The style of legends.
My grandparents were all immigrants. They came from the Basque country (on my mother's side) and Germany/Bohemia (father's side). Their lives were unbelievably challenging during the 20's and 30's in Montana yet they had great personal style and very distinctive character that were shaped by their heritage and pioneering nature.
The coyote chaser.
Grandpa Dyba (above, circa 1928) managed to look pretty dapper even as he armed himself with a shotgun, jumped on his Harley and roared off shooting cayutes along the high plains of Montana. In the snow with handmade chains for the tires. He was an expert marksman and made his living at it when times were very hard. My grandmother would drive the Chevy and off they would go chasing antelope, coyotes and rabbits with him hanging out the passenger window. They'd load the hides on a train to Chicago where they'd be sold to Sears Roebuck.
He bought a new car at the age of 96 which he drove with a loaded pistol on the front seat.
Grandma Caricaburu goes to town.
Mary Jane Ader was a French Basque who left her family in the Pyrenees and came to America with the Etchepare family on a sheep ranch in northeastern Montana. She married the very handsome Pierre (Pete) Caricaburu who died just after my mother, the 7th child, was born. Nobody was tougher, or more of a lady, than my grandmother. Faced with foreclosure, floods, fields of farmland and all those mouths to feed, she kept them afloat through sheer determination and hard work. She could make anything -- out of nothing. She even made mud boots look good. Although much admired and very beautiful, she never remarried. In true Basque character: love to the death; fight to the death.
Grandma Caricaburu versus the Milk River.
