Mark Milkovich, a Montana Life

© John Milkovich 2021

A Montana Story

Another Chapter

“So, What are you going to do?”

With those words, Mark Milkovich expressed his life philosophy in seven words: When you encounter adversity in life, there is always a Choice: you can work, fight and endure–– or you can quit.

Mark’s life offered vital lessons for his children and grandchildren: Fiercely declare the difference between right and wrong. Work Hard–– until exhaustion–– and then keep working. Respect Others, no matter their background. Help Others–– especially children. But perhaps the most resonant message of Dad’s life: Persevere to the End. Perserverance, ultimately, is a Montana Story.

Mark was born on July 19, 1922, in Klein, Montana, in the coal mining community of Roundup-Klein. His maternal grandparents came from the “Old Country”–– Yugoslavia. Mark’s maternal Grandfather, Eli Badovinac, came from near Novo Mesto, close to the Province of Croatia in Yugoslavia; was Eastern Orthodox Christian; and spoke Croatian. His maternal grandmother, Angela Marsich, was raised outside Zagreb, Croatia; was a Catholic; and also spoke Croatian. Eli and Angela met and married in America. Eli worked in the mines in Pennsylvania, then Ealy, Minnesota; and finally, the coal mining Community of Roundup and Klein, in Musselshell County, Montana.

Dad’s maternal grandparents, Eli and Angela Badovinac, gave birth to 10 children. They raised the eight that lived to adulthood–– along with dryland wheat, hay, cattle, vegetables and ¬poultry, on their homestead ranch in the Bull Mountains of Musselshell County. Grandfather Badovinac once fought from morning until early evening, in the heat of summer, to put out a fire that threatened to destroy their ranch, without stopping to take a sip of water. “Grandma” Badovinac would balance food and water in a straw basket atop her head, and walk miles through the woods to carry provision to an ailing farm wife and mother at a neighboring ranch. In their Old World understanding of God, it was a sin to allow any drifter to walk by the ranch without feeding them. The hidden Still in a ravine of the Ranch, distilled moonshine to help raise needed cash. While damnable to the feds, the moonshine was not, Eli and Angela perceived, an affront to God. With their Old Country religion and work ethic, the Badovinacs built the first permanent house–– two story and wood frame–– on the main street of Roundup.

Dad’s father, Mark Milkovich, came from a part of Croatia, then in Austria. This Mark Milkovich showed up in Roundup from Colorado as a young man, already an accomplished gambler, wearing a fur coat, and owning cattle. He enlisted to fight for America in World War I, and went to work in the coal mines of Roundup-Klein, where he shoveled coal for 75 cents a ton. He attended the Jack Dempsey title fight in Shelby, Montana on July 4, 1923, in his own Model T. Grandfather had spent part of his youth in Colorado, and was perhaps drawn by his allegiance to Dempsey, who was from Manassa, Colorado. Noticing a change in the patterns and behavior of the birds and the mice in the mine, Mark stopped working in the mine. Shortly after he got out of the mines, warned by the movements of the mice and birds, the shaft collapsed with catastrophic results. Mark bought a store and built a house for his bride, Donna Badovinac, Dad’s mother. Grandfather Milkovich was known in the community as an advocate for working families–– he let families eat on credit when times were lean.

In November, 1925, Mark Milkovich was shot to death in the Custer Hiway Store, near the railroad in Klein, Montana–– a store he had purchased with the backbreaking labor of thousands of hours of shoveling coal in a mineshaft, the sweat of his brow, the sacrifice of his youth. He was killed at the age of 35, leaving behind his wife Donna, 3 year old son, Mark, and 18 month old daughter, Caroline. He had known of bad blood with a man that owed him money–– and lamented that he might not be alive to watch his son Mark–– our Dad–– grow to manhood.

Grandfather Mark Milkovich is buried outside of Klein. After his death, his supervisor told Dad that our Grandfather, who spent thousands of back-breaking hours as a contract coal miner, was built like a prize fighter. A July 22, 1918 photo of 66 Roundup men who enlisted to fight in Europe in World War I featured Grandfather Milkovich, 11th from the Left, front row, his dark, chiseled and symmetrical features, showing fierce resolve, a hat jauntily cocked atop his head. And the picture bears dad’s proud, handwritten enscription of what a woman of the day had intoned–– Dad’s tribute to a Father, he had scarcely known: Grandfather Milkovich was “Sharpest of entire group.”

Dad was born in Coal Company housing in Klein, Montana, on July 19, 1922. After his father was killed when he was three, Dad was raised by his maternal Grandparents Eli and Angela Badovinac. He was also raised by “Tetica” and “Ulyak” (Croatian for Aunt and Uncle), Angela’s half-sister and her husband. He was called “Seine” (Croatian for “Sonny”), and Croatian was still his primary language when he was in 2nd Grade. His favorite part of his youth was spent on his Grandparents’ Homestead Ranch in the Bull Mountains of South Central Montana, during the Drought of the Depression, with his grandparents, his mother’s 7 siblings, including his Uncle George who was only weeks older than he was, and was a brother to him. Up every morning before light on the Ranch, he plowed dry, rocky ground with a horse, harness and plow as a young boy; harvested hay with a pitchfork in the heat of the summer; picked rocks; handsawed logs for props for the Railroad for 25 cents apiece; shot rabbits with a bent .22 rifle for dinner; weeded and carried water to the garden that served as the family’s subsistence; salvaged bent, used nails for his grandfather’s use in raising outbuildings.

Dad remembered that, as a boy, his Grandmother Badovinac would get him up at the ranch at 5 a.m. every morning, to go to work. As soon as he and his Uncle George, only weeks his senior, finished one project, his Grandmother was clucking “boys, boys,” preserving daylight, and directing the boys to the next. It was not until his 40s that his grandmother confessed to Dad: she had pushed the clock one hour forward in those summer days of the 1930s, when he was a young boy. He was not getting up each day at 5 a.m. He was awakened each day at 4 a.m. For years she had been turning Dad and Uncle George out at 4 a.m. every morning as boys, to start their 14 to 16 hour work days.

When his mother remarried a step-dad that despised and rejected him, he was offered a new bike if he would change his name––abandon his father’s name and take the name of his abusive step-father. He refused. After his mother’s remarriage, and her move to Miles City, he promptly became an elected Officer, Secretrary-Treasurer, of his Freshman Class at his new High School.

After scoring high on a Civil Service Exam, and a few months at Miles City Junior College, he left to strike out on his own. When the mother of a prospective marital prospect admonished him to stay in college, he was quick to reply: “Mrs. Johnson, I want to make money.” And he wanted independence from his step-father, to transcend the loss of the father, who was not there to guide him, provide for him, advise him.

In 1940, at 18 years old, he was off. Taking with him the sum of his youth–– hard earned lessons, and the net of the money earned stocking shelves at a neighborhood store during the week, and receiving tips as a coat clerk on Friday and Saturday Nights at the Elks’ Club: $62. One suitcase. One suit.

When he arrived at Tacoma, Washington, he walked the streets carrying everything he owned, looking for room and board. Shortly thereafter, stricken with appendicitis, alone and 700 miles away from home, with little money in his pocket, he had to negotiate with the stiff-lipped nun running the hospital, to get the emergency surgery he needed to save his life. He shared his hospital suite with a kind man in his 90s, Martin Baker Finch, who related the story of his (Finch’s) brother attending a political campaign event with Abraham Lincoln.

Surviving the appendicitis, and more importantly, getting past the nun running the hospital, he went to work for Federal Civil Service in Tacoma. After Pearl Harbor, he told his buddy and co-worker, Tom Cinkovich, “We need to enlist.” Cinkovich dropped what he was doing, and promptly followed his advice.. Enlisting in the Army, Dad was assigned to the Army Air Corps, the precursor to the United States Air Force, and stationed at an Alaskan Air Base, as part of the 7th Ferrying Command, which transported bombers to the Russians and to the European front, to take on the German War Machine. Dad made the Base All-Star Baseball team, playing right field.

After his Honorable Discharge, Dad gravitated back to Roundup, where he and his buddies celebrated at night in downtown Roundup bars, every time one of their friends returned from War II alive.

There was no celebration for his Uncle George Badovinac. Stricken with polio while aboard a Naval Vessel, the military deemed his condition an aversion to work, not knowing the 16 hour summer days he spent as a boy working in the heat of drought during the Depression. But Uncle George was not much given to speaking up for himself. The medical care the Navy gave him, was too little, too late. Dad’s Uncle–– who to him was his only brother–– spent his adulthood in a wheel chair. Later, when Uncle George lived in Spokane, dad would go to the Washington State Drivers’ License Bureau, say he was George Badovinac, navigate the red tape to renew a license, and forge Uncle George’s name to the paperwork, so Uncle George could drive.

Dad’s life was forever changed when he met Lura Belle Pearson. The Official Version? Mom and Dad met in 1945 at a Catholic Church Social in Roundup, held to decorate the Church for Fall Festival. The more authentic, unofficial story: a charismatic, just honorably discharged Army/Air Corps veteran saw an angelic, blue-eyed 18 year old blonde school Teacher leading children in single file on a field trip along the banks of the Mussellshell River, and hollered, “Hey teacher, where you going with those kids?” Dad’s mom accurately chronicled the event: “That cute blonde moved to Roundup, and that was it for Mark.” Dad’s best man? Tom Cinkovich, who followed into the Army in 1941.

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. In the meantime, Mom helped design–– and do the physical labor needed to build–– the family homes on the Madison River, in Great Falls, and in Jeffers; taught grade school; helped raise 6 kids; cooked, sewed and knit–– and developed into an extraordinary and visionary Western Artist.

Neither Dad’s mom–– Granny Donna–– nor Mom’s mom–– Granny Mary–– approved of the marriage. For the next 71 years, Dad had a ready reply for both of them–– and loud enough for them to hear from heaven. Bragging unreservedly about his wife, he declared, “She can do anything.” Teach, Cook, Sew, Knit, Design Houses, Raise kids, Draft Construction Blue Prints with no formal training–– and create exquisite Montana Art with oils and water colors. To his mother, Granny Donna’s unsolicited advice that he should have only 3 children, he defiantly replied, after having 6 children: “Which 3 do you want to give back?”

He made the decision that our family would spend our summers at our Cabin on the Madison River. That meant shutting down his investment work with farmers and ranchers; loading up into a 1940s era pickup, later suburbans, to carry clothes and food from Great Falls to our Cabin in Madison Valley, equidistant between Ennis and West Yellowstone. The Stay on the Madison every year was a journey back to his youth, where the best days of his childhood were spent outdoors on his grandparents’ Homestead Ranch in the Bull Mountains of Mussellshell County.

Dad showed us, in those summers, what physical work was. He wielded a shovel like a world class fencer handles a sword. He attacked his work with ferocity, using his tools like weapons: chainsaws, hammers, crow bars, handsaws, axes, planes and post-hole diggers–– the old fashioned kind, with long handles as levers, wide metal blades to dig, employed with the shoulders and upper back as the engine. He mixed concrete by hand, working sand, cement, gravel and water, with shovel and hoe. And what he did, without question, we did.

Mom designed, and he and mom did much of the physical labor, in building a log cabin on the Madison River in 1959; a brick house in Great Falls around 1960; and a house in Jeffers in the 1970s. The log cabin on the Madison he built with the help of mom and two friends in 19 days, renting cabins at night from Otto Kirby, half a mile down the road.

Dad did hard physical labor into his 70s and 80s. In his investment work with farmers and ranchers, he sometimes worked 20 hour–– and sometimes 24 hour–– days. Stopping to sleep in his car on a river bank on the side of road, he awoke with dreams of driving into the “drink.” With less than three months of college himself, he helped put 6 kids through college.

Dad gave generously to children during his life, including children staying at the Yellowstone Youth Ranch, and children needing surgery to correct cleft palates. In his death, he gave still more through his Estate.

Dad loved his Nation. And he loved Montana. And Yugoslavia–– the “Old Country.” Other than the “Old Country,” he was not tempted to see Europe, or the World. Instead, he exulted in knowing every corner of his beloved home state, and during his heyday seemingly knowing someone from every family native to Montana. Montana, he often exclaimed, “has everything. Why would anyone want to live anywhere else.”

During his 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, Dad overcame Stroke, Heart Attack, Cancer and the loss of a kidney.

Mom and Dad instilled life lessons in their children, more by their actions, than by their words: Hard Work; Respect for Others irrespective of Background; Passion for the Right; a Willingness to Help Others–– especially children; the Determination to persevere to the end.

The time came that he could no longer mix concrete with a hoe and a shovel in a wheel barrow; no longer handle an axe like a lumberjack; he became bent with age; and his physical strength ebbed. Yet, his fierce passion for the right never dimmed. As his physical capability ebbed, his moral indignation roared, his dark eyes blazed, his heart ignited. He held court in the living room of the Jeffers home mom designed and he and mom helped build, and delivered imperial edicts about what was wrong and right in America and the World; about what was wrong with politics; about what his children and grandchildren should do with their lives, whom they should marry; whom they should avoid. If he could no longer labor in the sun, and could only speak, he would speak–– with the unrestrained fury of over over 90 years of living.

Jesus said, “He that endures to the end shall be saved.” Dad spoke the same principle when he said, in the vernacular of Depression Era Roundup, Montana, “So, what are you going to do?” What do you do when life turns upside down, slams the door in your face, punches you in the gut? The answer, he was telling us, was that when life threatens to overwhelm you, you persevere: You don’t quit. You get up. You keep throwing punches. You keep working. You keep fighting.

His life spoke this Truth more powerfully than his words: His father was murdered when he was three. His step-father despised him. He got up at 4 a.m. on summer mornings as a boy, to plow hard and rocky ground. He left home at 18 with little money, no connections, no support from his mother and step-father. He almost died of appendicitis within months, 700 miles from home, and struggled to get treatment. His Uncle, the closest he had to a brother, was in a wheel chair before the age of 25 years old. He was stricken by heart attack, stroke, cancer, the loss of a kidney.

“So, What are you going to do?” His life inscribed the response: Perseverance–– and building a life, and three homes, for his wife and six children.

His life best demonstrated perseverance in his love for his wife, our mom. When at the age of 90 he had a stroke while staying in Arizona, he thought he would die first. Within two days he was furiously bellowing: When he died, all of his money went to mom. She could spend it however she wanted it. She could blow it. She could go to Europe. And none of his kids had better get in the way. The fury of his decree left no doubt that he would return from the grave to enforce it.

Repeatedly he bragged on the woman he had married, the mother of his children–– the girl he loved. “She can do anything.” Cook, sew, knit, bake, teach, raise kids, design homes, paint beautiful portraits of the Mountain West. And she had transcended the expectations of her mother, and his.

When she was admitted for emergency surgery in Bozeman at 92 years old, and he was 97 years old, and it was exhausting for him to walk the long hospital hallways to be with his wife, he had us roll him into her room in a wheel chair, where he spent each day with her in the hospital room from light to dark.

A few months later, when her heart finally wore down, he was there again, in her Ennis hospital room, a sentinel, in a wheel chair, from morning to dark, returning home at night, at the point of exhaustion. Her strength was ebbing. But he would not quit on the love his life. Greeting her in the morning, “How’s my girl doing today?” “Mom, you need to eat.” “Get her something she will eat.” Holding hands with her for hours as lay in the bed. Then getting up in the hospital bed, to lay next to her. On January 15, 2020, Dad was driven home to rest for the next day. That night, about 11:18 p.m., we got a call from the hospital. Mom was going. Dad was awakened out a deep sleep, and promptly mustered the strength, at 97 years old, for the ride into town, in the cold, dark of a January night in Rocky Mountain Montana, to be with his girl. He was in the room with her, holding her hand, when she took her last breath, at 1:16 a.m. on January 16, 2020.

He had overcome much in his life. Now he convulsed with sobs at the passing, of the love of his life. As the life of this world left her, he rubbed her hands in his, to keep her hands from growing cold. As he wept, he announced, he didn’t want her in the cold. She would not be buried in the cold of winter. She will be buried when the weather is warm. “I don’t want her in the cold.”

He wanted to be with mom. He went on a brief hunger strike. He quit taking meds, from the many and mysterial bottles. After he quit taking pills, his health improved.

He couldn’t quit now. He had work to do. He had to care for his wife. Make sure she was properly buried, before he left. Buried in warm weather, so she wouldn’t be cold. No one had to tell him to persevere. You can’t quit when you have unfinished work to do. You can’t quit, when people are counting on you.

“So, What are you going to do?” When the love of your life has gone? after 71 years of marriage.

Mom was buried in the Ennis Cemetery on July 27, 2020, the Cottonwoods in full bloom; a breeze blowing; her perennial friends, the fawns, dancing at the edge of the grounds. Dad kept the promise he made to himself. He persevered. He would not go, until his wife was cared for. His only unfinished work now, was to reunite with his wife.

Dad died on August 18, 2020 at 2:12 p.m. at 98 years old. He was predeceased by his father, Mark Milkovich; maternal Grandparents, Eli and Angela Badovinac, whom he loved; Tetica and Ulyak; his Uncle George; his mother, Donna–– and his girl, Lura Belle Pearson Milkovich, his wife of 71 years. He was preceded as well by innumerable friends from an earlier, and much different day: Herbie and Francis Newton; the wind creased farmers and ranchers from North Central Montana; Tom Cinkovich; Edna Dunning; Omar Gardner; Jim and Evelyn Kelly. Friends from the old days, from Roundup, Butte and Great Falls.

He leaves to continue his legacy, his children, Mark Milkovich (Jan), Kay Robison, Tom Milkovich (Anne), John Milkovich (Carola) who wrote this Tribute, Mary Kamp (Dick) and David Milkovich (Joan). His beloved sister, Joan Acres. Fifteen grandchildren: Lori Oliver; Charles, Lura Roti, Wayne, Miles and Max Robison; Sam, Isabel and MaryRose Milkovich; Sarah Milkovich; Arianna and Johnny Kamp; Mark James, Jack David and Alison Milkovich. And nine great grandchildren. And dear friends, Dick Dunning and the “Hemingways,” David and Laura Rausch. His caretakers that treated him as family, Linda Teefertiller, Linda West, Rosie Endean, Angie Brown. And Stan Klauman, who became to him, a fifth son.

He was buried in Ennis Cemetery on August 22, 2020, Father John Crutchfield, a trusted family friend, presiding.

He answered the life question, “So, What are you going to do?” with Perseverance, with Courage, with everything in him. He acknowledged Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior in prayer with Kay at the age of 97. He recited Christian Faith in prayers with his daughter Mary, and son-in-law Dick.

He had requested burial plots for he and mom, side by side, so that they would be looking up at the Madison Range, from their resting places. Mary corrected him. He would be looking down on Madison Valley from heaven. And she did not hesitate to motivate him with an eminently Montana Gospel: Mom was in heaven. If he wanted to be with her, that’s where he had to go.

As he lay on his bed at the end, he waved. Mary asked, “Are you waving at mom?” He replied, “Yes, can she see me?” Mary: “Of course she can.”

Dad had never been much for Prayer Meetings. He had called people that attended service every Sunday, “Churchers.” This was a man that may have never attended a Prayer Meeting in his life. Now, at 98, having acknowledged Christ, he went to heaven in a Prayer Meeting, with his daughter, Mary, son-in-law Dick and son John around him. He was completing his work. He was going to be with his wife.

Even exhausted and semi-conscious, it seemed his relentless breathing and stubborn heart might would continue forever. He conjured Dylan Thomas. He would not go gently into that good night. But rage and rage against the dying of the light.

Then suddenly, he was at Peace in the last place he would have ever envisioned himself–– a Prayer Meeting in his own bed, in his own home, surrounded by the Rockies of Madison Valley.

When he died at 98 years of age on August 18, 2020 at 2:12 p.m., he was completing an appointment he had made.

He wasn’t quitting. He wasn’t giving up. He was finishing. He was completing his work. He was persevering to the end.