Old Missoula

Winona Williams

Montana’s Past Presented by John A. Forssen

Writings on Montana history seem sometimes dedicated to quantity rather than quality; it is fortunate for Missoula County High School and the community, therefore, that a new collection acquired by the school is the cream of the crop.

Purchased by the Girls Club, the 168 volumes represent a major part of the outstanding collection of Winona Williams, who started out 20 years ago to transfer her interest in Montana history to her grade school pupils and wound up with a collection of historical books, pamphlets and photographs.

Miss Williams retired last spring and recently decided to dispose of her collection.

She decided she wanted it to stay in Missoula, or at least Montana, and she wanted it to continue to be of use, particularly to students.

Miss Williams has never been one to collect historical books and then lock them up in a glass case of a trunk. More than once, she has amazed her friends by loaning them out-of-print volumes of great value.

One she didn’t get back at all, and one was a year away from home before it came back – damaged.

The Girls Club will pay $1,660 for the 168 volumes and Letitia Johnson, librarian of the high school, said it’s a real bargain.

“Miss Williams could realize much more for her outstanding collection if she sold it piece-meal,” Mrs. Johnson said. “We are most grateful to her for giving the school her consideration.

“The school,” she added, “is certainly in debt to the Girls Club for the money to buy the collection.”

The books are now being catalogued and plans are to put them in a special “Montana Room” off the main reading room of the library at the South Avenue building.

There they are to be available to the public as well as to the students, carrying on Miss Williams devotion to the cause of increasing interest in and knowledge of Montana history.

Still Has Many

Miss Williams still has 150 to 200 books and a large number of pamphlets and historical photographs. She doesn’t know exactly how many historical books she had.

“I was always too busy using them in school, or loaning them, to count them or keep them in much of a proper order,” she said.

For years, Miss Williams had book dealers all over the nation watching out for volumes on Montana, and she was always on the hunt when she took a trip.

She has discovered volumes in Philadelphia and Denver and in Pacific Coast cities.

“It’s a thrill to discover a rare treasure in an out-of-the-way shop,” Miss Williams said. “Unfortunately,” she added, “the booksellers always seem to know that their little treasures are valuable.”

The Girls Club came by the large chunk of money for the purchase due to the happy circumstance of having a monopoly on selling candy and school supplies at both high schools. The $1,660 represents the profit from four to five months of operation at the Spartan Market at the South Avenue building and the Pay N Takit at the Higgins Avenue plant. The club makes lots of money but it is also a big spender – for things to help the school. A $450 projector, record players, books, money for a language laboratory are among the benefactions of the girls.

Alerted that Miss Williams might sell some of her collection, the executive group of the club voted to snap up the bargain if one developed.

The list of books includes a rare copy of “Miners and Travelers Guide to Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Colorado” by Capt. John Mullan, published in 1865.[1]

Mullan, who built the famed military road from Ft. Benton to Ft. Walla Walla by way of Front Street in Missoula, points out that his route to the Pacific Coast included only 624 miles of overland travel, the remainder being on the Missouri and Columbia Rivers. This made his way much less difficult and dangerous than the 2,000-mile routes of the other transcontinental routes, Mullan maintained.

Explicit Instructions

Mullan told how many pounds of flour and other provisions to bring along, how to take care of horses and mules and exactly where to camp on each of the 47 days the trip took.

Of Hell Gate, he noted that the Higgins and Worden store was one of the few places to get supplies, that the road in the vicinity was “excellent” (he built it himself 10 years before) and that Van Dorn had a blacksmith shop, the only one between Ft. Benton and Ft. Walla Walla.

The collection also includes the Sanders[2] and Stout[3] three-volume histories of Montana, editions of the Lewis and Clark journals by both Wheeler[4] and Hosmer[5], the latter’s edition of the journal of Gass and a first edition of the edition of the Lewis and Clark journal which was begun by Clark and completed after his death by Paul Allen.[6]

Other Parties

Others among the more outstanding items are “Letters and Notes of George Catlin,”[7] published in 1857 and describing the work and travels of the great frontier artist, the letters of Father DeSmet[8] and editions of the journals of Alexander Henry and David Thompson by Coues[9].

Miss Williams also worked to collect the work of Montana authors and many of these are included in the new acquisitions.

The Girls Club has dealt with Miss Williams before. A year ago the club put up $120 to purchase her set of the reports of the Montana Historical Society[10], all the 10 volumes from the first one in 1876 to the most recent in 1946. Miss Williams was twice offered three times the $120 for the set.

 The article above appeared in The Missoulian on November 10, 1963.

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Winona Williams’ obituary appeared in The Missoulian on August 11, 1973:

Word has been received of the death July 31 of Winona Williams, a former Missoula school teacher, in Long Beach, Calif.

Miss Williams, 75, taught in Missoula schools from 1945 until she retired in 1963. Born July 17, 1898, in Marshalltown, Iowa she was educated in Iowa schools and earned a bachelor’s degree in education at the University of Washington.

She taught in Whitetail, Pablo, and Thompson Falls before coming to Missoula. She earned a master’s degree in education at the University of Montana and did advanced work at the University of Chicago.

She was a past president of the Missoula Elementary Unit of the Montana Education Association and served seven years as YWCA secretary. She was a member of the American Association of University Women and the Methodist Church.

She is survived by a sister, Mrs. Hazel Allen, Long Beach. Funeral rites were in California.

My Teacher

Miss Williams was my 5^th grade teacher at Willard School in Missoula. She was a very intense teacher as were several others at that school. Short and built like a fire plug, she was not one to coddle her students. She read aloud to the class from Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, making an astounding impression on me since I’d not heard anything like it before. She read with a great dramatic effect, emphasizing the dialogue. I remember her stating that she had been in every state in the union, which I found unusual to say the least. She brought history to life for some in her class, which was not an easy thing to do for kids in the 5^th grade.