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Seeking information about Terry boarding houses and Scown family...
Thank you so much. Your Terry website is very interesting.
Passing along and posting my inquiry would be so helpful.
I'm particularly interested in the boarding house in Terry owned and run by my great grandmother, Hilda Scown (mother of William, John, Inez, Samuel, George, Gladys, and Ralph, in case it rings bells for anyone). My understanding is that after my great grandfather, John Scown, died of silicosis/TB (he was a Cousin Jack gold miner from Cornwall), she supported the family (six surviving children) by running a boarding house in Terry for several years before the mines ran out and she moved the family to Rapid City.
I'd especially like to know what rooms her boarding house might have had (for instance, did each miner have his own room or did they have a dorm-like situation or bunk beds, and did the family have a separate parlor and dining room or common ones with the boarders?), and anything else anyone might be able to tell me. If anyone is living today who can tell me how boarding houses were managed in those days, I'd be very interested. I just cannot imagine how hard a person would have to work to cook, clean, do laundry, make lunches for the miners, and raise a family. I know the kids helped out as they could, but I wonder what would have happened if Hilda got sick.
I'm told that when Hilda (Snell) first came to the Hills with her brother Isaac, she worked as a chambermaid at a boarding house and that Calamity Jane wanted to stay there but was turned away "because she was a foul-mouthed woman." Wish I knew which boarding house that was.
I can remember Hilda and Gladys making pasties and saffron buns — something I do to this day.
My Dad's brief genealogical memoirs recall stories of the Harrises and the Grandises talking about times back in the Old Country. I'm guessing he meant that these were neighbors in Terry. Tom (and his wife, Lydia) Mallula could have been in my great grandparents circle of friends in Terry. I'm not sure whether Tom was a miner or not. I think he and his brother August lived in Lawrence County and might have been referred to my great grandparents through our Swedish/Finnish relatives in Minnesota. Any information, including images of Tom and Lydia, would be much appreciated.
I'd love to know which mine my great grandfather (John Scown, the Cousin Jack from Cornwall) and my grandfather (William Scown) worked at when they lived in Terry. William went to work at a mine, I believe, when he was just 13, after his father died. Later, after WW!, William definitely worked for the Homestake as a contract miner and lived in Lead, where my father and his sisters grew up next door to their maternal grandparents, the Williamses (Harry Williams was quite the character, I'm told). My mother's father (Norman Goodrich) was a superintendent at the Bald Mountain Mine in Trojan.
I can remember going to the Days of '76 Parade as a little girl. I have such fond memories of the Hills. There's nothing like that smell of pine for me, and my family comes back for reunions at times to keep the connection alive for succeeding generations.
Yes, please feel welcome to post my inquiry. If you'd like a more succinct query than the above (and below) you could say that I'd like to hear from anyone who can provide me with information about:
- The boarding house in Terry run by Hilda Scown in the decade after 1910
- How boarding houses in the area were run in those days – how they accomplished all the work!
- Which mine John Scown worked at in Terry (Cornish gold miner in the late 1800s and first decade of the 1900s - died in 1910) - are there still records?
- Which mine William Scown worked at in Terry as a 13-year-old, starting in 1910 or 1911 (and what he did there, if possible)
- What type of work Tom Mallula did, when he and Lydia arrived in the Hills, and did he/they live in Terry or in Rapid City?
Many thanks,
Susan
