STORY OF BILLY
Untold stories of the homesteading years.
Billy Grows Up in Montana
The struggles of our ancestors, brought to life.
One Montana family’s memories of hardship, kindness, and the work of making a home.
After the war trials. Before the game.Two nations, once at war.
One handshake.
Uncle Bill (right), coach of the American team, shakes hands with the Japanese coach (left) before the game.
From the wider family story. Part One begins with Billy’s Montana childhood.
01 / The book
FAMILY HISTORY · MONTANAThe lives behind our family names.
Before he was Uncle Bill, he was a boy growing up in Montana.
Illness, loss, and repeated moves shaped Billy’s childhood. So did adventures with his sister Nedra, laughter, and kindness from people they met along the way.
In Part One, Barbara brings the childhood memories of her Uncle Bill to the page. Through Billy and Adelia, the struggles of an earlier generation become the story of people we can come to know.
PART ONE
Billy Grows Up in Montana
The place that shaped them
The story begins
in Montana.
02 / Behind the story
FROM THE FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHSMeet Billy,
Adelia, and Nedra.
The work of keeping a family
Meet Adelia.
A country-school teacher.
A mother finding a way forward.
Adelia supported her children by teaching in one-room country schools. Through illness and loss, she kept looking for a way to care for them.
Her story gives a human face to the hardships we hear about in family history: children to raise, work to find, and the hope of a more settled life.
A LIFE REMEMBERED THROUGH FAMILY STORIES
Growing up together
Billy & Nedra.
Billy and Nedra shared a Montana childhood of adventures and repeated moves. Their stories bring laughter as well as hardship to Barbara’s account.
Meet the brother and sister alongside the mother who worked to keep them together.
The world they knew.
One-room schools and harvest days. A glimpse of the work and routines of an earlier generation.
03 / The author
So their lives
would be remembered.
The stories Uncle Bill and Aunt Vivian shared with Barbara became the starting point for The Story of Billy.
Barbara wrote them down so the lives behind the family names would not be lost. Her book invites another generation to know the hardship, humor, and kindness that shaped this family.
Write to Barbara