Pandemic Perspectives:

Two Women in Montana, A Century Apart

Springtime in Montana — some views are still much the same as they were in 1918. (Photo by Susan Foster)

I’m musing about her again. A woman I have never met, but someone who I’m sure existed. A woman who lived here in Montana in 1918; perhaps about my age at the time and a mother of grown children. I’ve been thinking about her for days, wondering in what other ways we are alike. Wondering how she coped, if she stayed healthy and if she knew anyone who died from the virus that swept around the globe that year. I wonder what advice she could give to all of us, and whether we would follow her words of wisdom.

This time, thoughts of her have come to me while I’m outside gardening behind our house. My back and shoulders feel warm from the sun, but now there’s a chill in the air and it is overcast. I’m working smelly manure into the soil around my spindly rhubarb plants, hoping their stalks will grow thick enough to provide fruit for a pie or two. I notice that from my vantage point, I see no other houses or people. Just a cloud-studded sky, a few evergreen trees, and prairie grass rippling in the breeze. It is quiet except for the tap—tap—tap sound of a new roof being applied to a distant neighbor’s house. Once in a while a bird chirps or our wind chimes trill.

Today I picture her under this big Montana sky, doing spring tasks in her garden. Did she also begin planting early, despite the risk of…