An unusual telephone call

If you haven't seen, talked to or heard from someone for over 65 years, it is quite a start to have them call you out of the blue. That is what happened to me last Friday evening. It was a wonderful half hour for both of us.

The big boss at Flathead Mine in the late 1930s and until it closed in the 1940s was Emmett Hale. Unlike the miners such as my dad, who had home-built cabins on the hill above the mine, the Hales had a fine two-story "company house" near the office on site. There weren't many kids up there, so a little girl born to Cass and Emmett Hale about 1939 was a special event.

Because of the way society was in those days, especially with union problems confronting the mighty Anaconda Copper Mining Co., there was a social gap between ACM executives and laboring people. My father, a shift boss, was in no-man's land between those factions.

Regardless, everyone at the Flathead Mine was isolated from the world outside, and we had to help each other, ignoring real or imagined distinctions whenever possible. Mr. Hale often loaned my dad a rifle for me to use in getting the camp meat. Everybody came to dances at the one-room school, etc.

I'm not going into details over the union situation, but Hale worked with my dad and another shift boss to make life a lot better for the men working underground. I was around there very little after 1943, and the last time I remember seeing "little" Eleanor she was pre-school age. She did get to be friends with my younger sister Dora Lee, and when I answered the phone last week, she immediately asked if I remembered "Eleanor Hale," and I replied, "I certainly do."

She married a career school teacher, and they had five children, all teachers. One boy is a professor at New York University, and two other boys are teaching in the Seattle area. She lives in Bellingham, Wash.

At the mine, there was a former Notre Dame football player who was the timekeeper, and the only other "company man." George P. Murphy had a son we called "Bumps." He was two years older but was my closest friend in the earlier days. Bumps graduated from Flathead High and became a chemist for DuPont Industries. Eleanor told me he was still alive two years ago and lived in Butte.

Don't know how, but Eleanor has my "Glacier's Secrets" book, possibly purchased during a recent nostalgic trip back to Montana. I felt part of the reason she called was to possibly learn things she might not have known about her father. That gave me a chance to tell her quite a lot and add something that happened to me which I still find hard to believe.

In the late summer of 1948, I was still in the service but wearing civilian clothes on military leave in Southern France. Got caught taking pictures inside the famed Monte Carlo gambling casino. Had a very small camera, but not small enough. A "house man" saw it and got a big guard to take me into a cozy little back room. Later learned that was where they took people who'd lost all their money and were causing trouble.

In a few minutes, a very personable young man came in, and I showed him my official U.S. Army papers. Told him I knew the rules against taking pictures, but I was from the hills of Montana and wanted a couple shots to show folks back home. Somehow the name Flathead Mine came out, and he asked me if I knew Emmett Hale. Told him yes.

Turns out, this fella's father was a close friend of Emmett's brother, who was a high-ranking officer in the U.S. Navy. My interrogator had met the Hales in Calgary, Canada, when he was a boy, and as I recall, they had even visited Glacier Park together.

The two of us had a great time shooting the bull for almost an hour, then he gave me back the camera and told me to enjoy my visit on the French Riviera.

I thought we had become buddies for life, but he kept my film.

G. George Ostrom is a national award-winning Hungry Horse News columnist. He lives in Kalispell.