Episode 16 - Marjorie Cannon

Welcome to Mining City Reflections. I’m your host, Marian Jensen.

The first two segments of our series focused on the immigrant stories of Butte women in the early years of the 20th century, and then we added the oral histories of members of the Women Protective Union in the mid 20th century. This third part of our series, we shift to the oral histories of women currently living in Butte. Among the events in the city since its founding in 1861, none is more infamous than the closing of the Anaconda Mining Company.

In January, 1983 the company that produced the bulk of the world’s copper in the 20th century announced operations would cease. From June of 1980 through June of 1983, nearly 3000 workers would lose their jobs. The women in this series of podcasts lived through that day which brought the once glorious mining city almost to its knees. We’ll hear how they survived and flourished.

In this episode we hear excerpts from the oral history of Marjorie Cannon, taken in her own home by Butte Archives Assistant Director, Aubrey Jaap in July, 2018. A lifelong resident of Butte, articulate and with an eye for detail, Marjorie is a keen observer of the changes she’s seen in the Mining City.

A descendant of Cornish people on both sides of her family, Marjorie’s maternal grandfather, Paul Adams, was a miner who followed the ore. As the tin mines in Cornwall played out, he went to California, then South Africa, and finally Montana, working for a year at a time and then returning to his family in Cornwall. At least until Marjorie’s grandmother, Sarah, put her foot down.

“ That was a time when the tin was all gone, and California didn’t have the excitement that Africa had, so he went to Johannesburg. And He was down in Johannesburg for a number of years. After he was married he left and he was gone for two years. And when he came home my mother was greeting him at three months old. She was in bed with her mother and he handed her a gold watch, which I have and she cherished that of course. My grandmother and grandfather were married for fourteen years seven of which he was gone. Most of that was here in Montana, and he would be here for a year or two and go back then stay there for a year or two then go back and so on. And 1903, my grandmother by that time had five children said “I’ve had enough of this!” And she said “I’m not going to stay here anymore, with you.” So she, in Southampton, she got on the boat and came to Montana. Took her two weeks to get here, brought five children, the oldest being my mother who was twelve and my uncle who was just a baby who was born in 1900, so not quite three yet. So they got into Butte on October the ninth 1903 and the East Ridge was a blaze of color, it was absolutely beautiful. Prior to that they had spent a week en route, from New York. It took them a week to get to New York from Southampton and they were routed up through Havre, and when they got off at the station in Havre they were greeted by a group of Indians, whom they had heard of and read about but had never seen. So that was quite an interesting thing for them to have seen. My grandmother thought this was lovely, and y’know she came from the British Riviera; Cornwall’s a gorgeous country. Within the next week it had gotten down to 20 below zero and she said to my grandfather “why have you brought me here?”

Once settled in the new country, Lavinia, Marjorie’s mother, quickly adapted, completing school and training as a secretary. As the eldest child, she soon began work to help support the Adams family.

“She graduated from Franklin School, the same school that I graduated from, when she was in the seventh and eight grades there she graduated at fourteen. Then she went to Butte Business College which was where the new Northwestern Energy building is now, and she graduated from there when she was sixteen and Mr. Orton, W.C. Orton, who had Orton’s Music Store up on North Main Street above Hennessy’s there, he hired her as his private secretary and she worked there for eleven years. My grandfather was working in the Leonard Mine and he was a shift boss brining home $100 a month and my mother was bringing home $100 a month. She would give it to her mother and her mother would give her back $10. By that time there were eight children in the family and y’know they needed everything they could get.”

Marjorie’s father, Edwin Roberts, owned his own butcher shop in Porthleven, in Cornwall. But once the tin mines began to close he immigrated in search of greener pastures in California, but his reception was shaky. As luck would have it, he received an ideal reception in Montana.

“So my father came into the picture in 1906, he was a butcher in Porthleven, in England. And he came out to Alameda, California, and that was when that huge earthquake took place in that area around Oakland and Alameda and San Fransisco, and he said “you can keep California. I have lots of former farmers and people that bought from me at my store,” he owned his own store in Porthleven. He said “My customers are up in Montana, I’m going to Montana.” So he came in 1906 and he went directly to my grandmother and grandfather’s house cause they were former customers and asked if they knew a place where he could live. And they said, ”Yes Granny Oldfield’s up in McQueen had a boarding house.” So that’s where he went. Well of course he thought my mother was about the best thing that ever happened and he wanted to marry her right away. She said, “Evan I can’t marry you, my mother is depending on me for the money I bring home.” He said, “Well, you go and have your fun, you’ll come back to me.” So, eleven years later she did.”

Marjorie recalls in vivid detail her mother’s story about her courting days.

“‘Course when she and my dad were married we still had horse and buggies. The used to go out to Lake Avoca which was right out there by the Country Club and they would take the horse and buggy and go out there and then they would go out in the row boat. That was their Sunday, they thought that was wonderful. My dad had a horse named Frank and they thought Frank was the best thing that had ever happened. My mother said that when Frank died, of old age I’m sure, my dad cried. She said it was the only time I ever saw him cry.”

Sadly, in circumstances reminiscent of the era of the COVID pandemic, both Marjorie’s grandparents were felled by the Spanish flu in 1918. Marjorie’s mother had to step in and do what had to be done.

“In 1918 was the terrible flu epidemic, and my Aunt Hazel worked at the roundhouse for the Milwaukie Depot on South Montana, I think KBOW is in there now. She was exposed to the flu, brought it home, her mother contracted it, her mother died. Her father contracted it, he died within a week. They died a week apart in 1918. Well my mother being the oldest had seven siblings that she had to think about and my dad, I don’t know many men like him, had a store in McQueen, a double story building, a residence upstairs and the store downstairs. He said, “We’ll just move ‘em up there and we’ll raise ‘em.” So he brought all those children up to McQueen and they were married on Lincoln’s birthday in 1919 and spent their first night in the old Thornton hotel, still up there, that was their one night. Then my mother went home in her wedding dress and scrubbed the floor in the hallway in her new home.”

Along with raising her siblings, Lavinia and Edwin Roberts had four children of their own. Marjorie was born in 1926.

“So, y’know those are unbelievable circumstances but that’s the way it was, and my dad had the butcher shop downstairs and he’d bring up the best of all the best and we were well fed and happy as if we had good sense!”

The Great Depression of the 1930’s remains vivid in Marjorie memories of childhood, including her father’s role as patriarch of McQueen.

“We never threw a bit of food away, ever. My mother said we’ll make this do no matter what. Oh ya things were very tight and the strikes were devastating. Yearlong strikes where my dad carried all of his customers for a year. And my mother would see somebody driving a Cadillac and she’d say, “That’s my car,’ cause that person driving that Cadillac had a huge bill that was never paid. That’s Just the way it was. We had little books and would take their order, and we kept a copy that was my job I had to add those up to make sure they were correct every time. They would come and pay it maybe weekly, maybe monthly. But my dad just carried… he had a big file and each of their names were on the outside and they would come in and pay it and we would go onto another page. But, during those strikes they couldn’t and my dad wasn’t going to let them starve.

Life over the Roberts Market must have been busy and spirited with lots of music. In the Cornish tradition, Marjorie’s father sang in the choir, and one of her aunts was musically gifted as well.

“Every musical… my dad had a beautiful bass voice and he sang with the Cornish choir in England when he was there. And he sang in the Methodist choir at the church that we went to, for all the years that the church was there. Unity Methodist Church and Franklin School, course they’re in the pit now both of ‘em. But um.. my Aunt Millicent was born with a gift; she could hear some music on the radio and sit down and play it on the piano. She was just gifted. She belonged to a group called the Treble Clef Club here in Butte and my aunt was one of the first ones that belonged to that. There were twelve of them and each one… for each of the four parts there were three. They wore beautiful pastel colored dresses and sang My Sweet Little Alice Blue Gown… oh they were wonderful! They entertained all over Butte.

In 1927 Marjorie’s father bought a cabin east of town above the city’s amusement park, Columbia Gardens. The family left McQueen and the butcher shop behind to spend idyllic summers, mostly outside.

“When we were living in McQueen my sister became very ill and she got a strep infection. The infection was such that after she had taken the medication she was like this; someone would walk up to her and she was just a nervous wreck. So the doctor suggested that she needed to get away from the store where there were all those people and said you’d better take her to California Mr. Roberts. Well, he couldn’t, he had his business here, how could he do that? But he found a little two room cabin up at the Gardens. So he bought that and had it made into a home for us. We would leave when school was out in may and then when the snow flew we would go back down to McQueen, but the Gardens were very much a part of our lives. I was just a year old when he did that and just beginning to walk so my mother would put me in a great big box, one of the big boxes that had come into the store, and that’s where I had to stay and play cause she couldn’t keep track of four of us if I was out wandering around! But she always said it was the most wonderful thing because none of us ever had a doctors appointment after that when we were children. She said the… healthy, outdoor living… we all had suntans. We’d climb up the East Ridge and go up the path and find the wild strawberries and go up in the mountain and find the choke cherries. My Brother, who graduated in metallurgy and taught up at Tech here for two years as a doctor of metallurgy, loved rocks and so he and I would go and climb the East Ridge and I’d drag along behind him and he made himself a knapsack that he’d put over his shoulders to collect the little rock samples. At the same time he’d get little baby trees and he’d bring ‘em and plant ‘em at our place. We were surrounded by trees up there that he had brought down and planted. So, our life at the Gardens… we avoided it like the plague on Thursdays because that’s when all the kids could come free

Marjorie excelled in her studies, graduating from high school during the war years, and then attended Montana State University

“In those days they had a test that you could take when you were five and if you passed the test you could start school in January, which I did. I started school at the Franklin in January, went all through school a half year ahead of the ones behind. We graduated in January and went to Butte High School in January. So therefore at the end of the four years I had a half a year left and I had more credits than I needed so I wanted to go to college. My dad said, “No way, all of the veterans are coming back from the war and you’re not going down there, you’re too young. You’re going to take some more classes at school” So I went up there and took English and science and home economics for no credit, cause I didn’t need any more credits. Then I graduated in 1944 with the class.

I went to Bozeman, on a scholarship. Worked three jobs, worked at Hamilton Hall and I worked in the Student Union Building and after I pledged the sorority I worked in their kitchen. So I had three jobs and it was tough going! But anyway I wanted to help my parents because they had four of us in college going at once. My two brothers were up at Montana Tech and my sister was down in Bozeman. I graduated in 1948 and I got the Dedford Award given for the most outstanding home economics student, which I treasured of course.

Intent on a career, Marjorie went to work teaching in Laurel, Montana, two hundred miles east of Butte.

Mr. Graff from Laurel came down, he was the superintendent and he need a new home economics teacher. Well I kept telling everybody I was going to teach in Two Dot or Podunk or wherever. That I was able too get a job in Laurel was beyond belief. I taught in the high school there for two years, love it. It was a wonderful place. Sang in the choir there in the Methodist church. My dad became ill at that point and my mother… he could no longer drive and she didn’t drive so I would come home… I’d drive home I had a little 1937 Chevy Coupe and I’d drive home every other week from Laurel. There were no freeways in those days but I didn’t have enough sense to know how dangerous it was. Because it was, the roads were grim.

Her father’s illness led Marjorie to seek employment closer to home.

“My mother needed more help, so I applied in Butte. Well of course in those days, no married teacher could teach. You didn’t;’t teach if you were married, too bad! So, I signed a contract in Bozeman because Juanita Robins was the teacher trainer there and she taught all the home economics students that were getting the degree. And I, having been one of her students. But she got married, how dare she. So her position was open and I signed the contract there which I thought was wonderful. I could train all those kids and just have a free hand with it. Well, that was all well and good except that the one in Butte also retired, but in August after I had signed the contract. I went up to the superintendent Mr. Gold and I said, “ You know I have a dilemma, I have signed my contract in Bozeman but I still would rather be here in Butte because my mother needs me.” He told me, “well go down to Bozeman and they’ll release you from your contract.” So I did and they did, and I was hired as the home economics teacher for the younger kids. The seventh and eighth graders. I taught in the Whittier, right here, and at Emerson but in the interim the Whittier burned down about two years or three years after I taught there so I went to the Emerson. I taught 360 kids a week, they would come from all the schools from around town; Emerson, Whittier, Longfellow, Greeley, St. Ann’s, St. John’s. Everyone in this particular area came to me so over the years I taught 360 each year. Y’know I would look at them when they came in and I would try and find some identifying characteristic they had so that I could remember their names. I gave them a written assignment so I could look at them and say well now I think I’ve got you straight. I was able to do that and that was a good lesson in learning because it developed my memory for names somewhat. So anyway, then I taught for nine years and the the new junior high opened up and that was in 1957. So that’s the year that I got married, so long as they were hiring married teachers then, I could get married. So I got married in August and became a substitute teacher and taught 1957-58 at the new junior high school.”

Not surprisingly, Marjorie made quite an impression on her students, many of whom would remember her Home Economics class years later.

“The fascinating part of it is, I have so many who are grandmother’s now themselves who will come up to me and say, “Miss Roberts, you haven’t changed a bit.” And I say oh yes, there’s lots of snow on the mountain since those days! But they say, “ I can’t call you anything but Miss Roberts,” some of them know me and are in the organizations I’m involved with and they find it awfully hard to call me Marjorie… “You’re still Miss Roberts to me. Oh and if I hadn’t had you for a teacher I never would have learned how to cook but I cook all the meals we eat.” And one of ‘em said, “I hated sewing until I had you, I made all of my children’s clothes.” That’s all the thanks I need to hear.”

Marjorie met her husband while they were both in high school, but didn’t begin their relationship until after she returned to Butte to teach.

“I knew my husband in high school, he was a football player, but he was going with a girl and I was going with a boy so I thought well he’s a nice looking kid but that’s all that story was. After I came back to Butte he was working for Cannon-Lawten Brokerage which his father and mother owned and he would go down to a little place on Harrison Avenue right where it becomes front street there, on the right hand side there was a place that was a little coffee shop. He would go in there and get coffee and one time after teaching at the Emerson School I went in to get a coffee and there he was. He said, “Well, I haven’t seen you in years.” And I said the same. We struck up a friendship and a couple of years later we were married. He’s a great guy, everybody loved him.”

They married in 1957. She left teaching and raised two children. Encouraged by her husband, Marjorie designed the new house they had built in the Greeley neighborhood of Butte where she still lives.

“I made the initial plan for this house and then Conrad Benson of course did the architectural work and he built the home and we just loved it. Cynthia was just starting grade school. September 13th, 1965 we moved in here and she started down at the Whittier. Y’know I’ve been in hundreds of home and I’ve never seen one yet that I thought was in the ballpark. It’s just a very functional home, and one thing I wanted was a kitchen that looked at the Highlands and to be able to see the East Ridge. I get the sunlight all day long. People ask what do I want that big kitchen for, and my husband will say if she’s not in the kitchen she’s not home.”

True to her Cornish roots, Marjorie has remained a member of the Methodist Church. Originally Butte had four Methodist Churches which finally merged into one.

Included in the many organizations to which she belongs a favorite is Homer Club. She has belonged to the club for more than fifty years.

“Oh, Homer Club is a wonderful club, it’s the oldest book club in the United States it was formed in 1891. Ruth Cannon, no relation to me was very positive that it was the oldest book club in the United States. It has gone on continually all those hundred and how many years. Of course, in the day the Homer Club ladies were the neat, sweet and elite of Butte. Lemme tell ya, they were the ones that were the West Side people who were there because they had the reputation of being somebody y’know? Well that has certainly changed, but I know when my mother invited… when I got my invitation which is about 55 years ago… she said, “Y’know,” when I was working up at Orton Brothers, “there isn’t one person in your Homer club now that would have been in it then.” The were not the neat sweet and elite you see. But we have continued on, at first it was called Homer Club because that was who they interviewed in the beginning… it was a book all about Homer and the Illiad and the Odyssey.”

Living in the same house for nearly 60 years, Marjorie has witnessed the changes in the mountain’s landscape

“About once a week I’ll draw back the drapes and think I don’t even know where we are anymore. I drive up on Continental Drive and go up under the Texas Avenue bridge, in fact even Sunday night we went up that way and went for dinner and overtime I drive over here I can’t even believe it’s the same place. If my dad and mother and my two brothers were to come back they wouldn’t even know where they were. The Gardens was up there, McQueen was up there, Meaderville was there, East Butte was there.”

“It’s all down in the pit.”

She also remembers how the Anaconda mining company’s open pit mine displaced the McQueen neighborhood, among others, and how it affected her mother.

“My mother was broken hearted, they came out and took this place and it was worth so much more than they offered. And they just put it all down in the pit, but she had all the equipment from the grocery store that was there that she had to deal with. It was difficult for her. But we went house hunting, and I found her house over here on Moulton Street, 3145 Moulton, I could walk from here through the alley right to her house and she was thrilled with that, she just loved it. So that made me feel awfully good.

Marjorie was devoted to her mother in her later years though she was certainly independent — in ways that are clearly not lost on the daughter.

“She lived to be 98, she lived in her own home, she never had any help, she knew every bill that was coming in, she knew every check that was going out and she was totally on her own. She was amazing. Of course I went over every day, we had to have our English Tea at 3:30 every afternoon, that was just par for the course. And my car never left the garage that she wasn’t in it, she loved to go for a ride. She thought that was wonderful.”

In her ninety plus years in Butte, Marjorie Cannon has witnessed many changes, none of which dampen her love for her hometown.

“When I was growing up there was probably about 65,000, in my mother’s day there was about 90,000. Things gradually diminished and have continually diminished. That doesn’t bother me as much as the fact that people don’t give Butte it’s due. Butte is a thriving, wonderful community and people are so supportive of everything here, and when anything leaves Butte it hurts me because I think, “There’s one more thing gone.”