The Montana Painting

Hey. We went to Colorado this past weekend for Stanley's cousin's wedding. It was great to see and re-meet all the aunts and uncles and cousins and 2nd cousins. There are a lot of Spupspes and it's tough to keep track of them, especially the smallest ones. I was happy to get a chance to talk with several Spupspes that I hadn't so much as shared two words with before, even though they all came to our wedding. I guess I was busy getting married at the time.

You may or may not remember this painting that hangs over our mantel.


It was painted by "Grandma Theo", who was Stanley's great grandmother or great great aunt; Stanley is not sure which. It depicts a ranch in Montana that used to belong to Stanley's family. Apparently Grandma Theo had attempted to paint the house and/or barn but couldn't get it to look right, so painted over it with hills and foliage. She was also apparently not proud of it. I suspect this because she actually wrote on the back of the painting, "I am not at all proud of this picture - should not let it go, but as I am too old now to do much more, and Phil* (Stanley's father) likes it so am going easy." She also signed it and wrote "painted when I was 93 years old".

So check out this painting, also by Grandma Theo, that we saw at Stanley's Aunt's house. We hadn't brought a camera, so Stanley's cousin was kind enough to e-mail us a photo.


I think the trees in the foreground are the same trees that we have in the lower right of our painting, but I'm not really sure. It's interesting to compare the two paintings and try to get a sense of things.

Stanley's cousin mentioned that Lewis and Clark described the mountain in the background on their famous journey, and that it was called Square Butte. I used Google Earth, which is awesome, to fly over the area and I think I figured out where the ranch would have been, but the river seems to be dried up and there are no trees in the area that I can see. It looks like cropland mostly.

I'm getting over a flu. At least I hope I am. I'm weak and tired and stuffy. I took a nap today. That was nice.


* Name changed.