Linderman, Frank Bird, 1869-1938

Linderman was born in 1869; lived in Montana; wrote On a passing frontier (1920) and Bunch-grass and Blue-joint (1921); wrote several volumes of Indian lore and fiction portraying the frontier and Native American life, including Lige mounts, free trapper (1922), American (1930), Red mother (1932), and Beyond law (1933); he died in 1938.

From the description of Papers, 1915-1932. (University of California, Los Angeles). WorldCat record id: 38989022

Julius C. Peters was born in Shelby, Iowa, on March 31, 1887, to German immigrants. He came west to prepare for the bar at the University of Colorado, where he took the degree of Bachelor of Laws in 1910. He practiced law in Great Falls, Montana until 1921, when he entered the oil business. He was the proprietor of the Home Stake Oil Company and Resolute Oil Corporation. Julius Peters died in December 1970.

From the guide to the Frank Bird Linderman's letters to Julius C. Peters, 1925-1932, (University of Montana--Missoula Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library Archives and Special Collections)

American author.

From the description of Papers, 1915-1932. (University of California, Los Angeles). WorldCat record id: 155180727

Biography

Linderman was born in 1869; lived in Montana; wrote On a passing frontier (1920) and Bunch-grass and Blue-joint (1921); wrote several volumes of Indian lore and fiction portraying the frontier and Native American life, including Lige mounts, free trapper (1922), American (1930), Red mother (1932), and Beyond law (1933); he died in 1938.

From the guide to the Frank Bird Linderman Papers, 1915-1932, (University of California, Los Angeles. Library. Department of Special Collections.)

Frank Bird Linderman was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on September 25, 1869, the son of James Bird Linderman and Mary Ann Brannan Linderman. He attended schools in Ohio and Chicago, including Oberlin College, before moving to Montana Territory in 1885 at the age of sixteen. He worked as a trapper from 1885 to 1891, then met his wife, Minnie Jane Johns, in Demersville, Montana, in 1891. They were married in 1893 in Missoula, Montana. They had three children: Wilda, Verne, and Norma.

From 1893 to 1897, he worked in Butte, Montana, as an assayer, then moved to Brandon, Montana. About 1900, the family moved to Sheridan, Montana, where he was an assayer, furniture salesman, and newspaperman.

Linderman was also a politician: he served in the Montana state legislature in the 1903 and 1905 sessions. He ran for the U.S. Congress in 1916 and 1918; in 1924 he ran for the U.S. Senate against Thomas J. Walsh. He was a Mason, and was inducted to that brotherhood in Sheridan in 1899. He received the Scottish Rite in the Helena consistory in 1911. He continued to be active in Masonry and held a number of offices in that organization.

From 1905 to 1907, he was Montana's Assistant Secretary of State. After that, he became a successful insurance agent with the Guardian Insurance Company of America. In 1917, he bought property at Goose Bay on Flathead Lake, moved the family from Helena, and pursued writing full-time. He also took up sculpting in bronze.

Linderman had wanted to be a writer as early as 1911, when he had been encouraged by Opie Read. Read encouraged him to submit his first collection of tales to Charles Scribner's Sons, who published it as Indian Why Stories in 1915. He continued to publish to favorable reviews, but found the profession less than remunerative. In 1924, with his writing income still small, he bought the Hotel Kalispell and ran it for two years, then sold it as a profit. He changed publishers in 1929, and worked with Hermann Hagedorn of the John Day Company. Charlie Russell, a lifelong and close friend, illustrated many of his books.

He devoted a great deal of his life to Montana's Native Americans, learning and writing about their ways and trying to help them in material ways. His first contacts with them were as a trapper, when he became acquainted with members of the Flathead and Kootenai tribes; he later knew many Crow, Blackfeet, Cree, and Chippewas. Many Indians taught him tribal legends, including Kootenai Two-Comes-Over-the-Hill; Muskegon, a Cree; and Full-Of-Dew, a Chippewa medicine man. He was instrumental in founding the Rocky Boy's Reservation for Montana's Cree and Chippewa. He was adopted into three tribes: the Blackfeet, the Cree, and the Crow.

Linderman's published books include Indian Why Stories: Sparks from War Eagle's Lodge-Fire (1915); Indian Lodge-Fire Stories (1918); On a Passing Frontier: Sketches from the Northwest (1920); Indian Old-Man Stories: More Sparks from War Eagle's Lodge-Fire (1920); How It Came About Stories (1921); Bunch-Grass and Blue Joint (1921); Lige Mounts, Free Trapper (1922); Kootenai Why Stories (1926); American: The Life Story of a Great Indian, Plenty-Coups, Chief of the Crows (1930); Old-Man Coyote (1931); Red Mother (1932); Beyond Law (1933); Stumpy (1933); and "Out of the North" in Blackfeet Indians, by Winold Reiss (1935). He also published numerous magazine articles, tales, anecdotes, and poems.

Linderman's health was fragile after he tried to save his Goose Bay home from a fire in 1919, and it began to fail in 1930. He died in Santa Barbara, California, in 1938. Minnie Linderman died in 1941.

Linderman's daughters continued to be highly involved with the preservation of his literary and anthropological legacy, and their own literary contributions are notable. Wilda Jane Linderman was born in Butte, Montana, in 1894. She graduated from the University of Montana--Missoula and studied at Harvard University and Radcliffe College before teaching at the Santa Barbara Girls School in California. Her father's manuscripts show extensive editorial marks by her. In 1938, she founded the Gosling School in Peterborough, NH. She died in 1981.

Verne Linderman was born in 1897 and also graduated from the University of Montana--Missoula, where she wrote for H. G. Merriam's Frontier . Her father's manuscripts have extensive editorial marks by her. She became society editor for the Daily Inter Lake and correspondent for the Butte, Great Falls, and Spokane newspapers. From 1930 to 1980, she was a feature writer for the Santa Barbara News Press . She was also a regular contributor to the Christian Science Monitor . In 1943, she won the Theta Sigma Chi award for best feature story in southern California newspapers. She died in 1989.

Norma Linderman Waller was born in 1898 at Brandon, Montana. She attended Helena schools and the University of Montana--Missoula. In 1925, she married Roy Oliver Waller; they had four children, James, Richard, John, and Sarah. Mrs. Waller was particularly instrumental in preserving, distributing, and displaying her father's Native American artifacts and worked with numerous cultural institutions to do so. She worked with H.G. Merriam to have Recollections of Charley Russell and Montana Adventure published. She died in 1972.

The third generation of the Linderman family, Mrs. Waller's children, have continued to play a significant role in preserving his memory.

James Waller was born in 1926 and attended high school in Kalispell. He worked in the construction trucking and service station and garage businesses. He inherited Linderman's gun collection, which he passed on to one of his sons and to the Smithsonian Institution. He is married to Ruth, an accomplished weaver, and lives in Santa Ynez, California. Their sons are Robert James and Daniel Richard.

Richard L. Waller was born in 1928 and graduated from Flathead County High School. He attended Montana State University in Bozeman for one year, interrupted his schooling to serve in the United States Air Force, and completed his four years of architectural training in 1957. He worked for architecture firms in Spokane and Wenatchee, Washington, until 1981, when he went into construction management in Washington and Alaska. He then worked for the City of Wenatchee as a building inspector. He also did freelance architectural work for over thirty years. His design skills have helped to promote the Linderman collection; he designed the brochure for the bronze casts made of Linderman's sculptures. He has also assisted his sister with the administrative matters surrounding the collection. He married his wife, Elaine, in 1949; they had four children. He lives in Wenatchee, Washington.

Sarah Jane Waller Hatfield was born in 1931 in Kalispell, Montana, and lived with her family and grandparents at Linderman's Goose Bay home from 1935 to 1941, when the family moved back to Kalispell. She graduated from the University of Montana--Missoula and worked for companies in Wyoming and Montana as a secretary and geophysical computer. She married Robert G. Hatfield in 1953; they had two children, Cynthia Ann and Mark Robert. From 1961 to 1989, the family resided in San Jose, California, then returned to Kalispell, Montana. Mrs. Hatfield became literary trustee for the Linderman family, charged with all custodial care, which included finding a permanent repository for the papers. She did extensive work in the papers, editing and preparing Quartzville, Wolf and the Winds, Henry Plummer: A Novel, The Iron Shirt,and Big Jinny: The Story of a Grizzly Bear

for publication. Mrs. Hatfield has also exhibited the Linderman collections at many locations across Montana.

John (Jack) Waller was born in 1940, and is a professional jazz musician. He played in the Navy Band, then attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston before playing extensively in New York City and San Francisco, as well as many other locations around the United States. He lives in Bigfork, Montana.

Linderman's heirs have worked to publish his unfinished works or to reissue volumes out of print. Book-length works of Linderman published posthumously include Recollections of Charley Russell, H. G. Merriam, ed. (1962), Montana Adventure: The Recollections of Frank B. Linderman, H. G. Merriam, ed. ([1968]); Quartzville, Larry Barsness, ed. (1985); Wolf and the Winds, Hugh A. Dempsey introduction (1986); and Henry Plummer: A Novel (2000). The Iron Shirt (2004). Big Jinny: The Story of a Grizzly Bear (2005).

From the guide to the Frank B. Linderman Memorial Collection, 1885-2005, (Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library Archives and Special Collections)