BOZEMAN -- Ellen Story is usually described as the wife of Bozeman pioneer Nelson Story Sr., the grandmother of Malcolm Story, or the relative of someone else in the renowned Bozeman family, according to Amanda Drysdale Sehulster of Bozeman.
It's about time someone knew the silent story of Ellen, says Sehulster, who researched her great-great grandmother for a Women's Studies project at Montana State University-Bozeman.
"Obviously, you know, Bozeman was not an all-male enterprise," added Lynda Sexson, Sehulster's advisor for the project. "This became a settled community. A settled community involves families. He (Nelson Story) touted himself always as a family person."
Ellen Trent Story went from being a girl in Missouri to one of the first women in the gold mining camps at Alder Gulch to one of the wealthiest women in Bozeman, Sehulster said. Through it all, historical records describe her as being the perfect woman.
William Davies wrote in a diary during the gold rush days that Ellen was a "lovely vision of womanhood admidst such surroundings, such clear, clean cut feaures, such glorious black eyes and hair that was almost blue-black like a raven's wing."
Documents at the Gallatin County Historical Society and Pioneer Museum said Ellen, while in Bozeman, "was a woman of energy and character, industrious, sincere and faithful, a woman of very fine impulses, always so pleasant, devoted wife and mother, her chief concern being that her boys receive a thorough education."
Everything she found on her great-great grandmother raved about what a good woman she was, said Sehulster who examined public and family documents, visited the family burial plot, and interviewed older family members for her project. The 38-year-old researcher said she didn't edit her findings to make her family look good.
"There's no account that said she was a weakling or a sap," Sehulster commented.
She would like to know, Sehulster said, why it was so important for Ellen Story to be ideal. Why was she always idolized? Why was it so important for Nelson Story to have a wife with those qualities, when he apparently threw temper tantrums that were "out of this world?"
"Ellen Story's livelihood is contingent upon her remaining 'a good woman,'" Sehulster commented. "Ironically, Nelson Story is also dependent upon his wife to be silent and good."
The Ellen she discovered made family and friends her priority, Sehulster said. She wasn't outspoken in the community and wasn't active politically. She took little interest in organizations. And even though the Ellen Theatre in Bozeman was named after her, she was not a theater person.
"She was not a social butterfly at all," Sehulster said.
Sehulster did come across "tons of information," however, about Ellen attending card parties. "It was typical of women of her class," Sehulster said.Records at the Pioneer Museum said Ellen Story retained her interests and skills in household arts despite her growing wealth. "She also allowed her Jersey cows to graze on the lawn of the mansion, and she churned the butter made from their rich milk.
The perfect Ellen started her life far away from Montana, according to Sehulster. She was born July 22, 1844 in Platte County, Missouri. Known then as Ellen Trent, she and her family moved to Kansas when she was around 10. It was there that she met Nelson Story, an Ohio farm boy who had left the family farm and landed in Kansas City. Nelson broke sod and hauled timber for his future father-in-law, Matthew Trent.
No marriage certificate is available for Ellen and Nelson, but the family Bible says the couple was married in September 1862, Sehulster said. Ellen would have been about 18, although other records give varying ages.
The Storys wintered in Denver and moved to Montana in March 1863 because of the gold rush, Sehulster said.
"Ellen Trent Story was one of the first women in the great camp at Alder Gulch," Sehulster reported.
Quoting records she found at the MSU-Bozeman library, Sehulster said, "She (Ellen) lived in a tent for the next six months, surrounded by 'some of the most desperate characters to ever curse a mining camp; a trying and disagreeable situation for a refined, sensitive woman to be placed in.
"There was, at times, a perfect reign of terror in camp; no law in the land, and the desperadoes seemed to have everything their own way until the more law-abiding citizens formed a vigilante group."
By the fall of 1864, Ellen was living in the Summit district of Alder Gulch in a hewn-log house, selling pies and managing the mercantile store that she and Nelson owned. On Feb. 2, 1866 while in Virginia City, she gave birth to her first child - a daughter named Alice Montana Story. Later that year, the family moved into a single-roomed log cabin north of Bozeman. They eventually built a log house in town, then one of Bozeman's first frame houses and finally a $125,000 mansion with money earned from gold, cattle and real estate. From 1890 to 1910, Ellen and Nelson wintered in a sumptuous house in Los Angeles.
"Materially, Ellen Trent Story wanted for nothing," the records said. "She always had the best clothes, jewels, etc. ... Ellen Trent Story drove a fancy Phaeton, or rather her driver drove it for her. It was silver-plated, where nickel was generally used, and had patent leather seats, dash and top-sides."
Ellen Story had seven children, with three daughters dying before the age of four, Sehulster said. A daughter and three sons lived into adulthood. Ellen died Feb. 9, 1924 at the age of 79. She is buried in the Story plot at Sunset Cemetery in Bozeman.
Apparently, no one had ever done any formal research on Ellen until Sehulster, Sexson said.
"She did wonderful work. I'm enormously pleased," Sexson commented.
Sehulster said she couldn't find much research material on Ellen Trent Story compared to the men in the family.
"The only existing accounts of Ellen Story largely focus on her 'being' rather than on her 'doing,'" Sehulster said. "With little or no autonomy, she is always located as secondary and relational, as wife, as mother, mother-in-law, grandmother.
"Further, included in nearly every account are the births and deaths of her children," Sehulster said. "The structure of the patriarchy demands that she be a vessel, and most valued for her reproductive capacity."
Sehulster will attend graduate school this fall to start work on a master's degree in sociology, but she plans to continue her work on Ellen Story, Sehulster said. Part of that research will involve additional interviews with Sehulster's mother, Martha Story Drysdale of Bozeman.
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