My First Memory

Life is an interesting thing. The paths we take and the dreams that inspire us. It's the difference between just talking about achieving your goals or chasing your dreams and DOING IT. Anyone that knows me, knows that it is my biggest life's dream to own my grandfather's Frontier Town out of Helena, Montana. As a young girl I grew up in this amazing frontier fort city that my grandfather had built single handedly over 30 years starting back in the 1940's.  I was very much the frontier princess. Oblivious to the cherished moment in time I was living in.

For my first official blog ~ I'll share with you my first and one of my favorite, honest-to-God memories.

I was four and half years old... It was summertime 1985 in Montana, and the annual Western Rondezvous of Art was being held at Frontier Town, as it had been every year. The festival brought artists from all over the region to set up their easels, tables for carvings, or other works of art on the mountainside atop MacDonald Pass, home of Frontier Town. It was invite-only this year and it was an absolute full house on the mountain that afternoon.

It was a perfect summer day. I remember the breathtaking 75 mile view of Montana's capital city and the Helena Valley being picture perfect with cotton candy clouds that day as I remember making out a turtle in one of them. the air smelled of fresh Rocky Mountain air, the sweet, almost vanilla-like perfume of pine trees and occasionally a drift of deliciousness from the back door of the Frontier Town restaurant.

I was what people may have called a bit mischievous or maybe even bratty as a youngster, and that day I decided to run away from my babysitter to hide amongst the artists and wander about looking at the paintings, drawings, and other various art on display. It was nice to not be leashed to a babysitter for the moment. I had no idea that the moment upon which I was about to chance would etch itself in my memory as one of my first, and most significant memories in my lifetime.

I'll never forget meandering in and out of people, poking in and out of booths as artists set up with their easels, and skipping around like I owned the joint, because, let's face it, I kinda thought I did since it was MY grandfather, John Raphael Quigley, descendant of the Montana Pioneers, who single-handedly (with occasional help) founded, created and built Frontier Town.

I parted through a group of people and almost ran right into my grandfather sitting in one of his handmade log chairs, laughing and talking to an artist who was sketching an incredible colored pencil rendition of him. I stood there watching as he told the artist a story, swirling his whisky around in his glass while she sketched him flawlessly. Her artist's eye was paying special attention to the buckskin fringe shirt that was my grandfather's signature look, and capturing his persona perfectly.

Even at that young age, I knew it would have been inappropriate to have gone up to him and flung myself into his lap, arms around his neck, like I so badly wanted to do. So, I just stood back and watched. He never saw me or was aware of me. In fact, it was like I was watching it all through a bubble. I stayed and watched for a few more minutes before I raced off to find my mother. You see, my grandfather had died in 1979, three years before I was born...

Upon finding my mother and babysitter, who were both furious at me for taking off, I tried to explain through gulps of air, what and whom I had seen. We all went running back to the spot where the artist and my grandfather were set up. We parted the crowd very much like how I had done ten minutes earlier. And when we did... there was no one there. No artist. No easel. No Booth. No grandfather. Nothing. That night I went to my closet where I knew my grandfather's buckskin shirt hung in the way back ~ behind winter coats and other seasonal clothing. It was on the other side of my closet, like it has just been hung up. I'll never forget the feeling that came over me in that moment, and I haven't questioned that memory since. It happened.