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Note: Henry went to work at a sawmill when he was about 11 years old to help support the family. He continued working there until a young man when he noticed how many men were missing their fingers and decided to join his sisters in Chicago. While there he attended night classes and graduated from Optometry school but then decided to continue working as a barber. While in Chicago he worked very hard to help his younger brother, Alvin, pay for night law school. Mabel felt that Henry lacked confidence and was more comfortable with barbering than going into optometry. The long hours barbering took a toll on his health and he was advised to get some fresh, dry air by a doctor. He decided to join a couple of his sisters then living in Montana.
At age 16 in Peshtigo, WI. he was working at a local saw mill (1900 Census). He was said to be able to read, write and speak English. His next three youngest siblings were all still in school.
In the 1910 census is living in Chicago Ward 32, Chicago, Cook, Illinois at a boarding house run by Lyda Hicky. Living at the same place is his brother, Clarence.
Moved from Chicago in 1914. He, along with a friend (Mr. Koch) and a team of horses left Chicago and made the trip in a boxcar to Roy, Montana - where he homesteaded. On the completion of a small one room cabin, Mabel came west from Chicago to join him. Virginia describes the cabin as a "little tar paper shack" with one room - a stove, a bed, two chairs and a table. The land was and still is desolate -- sagebrush with very little water. Water had to be hauled 12 miles by wagon. They washed on a board with a big tin bucket and they kept extra water in a root cellar where it was cool. Aunt Hilda, his sister, lived a couple of miles away with her husband, Will Shrank. Making a living was difficult under such circumstances. After his horses were stolen, he decided to go to work for the railroad. Mabel remained on the homestead site to satisfy the residency requirements. ( Homestead documents give date of June 14, 1919.) He became barber first in Lewistown, then the first barber in Hobson, Montana.
On his WW I draft registration Sept 10, 1918 he is living in Hobson and working as a barber. He is married, of course, to Mabel.
Living in Hobson, MT in the 1920 census ED 89, Sheet 16B, School District 20. He is listed as a barber.
In the 1930 census is enumerated with family in District 23, Hobson, Judith Basin County, Montana. He is a "tonsorial artist" aka a barber.
In the 1940 census he, Mabel and Caroline are living in Hobson. He is a barber, she a beautician. They are living in the same house as they had in 1930.
Mabel and Henry published a story in the Lewistown paper entitled: "This is Our Life in Montana":
" Having worked in Chicago for several years and having developed a nervous condition due to over work, we decided to come to Montana with two other parties who were leaving for Montana to take up a homestead. So, in September 1914, we loaded an emigrant car with furniture and tools with which to build our cabins and barns. We, also, had two cows which was necessary in order to get emigrant rates. We arrived in Lewistown nine days later and went out to Roy, Montana, to find land on which to file.
I had the cabin and barn up when Mabel came the middle of November. I went to the depot to meet her and when I passed her, she didn't know me as I did look rather rough, having not shaved for about two weeks as I was busy getting everything ready for winter. We stayed at the homestead during the summer but moved into Lewistown for the winter and I worked for different barber shops until the fall of 1917 when I bought our Ducker's shop in Hobson where we are still located.
The following spring we had two little girls, Virginia and Vera. They were the first pair of twins born in Hobson. On June 24, 1926, another daughter was born to us, Carolyn, and these three girls all went to Hobson schools and graduated from there.
We bought the little house on the west side of Hobson but as it was so small we lived in many other houses at different times but the "little house" was really our house until after the family was all gone we bought the "Aunt Mandy Phillips" big house west of town. We have refinished it and are comfortably settled there and enjoy having room for all the grandchildren to come home.
After the twins, Vera and Virginia, graduated from high school, Mabel took the girls east and they took a course in the international College of Beauty in Indianapolis, Indiana. Mabel also took a course in the college and she now has her own shop in connection with mine.
While in the East, Virginia met and married Charles Taylor and they all returned to Montana and opened up a shop in Lewistown. They had two sons, Michael and Richard. Mike is also in hair styling business in Minneapolis and Dick is with his father in Ohio in a beauty school. Virginia is now married to Kenneth Dokken, manager of Super Save Markets and they live in Great Falls.
Vera married Ray Morvitz of Lewistown and both girls and husbands went to Bremerton, Washington, to work during World War II. They had one boy, Larry. Vera is now living in Helena and has her own beauty shop. She has two daughters, and her husband, Basil Ashcraft, is Assistant State Supervisor of FFA of Montana.
Carolyn graduated from Missoula, State University, and taught Spanish, Physical Education and Music. She married Victor Smith of Benchland, Montana, and has three girls and two boys. They live in Kennewick, Washington, and he is Dr. of Science and works in research.
When we came to Hobson we didn't plan on staying here but this section of the country just got in our system so we never had any hankering to leave here. We miss many of the old timers who have passed away but the time will come when we all will go to the same place; the House not made with hands.
With Best Wishes to all our friends that we have known.
FROM MABEL A. and HENRY NYGREN"
Caroline Nygren Smith adds (2/2005): As far as I know, the home was built by Aunt Mandy and her sons - it was a
home that was ordered from Sears. I was not aware that anyone from the mines
ever lived there. When my parents purchased the home, it was owned and being
lived in by Aunt Mandy's daughter, Bessie Bradley. My parents traded their
little home for the larger home. They did much re-modeling - I think my
mother painted most of the inside of the home, including the beautiful
woodwork, which now has been restored to the original. During that time,
Michael and Dick, Virginia's sons were living with them, as Virginia had a
beauty shop in Great Falls, and was not able to care for them. It finally
became too much for Henry and Mabel, and Michael was sent to live with his dad in
Ohio. Charles's grandmother entered Mike in a military school. Eventually,
Dick moved to Great Falls and was with Virginia. "
An article in the Great Falls, Tribune dated Sunday, July 6, 1958 has a headline: Family Fun and Work Give Historical Home New Lease on Life"
" Fun, work and generosity sum up the lives of the Henry Nygren of Hobson and give their home, one of Hobson's first houses, a new lease on life.
Built by Walter Phillips of Kalispell, when Hobson was just beginning, the Nygrens bought the house six years ago. Having had modern design applied and up-to-date facilities added, the old Phillips home, a landmark of Judith Basin County, serves not only as a charming and efficient holiday and weekend retreat for the Nygrens' children and their families, but the deeper purpose of strengthening family ties.
Alive with the activity of modern family life, the capacious house with the "new look" still stirs with the ghosts of Hobson's pioneers, one of the more prominent ones being Rev. William Wesley Van Orsdel, better known to Montanans as Brother Van. Brother Van, minister on horseback, made the old Phillips house his headquarters when traveling his circuit in that area.
Refurbishing the house isn't a new idea. When Mrs. (Aunt Mandy) Phillips, it's original owner, was in her seventies, she lent startling color to the countryside by painting the exterior herself in yellow with pink trim.
After it's recent remodeling by the Nygrens and their children, Mrs. Kenneth Dokken and Mrs. Basic Ashcraft, Mrs. Nygren, with the energy of it's original owner, painted the entire interior herself, making homey the vast old-style rooms with warming pastel colors. The two color structure, boasting all large rooms, has five bedrooms, with adjoining baths, kitchen, dining and living rooms, sun porch and finished basement.
Mrs. Nygren sandwiched in the painting chores with the operation of her beauty shop in Hobson, which she began in 1937 in conjunction with her husband's barber shop, established 41 years ago in one of Hobson's first business buildings, where Nygren continues to operate it.
In 1918, when the Nygrens' twin daughters, Virginia Dokken and Vera Ashcraft, were born in the living quarters behind the barber shop, Mrs. Nygren was seriously ill, and Vera was believed to be dead at birth. The midwife blew breath into the baby and brought her to life. In a raging blizzard, Mrs. Nygren was packed off to the Lewistown Hospital in an unheated Great Northern Railway baggage car, the only transportation available in the storm.
Vera and Virginia, the first twins born in Hobson, were cradled in a trunk by a neighbor who took care of them for their first six weeks. (Remainder of article on page 23 is issue not available as of 5/16/10)
A strict but a loving, fair and generous father/grandfather. Loved going fishing and playing cards - was a very sharp card player - one of his favorite games was Pitch. Everyone called him Henry. Vera Nygren related that he taught her "Whatever we had to be thankful and to take care of it. Never buy what you can't pay for." and what she loved about her father was "He was very honest. A good provider and very hard worker, dependable and sincere".
Kept a jar on his dresser in Hobson, MT. containing his appendix. He had an emergency appendectomy while a teen or young man and did so without any anesthesia whatever. He was proud of his pain tolerance and his ability to make it through that surgery. He was an avid reader. He had poor eyesight he blamed on constant reading he did during his recovery from his appendectomy in Peshtigo. Favorite sport was fishing. Caroline: "He was a great father, always there for his three daughters and our Mother." Was a member of the Masons, Eastern Star and served both as Patron (Master) in both and was a state officer in the Masons. He was mayor of our little town, and very much a Republican and he was not hesitant about letting his views be known. " He died in a hospital in Great Falls and is buried there with his wife near Ken and Virginia Dokken.
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