Montana Historical Society Born in England, Evelyn Cameron and her husband Ewen forged a hardscrabble life on the Montana plains. Her diaries and photographs give a pointed look at life on the frontier.

43. Evelyn Cameron

By KURT WILSON of the Missoulian

"From the moment we got into Billings, Mont., we were never one whit surprised when whoever we might happen to be talking with would say: 'Oh, be sure to go to the Eve Ranch and see Mrs. Cameron, she is one of the wonders of Montana.' "

So wrote English writer, Marguerite Remington Charter, who had once visited Evelyn Cameron on a trip through Montana. Yet to Cameron, there was nothing unusual or noteworthy about her hardscrabble life on the eastern Montana plains from the early 1890s until her death in 1928.

In fact, until August 1979, Evelyn Cameron was known only to a few historians, some townsfolk in Terry, and a 95-year-old woman named Janet Williams, Cameron's best friend. Then, Donna Lucey, an editor for Time-Life Books, slowly began rediscovering the historical treasure packed in Williams' basement long after Camerson's death.

Coated with 50 years of dust and dirt were some 1,800 glass-plate and film negatives, 2,500 original photographic prints, letters, manuscripts and Cameron's diary. A volume from each year except one from 1893 to 1928 meticulously detailed pioneer life in Montana. Cameron's photographs, together with her daily diaries, provide one of the most detailed records available today of life on the Great Plains.

Born Evelyn Jephson Flower on Aug. 26, 1868, on a rambling British country estate south of London, Cameron first came to Montana in 1889 on her honeymoon, a hunting trip with her newlywed husband Ewen Cameron. They were guided by a former scout for Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer. In the remote badlands of the eastern part of the territory, they found a desolate landscape with mysterious beauty. The Camerons left Great Britain for good a year later and returned to Montana to ranch and raise horses.

They eventually settled in 1893 on a ranch they christened the Eve Ranch, for Evelyn, six miles south of Terry. To help make ends meet, Evelyn took in boarders, sold vegetables that she raised, and cooked for roundup crews. And, with a mail-order 5x7 Graflex, she taught herself photography. She began taking photographs of her neighbors and the wildlife near the ranch. She photographed cowboys, sheepherders, farm wives, homesteaders and the tough sheep-shearing crews who worked near Terry's railroad tracks.

With her high-spirited nature, Cameron thrived on the frontier. "Manual labor is about all I care about," she once wrote. "I like to break colts, brand calves, cut down trees, ride and work in the garden."

Two portraits of Cameron described in the book "Photographing Montana," a collection of her writings and photographs, detail the contrast of the genteel life she left in England and her new life in Montana. "In one (photographed in England) she is seated sidesaddle on a horse whose tail and mane have been precisely clipped. Her riding habit, with its ankle-length skirt and form-fitting jacket nipped in at her tiny waist, is tailored impeccably. She sits stiffly, a riding crop in her gloved hand, a derby covering her neatly upswept hair, in the background is a great stone house. The other photograph is the first one taken of Evelyn in Montana. She is informally posed on a riverbank, with hills in the distance. As in England, she sits sidesaddle (later she would pioneer the split skirt and ride astride), but now the horse is unclipped. Her skin has been browned by the sun and wind, and her hair is pulled back carelessly into a ponytail. A nondescript, boxy jacket and a formless hat squashed on top of her head complete the riding outfit. In her lap is a bear cub."

Ewen Cameron died in 1915 leaving Evelyn to run the ranch alone for 13 years until her death. Cameron left the ranch and all of her belongings to her best friend, Janet Williams, who leased the land and packed the belongings into her basement.

"I wish I would lead a life worthy to look back upon," Cameron wrote not long after moving to Montana. "I am far out of the path now."