle outfit and got started on their own. Here their children were born and raised. My father, their oldest son, William J., was just a youth when he ran away (as he didn't like school) and hid on a ship, a stowaway. The ship captain advised his parents of his whereabouts and stated he would like to keep him and educate him on the ship. This was his life for years; he loved the ship and the sea.
Later he was boiler inspector for an insurance company. Here he met and married my mother, Durene Brecheisen of Ottawa, Kan., daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John Brecheisen. Mother had one brother Carl who is married and living in DeQueen, Ark. Mother and Uncle Carl lost their mother when they were in school; Grandpa still maintains their home in Ottawa. I am the only child of William and Durene Elliott. I was born Oct. 8, 1939.
When World War 11 broke out, Daddy joined as a Lieutenant in the Navy; he was assigned to the U.S.S. Middleton. We moved to San Diego, Calif., to be near when his ship came in. Mother worked in the shipyards but became ill and died in a San Diego hospital. Daddy was in a war zone; he came after me when he could get away and took me to his cousin and her husband, Zola and Charlie Stone, at their ranch near Hathaway. I was four and grew up here and loved them and every part of the ranch life.
My favorite horse was Brownie. He was bit by a rattler and shook violently and water run off him as if he had been in the river. When we got him home his leg and chest were immensely swollen. We put mud plasters from the slough on his leg and chest to draw the poison out. We worked hard and fast, they dried so fast, but he lived. This was grandpa, John Theade's (as I called him) old time medicine and method he used on his dogs and it saved them, too, anyway they lived.
My Grandma Elliott traveled a lot in her later years over into Canada and settled back in the States before her death. She is buried in the Rosebud Cemetery. My father passed away when I was in the grades and he is buried in the Custer National Cemetery.