THE O'CONNELL RANCH

So much excitement, action, and mystery surround the O'Connell ranch, and to think – we nearly missed finding it! We were tangled up in the backroads like rats in a maze without cheese, and twice had to call him for directions. Larry O'Connell was a little perturbed with us when we finally decoded the instructions and rolled in.

Remember the Gehring Ranch – the only one of our installments where we were greeted by a landowner with a pistol? In the present case the landowner welcomed us with a tape recorder; in fact, he had invited a friend as a technician to record our conversation. We were flattered but somewhat disappointed that we had no sensitive or secret topics to discuss.

Here, on land near Lake Mary Ronan and the town of Niarada had been a ranch called Hog Heaven, where Larry O'Connell; his parents, Charles and Jean; and his grandparents had lived. It's a lovely, picturesque region, and Lake Mary Ronan and Flathead Lake were just over the farthest hill.

The ranch has a thrilling history, for once it was the hideout of a band of horse thieves. Thus, not being able to find it was nor entirely to our discredit. They stole them in Wyoming, wintered them here, then drove them for sale in Idaho or Oregon.

Needless to say, the horses' owners were unhappy with the arrangement and found the headquarters much easier than we had. A posse pursued the bad guys to the ranch, where a terrible shootout ensued. As children, Larry and his cousins dug bullets, highly prized souvenirs of the famous battle, from the log walls of the buildings.

Larry's grandmother's first husband was Joe Weigle, whose father had come from Bavaria. He had a few enemies in the neighborhood and once failed to return from a hunting trip. His dead body was found shot in the back of the head, which death was somehow ruled suicide by local authorities.

Her second husband, Louie O'Connell, who bought the place in the early 1930s, also came to a sad end. His enemy was whiskey, and one night he fell down a flight of steps, broke his neck, and died around 1945.

Grandmother O'Connell sold the ranch in 1947 to Miles City folks, and later on it was purchased by the Flathead Indians. They returned the land to its natural state by the expedient of burning down all the buildings, which broke Larry's heart, and he has requested that his ashes be dropped on this place he loved so much.

Thus, the ranch in the painting has not existed for many decades, but the building in the center, along with the tent, were the living quarters of the shepherds. Perhaps that is some of their laundry hanging in the sagebrush and on the car. In World War II the ranch had a contract to supply cattle and sheep to our military, and, to fulfil it, they raised 20 bands of 2000 sheep each.

With over 40,000 sheep and a large herd of cattle, in addition, maintaining fences made the difference between success and failure for the ranch. Atop a work horse and leading two others loaded with gear and materials, Larry's dad, Chuck, is painted as he was about to embark on a two-week journey to mend the ranch's fences. At that time there were neither power post-hole diggers nor electric wire strung and connected to batteries. It was hard, grunt work, where one never knew what or whom he would encounter, but Larry's father, who also had supported the family as a miner in Flathead Mine before taking up ranching, was accustomed to labor. We thought his was somewhat dandy attire for that rough expedition, so perhaps he dressed for the camera before changing and heading off to work.

Not the least dangers in fixing fences were rattlesnakes, and Chuck had a defense against them. He brought along a team of two dogs, one of which distracted a snake, while the other went in for the kill.

If Kalispell at the time may be regarded a city, then Larry's mom was a city girl that became a teacher in Hot Springs. On one of her first dates with Chuck, he took her to an evening at the Niarada dance hall, where the night passed, love blossomed, and marriage followed.

Along came Larry, who had the bad fortune of his mother as a first-grade teacher. She did not take kindly to his classroom behavior, which was probably calculated to take advantage of the relationship, and promptly flunked him! Who knows but that if she had been graded, she might have failed, too, for she knew little of ranching life, but thanks to Grandmother O'Connell's coaching, she learned quickly.

As we sat around the table discussing his family's history, Larry reminisced about this ranch on which he now lives.

The first brickyard in the valley was operated by the Stahl brothers, and the present, impressive O'Connell home was built with their product in 1898 by Larry O'Connell's great-uncle. When his grandmother sold Hog Heaven she purchased this property in 1947. The barn behind the handsome horse, which looks nearly new, was constructed by commercial barn-builders in 1900.

This farm, homesteaded by Bill Curran, was once the largest in western Montana, and the Curran family lived in a dugout until he was able to construct a log house for them. This part of Montana could have used a Josephine Doody or Bertie Brown, too, for Mr. Curran also had a fondness for whiskey. This was revealed to Larry and his father by a profusion of empty bottles they discovered in a barn.

Larry sold that original log cabin for $3500 to a man with intentions of rebuilding it elsewhere. Before disassembling it, he carefully numbered the logs, then loaded the giant jigsaw puzzle on a truck and drove away with it. It's current whereabouts are unknown.