Homestead Jeans

A family history in Montana.

In 1914, my husband’s great grandmother Ingrid Josephina Stocker (née Englund) sold the corner grocery she owned in Butte, Montana to go all-in on a 320 square-acre homestead near the newly minted boom town of Winifred. A single mother, Josephina – or Josie, as she was called – arrived at her territory with one suitcase, a team of horses, and an obligation, per the Homestead Act,¹ to build a house and improve the land through farming. Her son, my husband’s grandfather and our son’s namesake Walter Spencer Emmanuel Stocker, was four years old at the time. Today, this is what remains of the cabin where they lived…

My husband Marc on the family homestead in Winifred, MT, where Josie’s log cabin still stands.

Last week, our family – grandparents, siblings, and cousins – gathered at the Stocker homestead to try and feel some of what Josie and Walt, as he was known, had felt one hundred years ago. What breezes? What bugs? What night sky did they look up to find?

Getting to the cabin was a trip…