A little background: In 1893, Gershom Barlow Pope (1853-1929) married Lucy Grace Catlett (1859-1918) in Missouri. They had one adopted son, Harold, followed by sons Clarence (aka “Sandy”) and James Marion, and then a daughter, Frances. Harold married Thelma, no children. Clarence married Jean Hunter and had two daughters, Grace and Sandra. James Marion married Marjorie Clarke (aka "Aunt Marjorie"), no children. And Frances married Paul Kemp and had four boys, Paul Jr, Tom, Jack, and Dick.
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| Clarence Catlett Pope |
TRANSCRIPTION OF INTERVIEW WITH CLARENCE CATLETT POPE
by ANNE KEMP HUMMEL – circa early 1970's
Clarence Catlett Pope :
Father [Gershom Barlow Pope] was originally from Faribault, Minnesota. He was born in Wisconsin. His father was a farmer.
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| Gershom Barlow Pope |
Father was born in Wisconsin and they moved to Minnesota when he was a young man, and he was working in the fields. His mother used to make all his clothes. He was working in the fields one day and his father and mother came in from town and brought him his first suit of store clothes. That was quite an event, you know.
Uncle Clarence [Pope, GB Pope’s brother] and Father went to South Dakota and Uncle Clarence stayed there that winter. Father went back to Minnesota and he drove across in a wagon from Minnesota to Montana.
[Years later] Marion and Father made a trip down into that country [Minnesota] and they went out to the old ranch to see what they could see and they went up to the old farmhouse and an old lady came out and said, “Why, Gert!!!” Everybody remembered him.
Mother [Lucy Catlett Pope] was born in Missouri. They lived on a farm. Her father raised cattle and horses and mules. He was a trader in horses and mules. He was a very successful man. Mother was on the farm in Missouri and Father came by, for some reason. I don’t know why. She said when Dad stepped off the buggy or wagon she says, “There’s my man, right there.” She knew it right then. She knew the man she was going to marry. He never had a chance after that.
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| Lucy Catlett Pope |
Estelline [South Dakota] was kind of a rolling prairie. It wasn’t exactly flatland and it wasn’t exactly prairie. Good farmin’ country.
Father was in the lumber business for a long time, in Estelline. Then he moved into the hardware business and Mother lived up above the store. And she had these speakin’ tubes and she could whistle down these tubes and get Father when she wanted him.
Father went out to Montana with his brother before I did. He and Uncle Leon [Pope] had this ranch up on Fallon Creek and they had some cattle and sheep there. Uncle Leon kind of stayed there and kind of looked after the place. My folks moved out to Fallon Creek first, and then later on they moved to Big Timber.
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| Pope Ranch at Big Timber |
[Father] used to haul logs on a sled in the winter and the Indians used to climb on and ride with him. He used to delight in going down a steep hill and then he’d turn keen right quick and throw the Indians off. He was full of the devil.
Uncle Joe [Catlett, Lucy Catlett’s brother] and Aunt Lizzie went out to South Dakota and took up homestead about six or eight miles from Estelline and I guess they did fairly well there for a long, long time. Dad was sort of ambitious and he got into other things and moved into Estelline. And Uncle Clarence was out there too. Ed Pope [GB Pope’s brother] was in Watertown for a long time. He had a manufacturing business there and I guess he did pretty well.
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| Joe and Lizzie Catlett |
Question: What did your grandfather farm?
I suppose it was mostly small grain and corn.
I remember Grandmother more than Grandfather. Grandmother lived in a house alone right close to our place in Estelline. She was a very old lady and didn’t get around too much. She’d just sit there in her rocking chair most of the time. Sitting by the stove. It must have been a kind of weary existence for an old lady like that.
Grandfather Catlett would go out on these buying trips and bring these horses and mules home and then sell them out from there. Since everything was done by horse power in those days. He had a good business. Grandfather used to ride a big white horse and he used to keep a pillow behind him and if he wanted to take anybody along, he would just boost ‘em up on this pillow. I rode behind him on the pillow and I think we went to church one Sunday.
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| James William Catlett, grandfather |
The house in Estelline, it was down across the railroad tracks from the main part of town and there was a plank walk leading down towards the place. Those were the only walks we had in those days. I don’t know if the street had any name in those days. It was the road that ran from Estelline out to the farms and the outlying country. South Dakota in those days was about half wild country.
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| Frances, Marion, and Clarence Pope |
The lumber and the hardware business came first and then [Father] used to feed sheep there in Estelline. And he had a [grain] elevator where they used to store all the grain. And he had an old treadmill and a horse would furnish the power. He’d walk all over this treadmill and keep the machinery running and then later on they got a gasoline engine and retired the horse. I can still see that horse walking on that treadmill.
When I first went to Montana, I went to live with Elmer Pope. They lived about fifteen miles out of Fallon, Montana, at what we called Fallon Creek. My folks stayed in South Dakota for several years after I left. It was my health, mostly. I had asthma awful bad as a kid and I went to Montana and just got rid of it. Never had it any more. I would guess I was about twelve or thirteen.
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| Bertha and George Pope, with son Elmer |
My father ran for election when he was up in Big Timber [South Dakota], but he was defeated. I guess that was his only fling in politics.
[Looking at a photo - below - of the three Pope boys] That was taken out at Big Timber. “Sweet Grass” [written on the photo] was the name of the crick. A hard-lookin’ bunch.
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| Harold, Marion, and Clarence Pope |
South Dakota, especially where we were, got pretty “settled up,” so he moved out to Montana and started raising cattle and sheep. He was always fond of sheep. That was his main occupation.
He’d get an offer to butt in with some fellow. Like I was telling you about the Bitterroot [River]… he bought some cattle up by the Bitterroot. He used to do all his traveling by train. He used to tell me the only rest he got for years was on the train… riding back and forth. Ran cattle at different times.
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| From Congressional Report on the U.S. Sheep Industry1892-1893 |
Father would buy anything he could get for a down payment and then he never paid any more on it. He’d just leave it till it ran out or was foreclosed and go.
Mother was a member of the Christian Church. She went to church all the time. She would take us once in a while, when she could round us all up. Father didn’t belong to any church. He was probably as religious as most men. They didn’t go in very much for society in those days. Of course, Mother belonged to the Ladies’ Aid and that sort of stuff. Sewin’ mostly.
Father was short. He never grew very tall but he was a distinguished, very powerful man. His shoulders and arms, they were strong. He kept busy all the time. He always had something going on. He never lacked for something to do. He traveled all over the western part of the state, you know.
Neither of my parents had red hair. My hair was sort of auburn. Harold had the red hair.
Harold was there ever since I could remember, I guess even before my day. He was older than I was and it fell on his shoulders to do most of the work, like carrying in the wood and water. We had a pump outside. He was a tough ol’ cuss, always into something. He got many a whoopin’ but that didn’t seem to phase him. He just kept right on.
Mother was an awfully determined woman. She was strict, but she was awfully good to us. But we had to kind of watch our step too.
Mother left us one night to go over to the neighbors and stay all night, and when it got dark, Marion got homesick… He was an awful baby… and I had to take him over to see Mother. You’d never know it from his later years.
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| Lucy Pope and Marion |
My brother Marion was always a kind of cut-up. He was into everything there was to get into. He got some beer bottles one day and was taking them into the saloon. He handed the bottles over the counter to the saloon-keeper and Mother saw him and came marchin’ down the street with a buggy whip and she went right into the saloon after him. She threw that buggy whip around his knees and he made for the back door. Uncle Joe [Catlett] was in the back there and he was standin’ there with Father when Mother came by with the buggy whip.
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| Clarence |
I stayed out on the ranch all summer and part of the winter when I could get away from school. We fed livestock in the winter, hay, cotton seed came from the farm. In the summer we put up hay, garden work. There were always quite a few working on the ranch. Everybody pitched in. In the summer time we’d put up feed, had, and in the wintertime, we’d haul it all out again.
She [Frances] didn’t go out to the ranch too often. She was mostly in town but when she did come out to the ranch, she did a lot of riding.
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| Pope sheep |
Father couldn’t keep his hands out of anything. He never bothered payin’ for it. He just wanted to get his hands on it. He had a half million dollars at one time. Then wool went down from about ninety cents to a nickel, and cows and calves that used to be worth about a hundred dollars was now worth about twenty, and that broke him. But that didn’t seem to bother him, he just started out again.
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| GB Pope |
Bland [Catlett, cousin] and I used to play together quite a bit. We had a little yellow pony. The pony was very gentle, but you couldn’t drive him. Just the minute you’d hitch him up to somethin’, he’d go crazy.
I went to school in Oklahoma one winter.
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| Frances (left) - Kindergarten in Oklahoma |
Glendive was east of Miles City about a hundred miles. I was there a year… I think I went to school there a year. I stayed with my aunt and uncle [Leon and Bertha Pope]. From there we moved to Big Timber for one year. Then Miles City. Then stayed with an uncle in Brookings, South Dakota, [Joe Catlett]. I didn’t like high school very well and I finally rebelled and said I wouldn’t go and then the folks thought up this idea of sending me out to Dakota. Brookings was the home of South Dakota State College and they had a preparatory course there and I finished my high school right down there.
I was at the University of Minnesota when the first World War broke out. I went home shortly after that to help dad with his livestock. Then I went into the army. That was the time of the influenza and it was something new that they didn’t know anything about. I was stationed at Fort Lewis, American Lake, Washington.
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| Clarence Pope |
I went back to Miles City. I’d had this influenza and I wasn’t feeling very well and I think I went to California and your grandfather, Paul [Kemp], and I drove across to New Mexico. That was quite a feat in those days. It was a little ol’ ribbon of cement. We had a tent fastened on to the running board of the car. We went up to the Grand Canyon.
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| Paul Kemp and Clarence Pope on the way to New Mexico |
I was in New Mexico about four years. Father was back in Montana. There had been a drought in Montana and he and his partner, Martin, shipped a lot of cattle and sheep down to New Mexico and were holding them down there. Martin was sort of a blow-hard sort of fellow. He was smart in some ways but in other ways he kind of got the big head. Meanwhile, dad had invested in some oil wells in Texas and Martin was bragging, “Pope’s got more money in those oil wells than he ever could spend.” The oil wells played out. Times really got pretty tough. The Pecos River flowed down through New Mexico and it was boggy along the edges and the native people had fenced the river off so the cattle couldn’t get down there. Martin tore the fence down and led his cattle down there and they got stuck in the bog.
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| Clarence and crew in New Mexico |
My wife [Jean Hunter Pope] was a Miles City girl. Our families had been friends for years. We were all in high school together. We were married in Miles City and lived there several years.
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| Coal Creek Ranch, Miles City, Montana |
We rented a home in Pasadena [in the winters].
We went to Pasadena because he wanted to get us away from that cold country in the winter-time. We’d go down about the time school started and we’d leave just when school would let out. Mother and the children would go down and Father would come down when he could. We didn’t like it particularly well. The weather was nice, though.
There came along one of those droughts that Montana’s famous for. Wasn’t any grass growing. And we had to sell our sheep and cattle. And Frances was down there in L.A., so we decided to go down there and spend the winter.
One day Father came up to me all excited and said Frances and Paul are going to get married. That’s the first I ever heard about it.
We were in the motorcycle business together, a motorcycle and delivery service. We made quite a thing of it too. I was with him for several years. As I began to get older, I didn’t have as much pep and I got a job as a guard around a factory at night. I worked for Lockheed during the second World War. I was a mechanic and general roustabout. Anybody almost could get a job in that day and age.
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Here is the transcript of this letter written by Clarence to Paul Kemp upon hearing of his engagement to Frances.
Miles City, Montana
June 6, 1927
My dear Paul,
I may be a little late in
congratulating you but you are a lucky boy even if I do say it myself. Paul, I never dreamed of this but I will say
there is no one to whom I would rather see my sister married to than to you.
I often think of your folks
and the good times we used to have. Will
you ever forget that trip to New Mexico?
Give my love to all your
folks and if you two are going to get married, don’t put it off too long.
With best regards,
Clarence C. Pope
And here's the transcript of this letter from GB Pope to Paul Kemp upon Paul's asking for his permission to marry Frances:
Miles City, Montana
June 6, 1927
Dear Paul
This is to confirm my
telegram to you & Frances. And to
answer your very Gentlemanly & courteous request for the privilege of
Marrying Frances, the greatest of my possessions. And I repeat, you have my consent with
pleasure. Frances believes she is in
good hands and her happiness is safe with you, and that’s all that interests
me. Wealth is a consideration which I do
not take into account. But her future
Happiness I do. Both Clarence &
myself are delighted to welcome you to our family. We both think it a God-given affair.
Wishing you well &
remember me to your Mother & all the family.
I am yours,
G B Pope
And, finally, here's the transcript of GB Pope's letter to Frances regarding her upcoming wedding and marriage to Paul.
June 18, 1927
Dear Frances,
Your letter of 12th
[?] just came. So sorry I cannot attend
the wedding of my only Daughter. It
makes me very sad. I never thought it
would be this way. But never mind me. Your happiness is my only care.
Harold mailed you a check
for $200 yesterday which should reach you in time. The $200 that I mailed you is a wedding
present from C [Clarence] & myself.
Uncle Clarence and Aunt Kate came last night on their way to
California. They go from here to Big
Timber. Perhaps I can go with them. Why not mail me one of the papers with your
announcement. As you describe your
wedding to be I think you are showing good judgment and taste. A simple one is best as long as I cannot give
you better. My only regret is you cannot
be married here in our town, where we both spent happy days with our dear
Mother.
This will be my last to my
Dear Girl. I cannot write more. My feelings will not allow it. May happiness & lots of it be the lot of
you both.
Love to both,
Father
P.S. I have written Marion what to do to have the
car in good shape to start. If necessary,
wire.
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| Paul Kemp and Frances Pope, engaged |
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| Frances and Paul |
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| Frances and Paul |
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And we'll close with some amazing photos from Clarence Pope and Paul Kemp's amazing New Mexico adventure.
