Rock Creek
In 1922, newlyweds Percy and Pluma and their four children moved to their own farm fifteen miles north of Lonesome Butte. Mother used the rest of the money from Papa’s insurance to make the down payment and the agreement was to pay a percentage of their annual crop income until the farm was paid for.
Little did they know that in the next ten years of living at the head of Rock Creek they would have only two good crops: it turned out that their low-lying fields caused crops to freeze quickly in the fall before they could be harvested. Some years brought hail that flattened the crops just before they were ready to harvest, and grasshoppers were sometimes a problem too. On top of this, there would be droughts in the early 1930s that would force them to give up the home that they loved by 1934. But at the time of the purchase and the move, life felt good and the family believed that the future held great promise.
The valley they moved to at the head of Rock Creek was beautiful in every season. When they moved there in the summer, the coulees were lush with tall poplars and scrubby bushes nestled between rolling hills. The hues of the hills would turn golden brown under the summer sun, and by midsummer purple berries hung ripened on chokecherry and saskatoon boughs. On lower bushes, pincherries, gooseberries, and raspberries were there for the picking, and even strawberries could be found along the ground.
When the autumn winds brought in the cold of winter, the gold-leaved poplars were soon covered in tufts of white, and an icy sheen covered the hilly landscape. Then nature’s cycle began again: by late spring the hills were rich emerald green, sprinkled with pink and magenta and yellow wildflowers. It is the same today.
The steady-flowing creek known locally as Rock Creek still winds its way south from the springs that come out of the earth behind where their home once stood. The creek flows south and passes by where Leonard Anderson (no relation to Pluma’s Anderson family) built his homestead adobe in 1911 and lived for many years with his wife Aquina and most of their twelve children. Then it continues to flow south, passing just down the hill from Elizabeth and Alexander Haverfield’s Lonesome Butte homestead, where Pluma and her first four children had lived for three years after Joseph Arthur died.
Near the Lonesome Butte homestead, Hell Fire Creek flows into Rock Creek, which then continues south of the border into Montana, flowing into the Milk River near Hinsdale. The Milk then flows into the Missouri, which then flows past Williston, where Pluma and her children had once lived, and then into the Mississippi and finally the Gulf of Mexico. Rock Creek has sustained a century of families in every season, even under winter’s cover of ice. And it has nurtured the wildlife and indigenous peoples of the area since time immemorial.
Little did they know that in the next ten years of living at the head of Rock Creek they would have only two good crops: it turned out that their low-lying fields caused crops to freeze quickly in the fall before they could be harvested. Some years brought hail that flattened the crops just before they were ready to harvest, and grasshoppers were sometimes a problem too. On top of this, there would be droughts in the early 1930s that would force them to give up the home that they loved by 1934. But at the time of the purchase and the move, life felt good and the family believed that the future held great promise.
The valley they moved to at the head of Rock Creek was beautiful in every season. When they moved there in the summer, the coulees were lush with tall poplars and scrubby bushes nestled between rolling hills. The hues of the hills would turn golden brown under the summer sun, and by midsummer purple berries hung ripened on chokecherry and saskatoon boughs. On lower bushes, pincherries, gooseberries, and raspberries were there for the picking, and even strawberries could be found along the ground.
When the autumn winds brought in the cold of winter, the gold-leaved poplars were soon covered in tufts of white, and an icy sheen covered the hilly landscape. Then nature’s cycle began again: by late spring the hills were rich emerald green, sprinkled with pink and magenta and yellow wildflowers. It is the same today.
The steady-flowing creek known locally as Rock Creek still winds its way south from the springs that come out of the earth behind where their home once stood. The creek flows south and passes by where Leonard Anderson (no relation to Pluma’s Anderson family) built his homestead adobe in 1911 and lived for many years with his wife Aquina and most of their twelve children. Then it continues to flow south, passing just down the hill from Elizabeth and Alexander Haverfield’s Lonesome Butte homestead, where Pluma and her first four children had lived for three years after Joseph Arthur died.
Near the Lonesome Butte homestead, Hell Fire Creek flows into Rock Creek, which then continues south of the border into Montana, flowing into the Milk River near Hinsdale. The Milk then flows into the Missouri, which then flows past Williston, where Pluma and her children had once lived, and then into the Mississippi and finally the Gulf of Mexico. Rock Creek has sustained a century of families in every season, even under winter’s cover of ice. And it has nurtured the wildlife and indigenous peoples of the area since time immemorial.
Rock Creek on Percy Haverfield’s homestead, just down the hill from Lonesome Butte, now part of the East Block of Grasslands National Park. Photo by Gary Ball.
The site of Pluma and Percy Haverfield’s first home together, at the head of Rock Creek. When they left Saskatchewan in the 1930s, the land was purchased by their Anderson neighbors. It has been owned and farmed by Carl and Camille Anderson for over sixty years. The buildings and equipment have changed but not the landscape. Photo by Gary Ball.
There was already a barn on the property that the original homesteader had built. Percy built a corral on one end of it with the creek water running inside one corner of it to water the horses. He cut trees and shaved the bark off to make the poles and sunk them into holes dug into the earth to keep them sturdy. Lela said the poles were placed side by side and across from one another, one on the inside and one on the outside with straw filling the space between to keep the wind from whistling through them.
Pluma could see a good place to build a chicken coop not too far from the barn, and Percy and Grandpa Alexander and Uncle Burton skidded Uncle Byron’s now abandoned two-room house seventeen miles north and set it up on the foundation of cemented rocks they’d made ready—its back was towards the woods growing around the springs that fed Rock Creek. The outhouse was then built on a path between the house and the woods. A granary to store the threshed grain in the fall was built near another creek (known as “the high creek”) towards their neighbors on the northwest, the Peculas.
There were trees on every side of the house except on the east where the front door faced east towards the dirt trail that went north and south. Those poplars and willows kept the family warm in winter and cool in summer. Edna Fern remembered her mother saying that roses and other wild flowers were plentiful and their scent was so lovely that Pluma felt there was no need to plant any flowerbeds.
The root cellar was dug deep into the base of the hill behind the house, below the frost line, with at least five feet of dirt on top. Shelves were built to store the root vegetables they grew themselves: beets, potatoes, rutabagas, turnips, carrots, and parsnips were protected from freezing during the winter and were edible all through the year. Ice was cut from a nearby pond during the winter months and insulated with bundles of hay to keep the root cellar cool even on the hottest days of summer. Jars of preserves—berries, green beans, pickled cucumbers and carrots, and the like—sat on these shelves as well.
Pluma could see a good place to build a chicken coop not too far from the barn, and Percy and Grandpa Alexander and Uncle Burton skidded Uncle Byron’s now abandoned two-room house seventeen miles north and set it up on the foundation of cemented rocks they’d made ready—its back was towards the woods growing around the springs that fed Rock Creek. The outhouse was then built on a path between the house and the woods. A granary to store the threshed grain in the fall was built near another creek (known as “the high creek”) towards their neighbors on the northwest, the Peculas.
There were trees on every side of the house except on the east where the front door faced east towards the dirt trail that went north and south. Those poplars and willows kept the family warm in winter and cool in summer. Edna Fern remembered her mother saying that roses and other wild flowers were plentiful and their scent was so lovely that Pluma felt there was no need to plant any flowerbeds.
The root cellar was dug deep into the base of the hill behind the house, below the frost line, with at least five feet of dirt on top. Shelves were built to store the root vegetables they grew themselves: beets, potatoes, rutabagas, turnips, carrots, and parsnips were protected from freezing during the winter and were edible all through the year. Ice was cut from a nearby pond during the winter months and insulated with bundles of hay to keep the root cellar cool even on the hottest days of summer. Jars of preserves—berries, green beans, pickled cucumbers and carrots, and the like—sat on these shelves as well.
The only known photo of the rustic little house at Percy and Pluma’s Rock Creek farm, circa 1923. The shape of a small boy, blurred by his motion combined with a slow shutter speed, is that of a six- or seven-year-old Bob Haverfield mounting his horse Freckles.