Highlights from Interview with Mary Jane Morin, June 11, 1999, Missoula, Montana
By Deborah Richie

Mary Jane Adams Morin vividly remembers her childhood years in Garnet. Born in 1917, she lived in town during its waning years. In 1927, her family moved to Missoula. She and her parents, Sam and Jennie Adams, lived in a two-room home in Garnet (see the Adams House). Her father engaged in more than mining, also running a general store until 1918 and plying a carpentry trade.

She remembers playing with her doll and buggy as she sat in a little red chair at her small table. Her mother bent over the sewing machine at the window. "Mother made all my own clothes," she said.

An airtight heater kept the house comfortable. In one corner, her mother sorted mail, since for awhile the house served as the town's post office. Mary Jane delivered mail in sacks to the "old bachelors," wearing a mail pouch around her waist.

Her father slept on a "Sanitary Couch" in the living room that folded out into a bed. She and her mother slept in the bedroom, just big enough for one bed, a trunk, dresser, closet and commode. "It looks so small now. I don't know how it all fit in there," she said.

Beyond her home, Mary Jane had plenty of time to explore the town, often in the company of a favorite black cat. There were no children her age.

"When I was in school there were only nine of us and I was the only first grader," she recalled. "The teacher didn't pay much attention to us."

Besides delivering mail, she helped out at the Wells Hotel. There, she remembers a priest regularly coming to stay when he visited Garnet to give a sermon. "An old China man with a long braid worked at the hotel," she said. "He gave me my first firecrackers. I still have them in the box downstairs in a trunk."

She often went upstairs above Kelly's Saloon to play. She explored the livery stables that have long since collapsed. One of her favorite haunts was Billy Liberty's Blacksmith Shop. She remembered Liberty as a "proud little Frenchman" (he was originally French Canadian) who would warn her if she got too close to the horses he was shoeing. "Better get back, Jane," he would say.

One place she never dared to linger was Davey's Store. Mary Jane remembers clearly the day her mother sent her to the store to pick up some eggs. Frank Davey stayed at the Wells Hotel then and had to make a special trip to the store to open it up for her. She watched him take the eggs out of their cartons and put them into a sack. Then he dropped two eggs on the floor and left them there. She asked him if he was going to clean up the eggs and he said, "None of your damn business." She said, "I was scared to death of him."

Beyond her childhood memories of Garnet, Mary Jane has shared her mother's stories from Garnet's heyday. For instance, her mother told her about the fateful fire of 1912 that consumed much of Garnet. "She told me that it was so hot a fire you could feel the heat at our house. It was terrible. My mother said she thinks she prayed so hard that somehow the store was saved."

In 1927, her family was forced to leave Garnet, because of Mary Jane's father's failing health. "We brought the two trunks on a stage and left in a hurry. We had to leave most everything including my kitten...I can still see the kitty on the porch looking at me as we drove off...In the summer of 1928, my father came back with a truck to pick up most of our furniture."
She remembers that the wicker chair stayed behind. She never saw her kitty again.

Other Stories
Gold In The Garnets
Chinese Presence
Town of Garnet Named in 1897
Family Living in a Gold Mining Town?
Riches Fade
Saving Garnet Ghost Town
Kelly's Saloon
J. K. Wells Hotel
Davey's General Store
Ole's Tavern
Dahl Cabin
Blacksmith Shop
Garnet School
Jail
Miners Union Hall
Adams House
Honeymoon Cabin
Warren Park
Letter from Hills Bros. Coffee to Mrs. Adams


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Copyright © 2000, Garnet Preservation Association and Bureau of Land Management of Montana