Guthrie, Idora Z. Smith, 1865-1937

Idora Smith, born August 25, 1865, was the eldest child of N.D. Smith, a farmer in Union Valley, Cortland County, New York. Other children in the family included Idora's brothers Clayton (b. 1873) and Warner (b. 1886), and sister, Rita, (b. 1887). In 1877 Idora wrote her first diary. That year she attended school on an irregular basis, as winter weather permitted and for three months in late summer. Her church attendance was on a regular basis; twice on Sundays and for special events during the week. The second diary was written in 1882, when Idora was seventeen, and she continued writing on a daily basis until her death in 1937.

In 1882 and 1883 she attended brief sessions at Cazenovia, a seminary in Cortland, to prepare her for teaching. Following that she taught in local rural schools for nineteen years. At the age of thirty-six, in 1901, Idora moved to Helena, Montana, to help her aunt, Mary Jane Haskell, in her boarding house located at 431 South Park. Within a few months Idora accepted a teaching assignment in Helena at $60.00 per month. She also taught in the Stearns area (near Wolf Creek) and in the Helena valley, living with her aunt and bicycling to school. In 19O3 Idora accepted a teaching position in Bald Butte, near Marysville. She met Herbert J. Guthrie, a native of Mumford, Wisconsin, who worked at a mine there. They were married on September 14, 1904, at her family home in New York and honeymooned at Niagara Falls. The couple returned to Montana and Herbert continued working at hard rock mining and locating placer ground to prospect. The Guthries set up cabins and moved from one location to another including Hope Gulch, Spring Gulch, and Bald Butte.

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