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Acknowledgments

Although it has taken me far longer to complete than I originally anticipated, I have loved writing this book, and I hope that my fascination with the Clarkes shows on every page. As I have told friends and colleagues on numerous occasions, the raw material for the book is a historian’s dream; I leave it to the reader to determine whether I have done it justice.

Many, many people helped me along the way, and I welcome this opportunity to acknowledge their assistance, beginning, appropriately, with Joyce Clarke Turvey. Joyce fielded a telephone call from me in June 2006 in which I told her of my preoccupation with her family’s history and asked whether she would be willing to help me with my research. She has, time and again, by sitting for interviews, generously providing me with invaluable photos and family memorabilia, and giving me broad latitude in writing the story of the Clarkes. I owe her a tremendous debt, one that I hope is repaid—at least partially—with the completion of this book, which she has waited on most patiently. Joyce’s daughter, Dana Turvey, herself a writer, stepped in at a key moment in the later stages.

Of course, I might never have found Joyce—or at least not so early on—without the help of Kirby Lambert at the Montana Historical Society, who first put us in touch. I met Kirby and his colleagues at the MHS during a glorious one-month stay in Helena as the James H. Bradley Fellow, generously underwritten by the MHS to use its superb collections. I remain incredibly grateful for the expert assistance and tremendous personal kindness shown to me by Rich Aarstad, Ellie Arguimbau, Ellen Baumler, Jodi Foley, Kate Hampton, Becca Kohl, Martha Kohl, Molly Kruckenberg, Jeff Malcolmson, Lory Morrow, George Oberst, and Brian Shovers. It was a special treat to work with Molly Holz, editor of
Montana: The Magazine of Western History,
on an article about Helen P. Clarke that developed from my research at the MHS (and which appears in this book in different form). Thanks also to her assistant editor, Christy Goll, and the other members of Molly’s staff. I feel privileged to have met Dave Walter before his untimely death in 2006.

Other Montanans showed me wonderful hospitality as well, none more than a handful of individuals on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation who consented to be interviewed about Piegan history and culture. My book is far better for the insights provided by Darrell Robes Kipp, Carol Murray, Darrell Norman, Marvin Weatherwax, and Lea Whitford. Thanks also to Donald Pepion, who grew up on the reservation but now lives in the Southwest, for visiting the University of Nebraska to present his own research on the Marias Massacre and to sit for an interview with me. I am grateful also to the following Treasure State residents: Stan Hayne, for speaking with me about his study of the Marias Massacre site; Lyndel Meikle, park ranger at the Grant-Korhs Ranch National Historic Site, for information on Johnny Grant; Bob Morgan, former curator of collections at the MHS, who corresponded with me about his relationship with John Clarke; Ripley Schemm, for hosting me on an early visit to Missoula and introducing me to Lois Welch (and to Ripley’s niece, Ariadne Schemm, for putting me in touch with her aunt); to Charles M. Stone, for sharing his knowledge about the Bar X Six Ranch; Dick Thoroughman, for information about Fort Shaw; and especially Mary Scriver, editor of an indispensable blog about Montana’s past and present (among other subjects), who cheerfully fielded numerous inquiries from me.

I offer my heartfelt thanks to archivists, librarians, and volunteers at a range of institutions: the American Antiquarian Society, especially Ashley Cataldo; the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, especially Shelly Solberg; the Bridgeman Art Library, especially Kajette Solomon; the C. M. Russell Museum; the Cumberland County (Pennsylvania) Historical Society, especially Barbara Landis and John Slonaker; Fort Union National Historic Site; the Gallaudet University Library, Deaf Collections and Archives, especially Michael Olson; the Glacier County (Montana) Historical Society; the Glenbow-Alberta Institute, especially Jim Bowman and Doug Cass; Historic Fort Snelling, especially Nancy Cass, Matthew Cassaday, and Tom Lalim; the Joslyn Museum, especially Anne Crouchley; the Milwaukee Public Library, especially Audrey Barbakoff and Jennifer Heidel; the Minnesota Historical Society, especially Eileen McCormick and Eric Mortenson; the Missouri History Museum, especially Jaime Bourassa and Amanda Claunch; the Montana State University Library, Merrill G. Burlingame Special Collections; the Museum of Nebraska Art, especially Gina Garden; the National Anthropological Archives, especially Daisy Njoku; the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D.C., especially Mary Frances Ronan and Barbara Rust, and the NARA regional branches in Fort Worth and Kansas City, especially Stephen Spence; the North Dakota School for the Deaf, especially Carmen Suminski; the Oklahoma History Center; the Overholser Research Center and Schwinden Library at Fort Benton, especially Bob Doerk, Bruce Druliner, and, most of all, Ken Robison, who answered countless questions and supplied me with critical citations and documents; the Texas General Land Office, especially John Molleston; the Southern Methodist University Libraries; the United States Military Academy Archives, especially Suzanne Christoff and Casey Madrick; the University of Montana Library, K. Ross Toole Archives; and the University of Nebraska Libraries.

Thanks also to Renee Meade, for her help with research on John Clarke; to Bunny McBride, for sharing with me the curatorial materials for her exhibit “Journeys West: The David & Peggy Rockefeller American Indian Art Collection”; to Harry Palmer, for use of his beautiful and haunting photograph of a commemoration at the site of the Marias Massacre; and to Ezra Zeitler, mapmaker extraordinaire. I want also to acknowledge my debt to Stan Gibson, with whom I never met or corresponded, but whose fascination with the Marias Massacre (as well as his indignation at its obscurity) led him to collect a trove of material now housed in Calgary. I am, moreover, deeply grateful to the National Endowment for the Humanities, which provided me with a faculty fellowship that I used to make great progress on the manuscript during the 2010–11 academic year.

I spent nearly a decade at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, which treated me exceptionally well, measured in no small part by the generous grants in support of this project that I received from the history department and the UNL Office of Research. And I could not have invented better colleagues, among them Lloyd Ambrosius, Barb Bullington, David Cahan, Parks Coble, Vanessa Gorman, Cindy Hilsabeck, Jeannette Jones, Patrick Jones, Jim Le Sueur, Tim Mahoney, Sandra Pershing, Will Thomas, and Ken Winkle. Thanks especially to my fellow westerners at UNL: James Garza, Margaret Jacobs, Doug Seefeldt, and the godfather himself, John Wunder. Perhaps I would have finished the book faster if not for the hours I passed talking shop (read: Cornhusker football) with Pete Maslowski. But I am much the richer for the time I spent as a visitor to 624 Oldfather Hall, and so is this book—Pete read every word of it, making trenchant suggestions throughout. Deb Hope was an exceptionally kind and patient listener. And Tim Borstelmann kept me grounded—and chuckling—while churning out countless reference letters on my behalf.
Grazie mille, amico.

I have been lucky indeed to find such a welcoming new home in the Clements Department of History at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Thanks to Jeremy Adams, Kenneth Andrien, Sabri Ates, John Chávez, Dennis Cordell, Ed Countryman, Crista DeLuzio, Melissa Dowling, Jeff Engel, Neil Foley, Kenneth Hamilton, Erin Hochman, Jim Hopkins, Jill Kelly, Tom Knock, Alexis McCrossen, John Mears, Azfar Moin, Dan Orlovsky, Mildred Pinkston, Sharron Pierson, Ling Shiao, and especially Kathleen Wellman, who as chair offered generous financial support to offset some of the costs of book production.

At SMU it is a singular privilege to work at the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies, established in 1996 by its visionary founding director, David J. Weber, and serving ever since as an incubator of first-rate research and publication about Texas and the U.S.–Mexico borderlands. I owe special thanks to my wonderful colleagues at the Center, Ruth Ann Elmore and Sherry Smith, and to Andrea Boardman, who retired in 2012 after more than a decade in Dallas Hall.

Fellow scholars and writers from numerous academic disciplines and endeavors have offered me their expert assistance, among them Steve Aron, Bridget Barry, George Black, Susan Burch, Cathleen Cahill, Sarah Carter, Phil Deloria, John Demos, Brian Dippie, Alec Dun, Bill Farr, Brian Frehner, Tom Gannon, James Haley, Rodger Henderson, Tucker Hentz, Michel Hogue, Fred Hoxie, Paul Hutton, Drew Isenberg, Karl Jacoby, Ari Kelman, Fran Kaye, Shepard Krech, David Leonhardt, Carolyn Merchant, Clyde Milner, Gary Moulton, Laura Mielke, Tice Miller, Ken Price, Sam Ratcliffe, John Reiger, Paul Rosier, Claudio Saunt, John Sunder, William Swagerty, Guy Vanderhaeghe, Elliott West, Laura White, Andy Wilson, David Wishart, Steve Witte, and Don Worster. And a very special thanks to the five hardy souls who so generously read the entire manuscript, saving me from errors big and small (those that remain are squarely on me): Anne Hyde, Ben Johnson, Ken Robison, Sherry Smith, and Lesley Wischmann. Nick Guyatt, mensch that he is, read it
several
times, and often in piecemeal installments—I know of few better historians, and no finer critics. Thanks also to Kelly Lytle Hernandez, for the invitation to present my work at UCLA, and to Gregg Cantrell and Stephanie Cole, for a similar opportunity at a meeting of the Dallas Area Social Historians (DASH). I am grateful, too, for the attentiveness and consideration of audience members at a variety of conferences and lectures.

Thanks to my good friends Jacob Buchdahl, Josh Galper, David Leonhardt, Greg Raskin, and Brett Zbar, for twenty-three years of “humiliating acts of loving kindness” (not to mention unswerving loyalty).

One of the great pleasures of writing this book has been the opportunity to work again with Bob Weil. Many years ago I was Bob’s editorial assistant at St. Martin’s Press, and in the short time I spent in the Flatiron Building I learned a lifetime’s worth about the business of publishing, from bellybands to tip ins and so much in between. Still more important, however, were the standards Bob set for intellectual commitment and professional conduct, which I have tried ever since to emulate. These lessons have served me in ways I could not possibly have imagined when I was in my midtwenties, and I am thus as grateful for Bob’s mentorship as for his unrivaled editorial ability, which has improved this book in more ways than I can count. Thanks also to his terrific assistants, past and present, who have worked with me in bringing this project to completion: Phil Marino, Tom Mayer, Will Menaker, and Lucas Wittman. I am deeply indebted to the copyeditor Otto Sonntag, for his inaugural foray into Montana history.

Of course, I owe the most to my family, starting with my parents, who impressed upon me when I was young the idea that I should choose a path that interested me, and then made that possible in every imaginable way; I have come to understand just how rare and generous a gift that was. My sister, Lisa, inspires me with her activism even as she keeps me in my proverbial shoes. And one of the many benefits in marrying Jennifer Ebinger in 1999 was becoming a part of her family: hugs to Chuck, Lynn, Brad, and Margaret, as well as the wider Ebinger and Makkonen clans. And a sad goodbye to my wonderful sister-in-law, Sara Ebinger, who passed away most unexpectedly just as this book was going to press.