Today is the start of a pilgrimage for me. We leave this morning to drive back to my home town - 842 miles from where we now live. It is the place where I grew up. It is a place where I have been going for all of my life. I know the way. But this trip will be a bit different from others that I have taken.

Shortly after the end of World War II, my parents began the quest for a place to live. They had married during the war. My father was serving in the U.S. Army Air Corps, based in Victorville, California. My mother traveled alone to California, in the midst of rationing, to marry him. They had met on the campus of Billings Polytechnic College when he was a student there and she was on campus to attend a play in the campus theatre. The story we were told is that he was in the balcony and made a paper airplane that he threw over the heads of the crowd below. She was with some other nursing students sitting below and the airplane descending from above caught her by surprise. She decided to give a piece of her mind to the rude person who had thrown it and who was now laughing above her. After the play she found him and returned the paper airplane. And, as they say, the rest is history.

He was a pilot before enlisting and she completed her nurses training before they married. After he completed his service they moved to Oklahoma for a short time while he completed his airframe and engine mechanic’s licenses, using GI Bill money to pay tuition. After that, they both were interested in moving back to Montana to be near family. They looked at towns in Montana and Wyoming where there were airports, but no active fixed base operators. They selected Big Timber to set up operation. They rented a house in that town and he set up shop at the airport with a single airplane, offering whatever aviation services he could. He gave rides and lessons, sought charter work, bit on aviation jobs in the National Forest and National Parks, sold airplanes, serviced airplanes, sold fuel and began to apply agricultural chemicals from airplanes. They bought a home on main street in Big Timber, right across the alley from the new hospital that was being built.

They wanted to have children and raise a family, but no children came in the early years of their marriage. They became foster parents and two girls were placed in their home. They fell in love with the girls and decided that being foster parents wasn’t for them. They applied for and received permission to adopt the girls. Later three children were born to them. I was the middle one.

The business grew slowly, but it was always a struggle to find enough aviation work to support the growing family. The little house became too small, so additions were completed. The attic was expanded to make a second story. An addition was put on the back side of the house. The business grew and airplanes and pilots were added. At first employees worked seasonally, as there wasn’t enough business in the winter to support them. Later, year-round work was secured. Hangars were built at the airport. The shop was expanded.

Then my father got sick with meningitis. While he was in the hospital he worried about ways to support his family. A neighbor was selling his small farm supply store and he decided that he could run that business and the airport at the same time. Mother began to do all of the book work, rising early in the morning and taking care of paying bills, payroll and other paperwork before preparing breakfast for the kids.

The small farm supply shop was expanded. A feed warehouse was hand built. Father designed the trusses to be built form 2 x 2 lumber that has been purchased at a discount after an accident caused a load of the boards to be dumped alongside the highway and the insurance company put the clean up out for bids. As the business grew mother’s uncle moved to the town to serve as parts manager. A home was found for him and his wife.

With a busy family and a growing business, they began to seek a way to get some family time away from work. Other friends were building vacation cabins in the mountains south of town. Land up there was relatively inexpensive, but the right piece of property didn’t appear. Then one day a Sheriff’s auction was held at an abandoned travel court right on the edge of town, down by the river. Several tiny cabins, a shower house, and a residence that was not in very good shape was purchased at a very reasonable cost. We began to camp there during the summer. At first mother cooked over a campfire. We slept in the cabins as we learned to glaze new glass into broken windows, scrape and paint interior walls, repair shingles and fix things up.

After I had grown and was establishing my own career, my father died of cancer. Shortly before his death a fast moving fire swept across the property, burning several trees and scorching the outside of the old house. The year after my father died, our mother had a new log home built on the site, designed as a summer home. Over the years various houses were bought and sold, including the home place on main street, but our mother kept the cabin and outbuildings alongside the river. She fixed up the cabins with new roofs and siding and built a metal shop building.

Since her death, we have kept the river place in trust. Two of my sisters and one of my brothers have lived there for stints, but now none of us live close enough to take care of the place. We have found a buyer and I’m making one last trip to pick up a few items and check the place before the sale is closed next week. For almost 70 years my family has owned property in that town. That era comes to an end next week. The time has come for us to turn attention elsewhere. For me this week, however, I have a pilgrimage of memory and thanksgiving for the investment and care my parents made in a small town and a family that continues to grow in new places.