This collection includes twenty-one interviews detailing the lives of residents of the Frenchtown, Montana area during the late 19th and early 20th centuries as well as the history of the town itself. The interviews were conducted from 1975 to 1976 by members of the Frenchtown Historical Society including Merle Johnston, Nancy Cranston, Arthur Donlan, Barbara Frey, and Ethel MacDonald. The interviewees discuss life in Frenchtown during the turn of the 20th century, the St. John’s Day celebration, their French-Canadian heritage, and the lives of their grandparents and parents who settled the Frenchtown area. The Frenchtown Historical Society conducted these oral history interviews as research for the publication Frenchtown Valley Footprints (1976). The original interviews are held as Oral History collection OH 047 at Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula.
Some of the audio for the interviews was never donated to Archives and Special Collections. Only a short summary of those interviews exists.
This collection includes 21 interviews.
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Alfred E. Deschamps Interview, April 26, 1976
Alfred E. Deschamps
Alfred E. Deschamps recalls how his father emigrated from Montreal, Canada, to the Frenchtown valley in Montana in 1878, and how his mother emigrated from New Brunswick, Canada, in 1886. He talks about the flu epidemic of 1918, the fire of 1911 in Frenchtown, and ... Read More
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Arthur Donlan Interview, February 1, 1975
Arthur Donlan
Arthur Donlan tells how his parent immigrated to the Frenchtown valley in Montana in 1892. He talks about his father working in the lumber camps in western Montana before setting up a sawmill in the valley. Donlan recalls early logging methods including the use of ... Read More
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Arthur Dussault Interview, August 17, 1975
Arthur Dussault
Arthur Dussault describes how his grandfather emigrated from Canada to homestead in Montana in 1885. He notes how his grandfather’s choice of land caused tension between him and Native Americans populations in that area. He discusses his father’s relationship with Ignace, a member of one ... Read More
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Blanche Hamel, Flore Hamel, and Edmond Hamel Interview, April 2, 1975
Blanche Hamel, Flore Hamel, and Edmond Hamel
Sisters Blanche and Flora Hamel and their brother, Edmond Hamel, Jr., describe growing up Frenchtown, Montana, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They talk about their mother and father emigrating from Quebec, Canada, during the 1880s, and their father’s partnership with Theodore Bedard, ... Read More
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Blanche Hamel, Flore Hamel, and Edmond Hamel Interview, March 31, 1976
Blanche Hamel, Flore Hamel, and Edmond Hamel
Blanche and Flora Hamel talk about the Western Hotel in Frenchtown, Montana, which their parents owned during the late 1800s and early 1900s. They describe the social events that occurred at the hotel as well as its size and the number of community businesses that ... Read More
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Bouchard Family Interview, October 2, 1975
Joseph Bouchard, Luke F. Bouchard, Louise Pankratz, and Alma Smith
Members of the Bouchard family (possibly Joseph A. Bouchard, Louise Bouchard Pankratz, Alma Bouchard Smith, Luke F. Bouchard) discuss their ancestral home in Frenchtown, Montana. They tour the house, discussing changes that have been made, including original colors of the walls, what certain rooms were ... Read More
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Charlie Rose Interview, March 14, 1975
Charlie Rose
Charlie Rose relates the history of Huson, Montana, and its families. He talks about his ancestors, both the Scheffer and Rose families, and recalls attending various schools in the Huson and Frenchtown areas. Rose discusses Napolean Glaude, one of Huson’s first settlers, along with Eusebe ... Read More
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Daniel Longpre and Fred Cormier Interview, March 8, 1976
Daniel Longpre and Fred Cormier
Daniel Longpre and Fred Cormier discuss growing up in the Frenchtown, Montana area—including Six Mile, Nine Mile, Huson—just west of Missoula, Montana, in the early 1900s. They reminisce about their French-Canadian ancestors emigrating from Montreal to the valley. Longpre and Cormier detail which families in ... Read More
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Daniel Longpre Interview, February 25, 1976
Daniel Longpre
Daniel Longpre talks of his family and the other early settlers of the Frenchtown valley including the Poitras, Touchettes, Ledouxs, and Ploufs, many of whom were French Canadian immigrants. He describes trapping with Albert brothers, after whom Alberton, Montana, was named. He mentions the Longpre ... Read More
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Dufresne Family Interview, February 24, 1976
Anna Mildred Dufresne, Julia Van Holt, Margaret Dufresne, Goldie Dufresne, and Julian Dufresne
Members of the Dufresne family (including Anna Mildred Mueller Dufresne, Julia Dufresne Van Holt, Margaret Allen Dufresne, Goldie Cole Dufresne, and Julian Dufresne) describe their family and their relationship with other early residents of the Frenchtown area. They briefly discuss animal husbandry, specifically raising sheep ... Read More
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Florida Jette LaCasse and Angelina LaCasse Interview, circa 1975-1976
Florida Jette LaCasse and Angelina LaCasse
Florida LaCasse, and her daughter Angelina LaCasse discuss homesteading in the Frenchtown Valley. Florida LaCasse relates the history of the Jette family and how they immigrated from Montreal, Canada, to Montana. She describes the Glaude and Cormier sawmill and the Ross and Donlan sawmill as ... Read More
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Fred Cormier Interview, circa 1975-1976
Fred Cormier
Fred Cormier identifies people, buildings, and locations in old photographs from Frenchtown, Montana, where he grew up in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He discusses the lumber, farming, and milling industries—specifically history of the Cormier and Glaude sawmill—as well as the changing environment ... Read More
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Frenchtown Residents Interview, March 8, 1976
Goldie Dufresne, Julian Dufresne, Margaret Dufresne, William Dufresne, Anna Mildred Dufresne, Mamie Reeves, Louise Williams, and Julia Van Holt
Goldie Cole Dufresne, Julian Dufresne, Margaret Allen Dufresne, William Dufresne, Anna Mildred Mueller Dufresne, Mamie Reeves, Louise Williams, and Julia Dufresne Van Holt share their childhood memories of growing up in the Frenchtown Valley in Montana during the early 20th century. They talk about attending ... Read More
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Henry Lavoie Interview, March 21, 1975
Henry Lavoie
Henry Lavoie, who was interviewed on March 21, 1975, and February 1976, tells how his French-Canadian father emigrated to Frenchtown in 1888. He talks about his mother’s family, the Cyrs, who arrived in Frenchtown around 1876. Lavoie describes growing up in Frenchtown during the early ... Read More
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Irma Mulcihy Interview, March 15, 1976
Irma Mulcihy
Irma Mulcihy reminisces about life in the Frenchtown valley in Montana during the early 20th century including walking to school in the mud and singing in mass on Sundays. She describes her photos of various early homesteaders, buildings, and landmarks, including the Cormier Sawmill and ... Read More
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Jack Ray and Philip Cyr Interview, January 1, 1975
Jack Ray and Philip Cyr
Jack Ray describes owning a general store from 1916 to 1921 in Frenchtown, Montana, and how he used to travel through the valley taking orders for groceries and delivering them. He shares stories about the early families who homesteaded in the valley and visited his ... Read More
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Jean Lucier and Anna Bisson Prafke Interview, March 15, 1976
Jean Lucier and Anna Bisson Prafke
Jean Lucier and Anna Prafke discuss the history of the Sorrell and Bisson families in Frenchtown, Montana and when they immigrated to Frenchtown. Prafke and Lucier describe growing up in the area, attending school, and St. John’s Day celebrations. No audio or transcript exist for ... Read More
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Juliette Marcure Interview, April 29, 1976
Juliette Marcure
Juliette Marcure describes the typhoid epidemic in the Frenchtown area circa 1906, when she was six years old, and how it affected her and a number of her family members. She shares memories of attending a one-room schoolhouse in Frenchtown, Montana, and going to the ... Read More
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Lena Boyer Lucier Interview, January 1, 1976
Lena Lucier
Lena Lucier describes homesteading in the Frenchtown valley in Montana during the late 19th and early 20th century. She recalls her father working at Cormier’s sawmill, the special train that brought people from Butte to Frenchtown for the annual St. John’s Day celebrations, food preservation ... Read More
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Marie Louise Plourd and Dona Plourd Corr Interview, April 8, 1975
Marie Louise Plourd and Dona Corr
Dona Corr assists her French-speaking mother, Marie Plourd, in describing how she immigrated to the Frenchtown valley in Montana in 1900 and married to Donat Plourd, who emigrated from Quebec, Canada. Corr describes the businesses and saloons that were part of the Frenchtown valley communities ... Read More
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Marie Louise Plourd, Dona Plourd Corr, and Ida Longpre Interview, April 24, 1975
Marie Louise Plourd, Dona Plourd Corr, and Ida Longpre
Marie Plourd, Dona Corr, and Ida Longpre discuss Pete Scheffer, describing how he came to live in Frenchtown, his wife, and his residency. They then go on to discuss his family, focusing primarily on his children. Dona Corr and Ida Longpre describe attending the Miron ... Read More