Lura Belle Pearson Milkovich

A Montana Story"Hey teacher, where you going with those kids?" Those were the words yelled across the rippling waters of the Musselshell River in South Central Montana on a Spring Day in 1945, by a charismatic, young Air Force veteran, to an 18 year old angelic, blue-eyed blonde, as she led her students, lined up like ducklings behind her, on a field trip along the banks of the Musselshell. With those words, an epic, improbable-- and wholly Montana-- love story, began. A love story that came to an end-- or at least a new Chapter-- when Lura Belle Pearson Milkovich died in Ennis, Montana at 12:10 a.m. on January 16, 2020, at the age of 92. In between, many mountains were climbed; many rivers crossed; many valleys traversed. Lura Belle Pearson was born on September 16, 1927, in Butte, Montana, to Charles Warner Pearson, an accomplished Western Artist, and loyal friend of Charles M. Russell; and Mary Cusick Pearson who, accompanying judges, was reportedly the first white woman through the Lewis and Clark Caverns; a Court Reporter who, in her heyday in the 1940s, knew every lawyer in Montana; introduced a young Mike Mansfield around the courthouse before his election to the United States Senate; and was known for her willingness to shut down trials-- and lawyers, witnesses and Judges-- for the offense of talking over each other, a cardinal sin to court reporters. Lura's forebears were immigrants from France, Ireland, Wales and Sweden, who made their way West in the 19th Century on horseback, in wagons and on foot; her grandmother, Annie Belle Cutts, pushing a handcart westward with her belongings, as she walked across the Great Central Plain and into the Rockies. Her maternal grandmother, Lura Domitille Filion Cusick, once rode on the lap of Calamity Jane in a stage coach. Both of her grandfathers, Cusick and Pearson, fought in the Spanish American War. From her earliest youth, Lura, raised in Butte, was a devout Catholic Christian, deeply imbued with a love for Christ, and a reverence for Mary and Joseph. United States District Judge Judge James H. Baldwin, former United States District Attorney for Montana, and a friend of her mother, became a mentor and surrogate father to young Lura. He bought her books; guided her to fine literature; commended to her the works of Thomas Jefferson; instructed her that a judge must refrain from befriending any litigant-- and taught her to drive. On June 8, 1948, Lura married Mark Milkovich, whom she met on the Banks of the Musselshell. Mark was born in 1922, in the coal mining community of Roundup and Klein, Montana, where Yugoslavs shoveled coal for 75 cents per ton. Mark was raised on a homestead ranch in Montana during the Drought of the Depression. Mark served in the U.S. Air Force, where he was a member in the Ferrying Command that transported bombers from Alaska to England and Russia, to fight the German War Machine in World War II. Mark then forged his own way for 50 years, as a trusted financial adviser and family friend to generations of Montana farmers and ranchers, including those that befriended the Indians, inhabited the Bear Paw Mountains, started Montana ranches in the 19th Century, and owned the Land on which Chief Joseph had earlier surrendered.Lura started her teaching career instructing grades 5 through 8 in one room of a 2 room school house, without a college degree, a War Era exigency. She obtained her college degree later at the College of Great Falls; taught 3rd Grade for 10 years at Ennis Grade School; and taught another year without pay, to help children with learning disabilities. Later, in her 50s, she attended College to successfully complete instruction in Calculus. For years she volunteered in Head Start, to instruct needy Children. Lura began painting at an early age, recognized by her high school classmates for her artistic skill. Though she studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, she was largely self-taught, studying the methods of European and American masters, influenced perhaps by her father's western oil paintings of Native Americans and Cowboys, and by Elizabeth Lochrie's renowned portraits of Indian children. A passionate visual poet, she developed her own elegant style of Western Art, authentic, nativist and impressionist, giving voice to crumbling barns, abandoned homesteads, weathered fences, wind worn grain silos, the falling down ranch buildings of an earlier time, impassive mountains, implacable forests. Her paintings spoke the poetry and nobility of the Mountain West. Her art now reposes in the homes of ranchers and farmers, in Montana and across America, who saw in her paintings their own lives and their own crumbling out buildings. Her work is an eloquent commentary on the Montana life she lived, and the land she loved. Perhaps her greatest educational and artistic achievements came in raising her children, inspiring her grandchildren. Mark and Lura had 6 children: Mark Milkovich (Jan), Kay Robison, Tom Milkovich (Anne), John Milkovich (Carola), Mary Kamp (Dick) and David Milkovich (Joan). And 15 grandchildren: Lori Oliver; Charles, Lura Roti, Wayne, Myles and Max Robison; Sam, Isabel and MaryRose Milkovich; Sarah Milkovich; Arianna and Johnny Kamp; Mark James, Jack David and Ali Milkovich. And nine great grandchildren.Teacher, Artist, Wife, Mother, Grandparent, Lura was a woman of quiet, gentle and indomitable strength, a fire-tempered resolve to never give up. A courageous woman of unwavering morals. Her Faith and Character demanded that she hew her life to a Righteous Path. Not given to greeting card bromides, her love language was her entire life, the life she spent serving her family and others: teaching timid children; making homemade soup, bread and dozens of chocolate chip cookies; sewing clothes and crocheting jackets for her children; listening to dreams; challenging her children to generosity and integrity by her example. A life large, and given away. A life lived for others. As her granddaughter Sarah put it: "Your art is always magnificent, but your life is the most beautiful work of art. "She spent much of the last days of her life, firmly gripping the hands of the love of her life, her husband of 71 years, the father of her children. Who addressed love letters to her as "Van Gogh"; who asked her, in her final days, "How's my girl?"; who wept, saying, "She's the only one of her kind." The only one that could stop her sometimes imperious husband with a glance. The youthful blonde that once entranced him along the banks of the Musselshell. The girl whose beauty captured his heart. The girl whose love stole his heart. God painted a beautiful Sunrise over the Madison Range on the morning of January 16. A tribute to His Western Artist. His own Epilogue, Writ Large, to A Montana Story. A Celebration of Lura's Life will be held Tuesday, January 21, 6 p.m. at St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Ennis, Montana. The Funeral Mass will be held Wednesday, January 22, at 9 a.m., at St. Patrick's. A burial service will be announced and held later this Spring.