Lawrence and Mary Hoffman had four children: Joseph Bassee Hoffman (named after his grandfather) was born in 1871, Ida Hoffman born in 1873, Carolena Hoffman (Known as Lena) born in 1884, and Elizabeth Hoffman born in 1886.

Another article by J Lalor in a copy of the Atlantic Monthly, October 1873 describes the psyche of German immigrants and gives a feel for what they were like. This article appears in Appendix A of this document.

Lon Hoffman seemed to have a special relationship with the editor of the Centralia Sentinel. From newspaper accounts of the late 1870’s there was much playful sarcasm and kidding around between the editor and Lon Hoffman. He continually kidded Lon about his yelling at baseball games and anything else he could find to joke about. In fact the newspaper items that plus the one previously mentioned, are the only means by which we have any knowledge of the Hoffmans. Since all family members who knew the Hoffmans are deceased, the newspaper items are the only source of what the Hoffman’s lives were like. The following newspaper items from the Sentinel give an indication of what Centralia life was like in the Gay Nineties.

As can be seen from the above newspaper accounts, Lawrence’s son Joseph was not in good health. Joseph Hoffman, was a very enterprising and well-liked young man who died at the early age of 23. As a boy, Joseph was a carrier for the Centralia Sentinel and as he grew older he became actively involved in many business organizations and became quite successful for a young man. However, at about age 17 he apparently developed a respiratory problem, possibly tuberculosis, and his health began to deteriorate. During this period Joseph worked at many jobs but always had to quit because of his health. In 1890 at age 19 Joseph made a train trip to Tacoma, WA, primarily for his health, and wrote a detailed account of the trip that was published in the Centralia Sentinel. The account was titled "Centralia to Tacoma" and is shown in Appendix B of the document.

Joseph Hoffman about age 21

When Joseph died on Jan 31, 1895 there was a large funeral held at the German Evangelical church with Joseph's family and many friends in attendance. Mr. and Mrs. Barney Droll of St Louis, among others, were in attendance. Barney was the brother of Joseph’s grandfather Joseph Droll. Part of Joseph’s obituary is shown below:

Mary Droll died less than a year later in 1896 leaving Lawrence with two young children to raise. Lawrence’s father-in-law Joseph Droll and mother-in-law both died in 1899. Joseph died of natural causes and Elizabeth committed suicide three months later because as she claimed in her suicide note, "she couldn’t go on without him".

In those days, when a spouse died, there was immediate pressure put on by the community to get the remaining spouse to remarry. And it wasn’t just frivolous match makers that were encouraging remarriage, marriage was needed to survive. There were so many laborious jobs involved in raising a family back then, that it took at least two people to do them all. Lawrence probably worked 10 to 12 hours a day and his wife had to work even longer attending to such things as, washing, ironing, gardening, cooking, cleaning, and raising the family. These tasks were all done the old way, "by hand". There were no automatic washing machines, no wash and wear clothes, no dishwashers, no frozen dinners or fast food, and no day care. Lawrence Hoffman did his part and married Philleffina Besant. Philleffina, whose maiden name was Geyer, had originally immigrated from Germany. She was the widow of John Besant Jr and had 4 children of her own living with her when she married Lawrence.

One of her daughters was Florence Besant who married a man named Charles Peters and they had a daughter named Audrey. The Peters and the Rettingers remained close friends up until the deaths of Audrey in 1930 and Florence in 1946.

Ida Hoffman married Phillip Thouvenin in 1898. Around 1938, after Phillip Thouvenin had died, Ida thought it would be a good idea if she moved in with Marian and Russell Drews. Lena Hoffman Rettinger, however, told Ida it was not going to happen and afterward there were some hard feelings between Lena and Ida.

Elizabeth Hoffman married Fred Egger. They had two sons, Stanley Egger born in 1917 and Owen born about 1919.

Lena Hoffman married Raymond John Rettinger and they had three children; Lawrence John Rettinger, Marian Rettinger, and Anna V Rettinger.

Appendix A

By J. J. Lalor

It is not easy to obtain trustworthy information as to the number of Germans in the United States. Of this we are certain—it is very great. There are as many Germans in many of our large Western cities as there are Americans; in some of them there are more. They are found scattered over the East; in the West, they are thick as autumn leaves; they cover the country and swarm in the city.

Un-American in language, un-American in education, to some extent un-American in their views; socially, and in a degree commercially, isolated from the native-born population, yet endowed with all the rights of American citizens; Americans de jure but not, in a sense, de facto—they present an object of study, political and social, second to none that can engage the attention of the American patriot or statesman. What are they? How do they live? What are their customs? What attitude do they take toward the rest of the population? What of their future? Will they found an imperium in imperio, or will they be absorbed into the American body? Will they permanently affect the American character, and how?

The Germans in this country are clannish, gregarious in their instincts. It is sometimes objected to the Germans that they herd together thus, but, as we think, unjustly. What else could be expected on their arrival? To find fault with them for not becoming Americans in a day is, to say the least, very unphilosophical; and whoever does so makes no allowance for the inevitable, and would go to law with gravitation itself.

Their quarters—and they have separate quarters in all large cities where they have settled in any numbers—are readily distinguished, so unlike are they to other quarters of the town, so unaristocratic, so un-American, so unpretending in their architecture. The stores and dwellings wear a strange aspect. The huge German characters on the signboards, generally gilt or some exceedingly dazzling color, flare down on the spectator, and tell him that he is not among those "to the manner born," while the English on the same is frequently so inhumanly butchered that he feels very certain he is among no very near relations, even of the King’s subjects.

The never failing lager-beer saloon opens its hospitable door to him at every step. He advances, and lager-beer saloons multiply. He advances at an arithmetical rate; but lager-beer saloons increase in a geometrical ratio. They gain upon him. He finds them at his right and his left, behind and before him. They meet him in such numbers that he begins at last, as it seems to him, to realize the infinite; for saloons are countless, and what metaphysician will split hairs, and tell the difference between the countless and the infinite? Just at this point it is that the observer is in danger of coming to a wrong conclusion from all he sees; for he is lost in wonder how all these saloons are supported, and, if given to hasty generalization, soon comes to the conclusion that either all German saloonkeepers must starve, or that all Germans who do not keep saloons must be the most punctual of tavern patrons, and the least temperate of men: neither of which conclusions, as his further acquaintance with German saloons and German saloonkeepers will satisfy him, is, owing to lack of data, correct; for German saloonkeepers do not starve, and a confirmed German inebriate is as rare almost as a German advocate of total abstinence. Our German population may, relatively, support the largest number of saloons. They by no means produce the greatest number of drunkards.

The appearance of the people is in keeping with the quarters in which they live. The men, as a rule, are large, vigorous, and handsome; the women more noticeable for their robustness than for their beauty; the children, compared with the American children, for their greater size, strength, and weight.

Here no waterfall, Grecian bend, or Dolly Varden. Here only original Teutonic simplicity and severity. Here no affected gait, no strained attention to the style of locomotion. Here men and women who seem to believe that it is more important they should walk than how, that they should be dressed than how; who care more to live in the present and provide for the future than after what fashion they shall do the one or the other. Here no fastidiousness of any kind, and yet nothing that can shock the most fastidious; for if there is nothing ornamental here, there is nothing here that is indecent. The Germans are a prolific race, raise large families, and enjoy doing so. Here, therefore, children swarm. Here children scream and grow large-cheated; climb up piles of wood, over their father’s heavy wagons, and grow broad-shouldered and muscular. Here infants drink from the fountain nature intended they should feed at; here "soothing syrup" and the nursing bottle are unknown. Here no effeminacy—no effeminacy even in woman. Here the five-year-old learns sometimes to earn his daily bread, and the ten year-old divides his time between school and work. Here men and even children who know the value of a penny—men and children who are willing to work, who understand from the cradle that life is a struggle, who earn relatively much, and spend relatively little; who are willing to live on beer and coarse meat and brown bread, and think it no self-denial to do so. Here, in fact, in the sternest of schools, are brought up those whom the children of Americans will have to meet in the battle of life; the men into whose hands, or into the hands of whose children, the wealth and influence of the West, in less than half a century, will, in a great measure, have passed, and with the wealth and influence of the great West— which in a few years will mean more than half the continent—it may be the wealth and influence of the whole country; provided always the children of American parents are not brought up in a more Spartan-like school than they are at present, and taught that only through those virtues by which their fathers earned the competence they enjoy can that competence be preserved.

The stern early training of the young German is reinforced by the virtues he witnesses about him, economy, honesty, and industry, all of which in a high degree the German claims and obtains credit for wherever he settles.

The man works, the children work, and the women work, and work as hard as if not harder than the men; for the German, although not destitute of romance, is far from believing that woman was made to be only ornamental. Mere accomplishments go a very little way in deciding a German’s choice of a wife. He inquires how well she will wear and how hard she can work, whether she can sew and cook. He has never been guilty of the folly of seeking in his wife an intellectual companion. If he is a philosopher, he does not want his wife to be one. The less she knows of syllogisms the better. Among the opponents, accordingly, of woman suffrage, the Germans are the staunchest. Even the best-to-do Germans, men of education, professional men, expect their wives to superintend the cooking, and in many cases to do it themselves.

The wife helps her husband in all small businesses. She stands behind the counter and retails beer for him, not ceasing, however, to take care of her baby, usually a fat and rosy one, and so rugged, indeed, that a couple of hours’ neglect daily could not possibly harm it; or she helps you to fit on a pair of boots or shoes which her husband has made or mended for you, perhaps sold you. The industry of the women is sometimes marvelous. The writer has known German women to walk six or seven miles to market before seven o’clock in the morning, with no burden but a dozen of eggs or a pound or two of butter, and to wait there a half day before they had disposed of it.

As a rule, the German in the West owns his own house and the ground it is built on. It may be, and generally is, a humble one, yet he is proud in the consciousness that its possession constitutes him a landowner. He plants a row of poplars before his cottage, and then the last touch is given to his manorial estate. In addition to his other good qualities he is provident, and at his death rarely leaves anyone who cannot take care of himself unprovided for. It is the prevalence of these virtues amongst them that has given the Germans their reputation as good, quiet, respectable, peace-loving, law-abiding citizens—a reputation which they certainly deserve.

These virtues are sometimes carried to that extreme where they begin to look to the less moderate American like faults. The German is so content to leave well enough alone that he can see nothing to be gained by incessant and feverish efforts at improvement. Hence, with all his love of immediate gain, he cares little for that which is prospective, if attended with ever so small a risk. German speculation is confined to the regions of philosophy; it never shows itself in the market.

The German is quite social, that is, with his own countrymen. With them he will sit, and smoke, and drink a glass of beer or wine, never of brandy or whiskey, unless perchance he has been Americanized in that one particular, which sometimes happens. With Americans he is more reserved. He seems to feel that between him and them there is an impassable gulf. His only intercourse with them is of a business character, and of that even he has but little. If he keeps a wholesale house, or a very large retail one, he may have a small number of American customers; otherwise, his business relations are confined to those of his own nationality. Americans are practically foreigners to their German fellow citizens whom it is a kind of petty treason to the Fatherland to patronize. Hence the German population have their own merchants, artisans, mechanics, dressmakers, and professional men.

They have their own literary and scientific societies, their own reading rooms, their own libraries, their own theater, and their own press, all of which compare favorably, everything considered, with similar institutions among Americans. They like a doctor of their own, and a lawyer, where they can find one. The German seems to have conscientious—it were more correct, perhaps, to say gastronomic—scruples against being physicked by an American doctor; for deep in his soul lies the conviction that no one but a German can understand the intricacies of a genuine German stomach. A Yankee dentist has no vocation to fill a German tooth, or grind at a German molar, not even to extract one from a German jawbone. But not the American doctor and the American dentist only, the American shoemaker even is not honored by his German fellow citizen. There is a something about the American boot absolutely forbidding to him; and much as he may think of Brother Jonathan in other respects, he will not be found in his shoes....

The German’s idea of Sunday is anything but puritanic. It is the very opposite. It is for them a day of amusement. It is no unusual thing to be asked by a German on Monday morning, "Well, how did you amuse yourself yesterday?" There are those among the Germans, of course, who respect and keep the Sabbath; but then there are always enough of them who do not; and to judge by the numbers in which they frequent their places of amusement on Sunday—the parks, beer gardens, and public halls—a stranger might possibly be tempted to inquire whether the Germans had any idea of a Sabbath. Men, women, and children, older men with their wives, and younger ones with their sweethearts, throng these places every Sunday, and enjoy themselves, careless of what impression they make on their fellow citizens of American origin, to whom the sound of brass instruments on the Sabbath air is anything but welcome or edifying. In the cold days of winter, when the parks and beer gardens are dreary and shorn of their beauty, the German seeks amusement in some hall instead. Here he treats himself to a compound of rather heterogeneous elements—to music, beer, and smoke; and to all of them at once. Any Sunday afternoon in the cold of winter, you may find him, with his wife or child, or both, in some large hall, one of 100 or 500, smoking his meerschaum or his cigar, sipping his beer, wine, or coffee, and listening to a selection from Meyerbeer or Beethoven. Were it summer, he would add the odor of roses to the fumes of his tobacco and the smell of his beer; for he is as fond of flowers as he is of any of these, and is never happier than when the air, trembling to the notes of the orchestra, is redolent with tobacco smoke, the perfume of the rose, heliotrope, and hop, and he is himself in the midst of them all.

We remarked above that the German has his own school, from which it may be inferred that he does not patronize the public school system of the country; and this inference, within limits, is not without correctness. A great many Germans do send their children to the public schools. A few of the best disciplined schools, and of the most thorough that we know, are public schools frequented exclusively by German children; but can such a school be properly called a public school? It may, inasmuch as it derives its support from the public, that the teachers are appointed by the people, through a board of school commissioners, and that it is open to all children who apply for admission to its classes: in all these respects it is a public school; and perhaps this is all that is required to make what is known as a public school; but it is not what the American people understand by that appellation, since, whereas they understand a peculiarly American institution, these are sometimes peculiarly German; for the teachers are German, the moral atmosphere is German, the methods in part German, and the language of the school, to say the least, as much German as English. When Germans can find a school of this kind, their objections to the public school system are in part, if not entirely, removed; and no doubt could our school system be Germanized to this extent everywhere, all objections would be removed.

The Roman Catholic German keeps his child from the public school for the same reasons that the vast majority of Roman Catholics in the country do, namely, because they claim that the schools are not sufficiently unsectarian. The Lutheran German builds a Lutheran schoolhouse next to his Lutheran church, and then sends his children to be brought up Lutherans. His objection to the public school system is that it does not do this for him. But even with the German who professes no adherence to creed or church, the public school system is no favorite; and that, of course, for quite different reasons. Generally—this is not the place to inquire why—much better educated than the rest of his countrymen, perhaps with all the advantages which Germans could afford for education, with a mind of his own on most points, and fully able to decide what is best for his children, he chooses rather to send them to some private institution, to one, if possible, as near in character to those of his Fatherland as he can find. He objects to the employment of women in the schools. The schoolma’am one of the American institutions least consonant with his modes of thought and his ideas of the sex and its sphere. He is of opinion, and not at all humbly, that neither physically nor mentally is woman competent for the labor of teaching. He would as fief his daughter should shoulder a musket as seek a teacher’s diploma. Again you meet one who occasionally finds fault with the public school system because it is too religious. For the Roman Catholic it has not religion enough, nor of the right kind; for some Germans it has a vast deal too much. The name of God, or an allusion to Providence, or something else equally unscientific, in a reading book in a school, is sufficient to warn a thorough German radical of its dangerous influence on the young mind. What he wants in the way of an educational establishment is an institution in which there shall be no praying, no reading of the Bible, no allusion to a heaven or a God; where science shall be taught without any reference to a first cause, and literature without specimens from the writings of bishops, priests, or deacons, or even from a Milton, who, though a great man and gifted with real poetic genius, was so unfortunate in his choice of a subject—inasmuch as he chose a theological one—that all he has earned is a right to be forgotten. Another reason why this class of Germans do not patronize the national system of schools is, that they look upon them as de-Germanizing in their influence, and destructive of an individuality which they are anxious to preserve....

The German will affect the American community in two ways: by his blood and by his ideas. The resultant will be neither Yankee nor German; it will be American. The German character—there are enough of the nation among us to do it— will complement the American, and of all characters it is in some respects the one most able to do it. The American is too much taken up with the pursuit of gain: an infusion of German blood will have the effect of making him less so, but, at the same time perhaps, more saving; less abstemious in the matter of wine and beer, if this could be considered desirable, more so in that of brandy and whiskey; less given to commercial speculation, fonder of music and the drama, of flowers and of nature.

It is not probable that they will influence our form of government or our political principles at all. The mission of the Anglo-Saxon race appears to be to educate men into governing themselves. Here Germany must come to school to America. Her genius is not political, however contemporaneous events may seem to favor the opposite view. Among no people are the ties of friendship and the family stronger. Among no people is political coherency less powerful. As a people, they may be manipulated by a skillful hand. Bismarck’s success in moulding them in a short period into a great nation, if it proves the ability of the man, proves also a lack of political self-assertion in the people themselves. Were their political prejudices stronger, they could not have been overcome so easily. Of the thousands of Germans who have come to our shores, the late Dr. Lieber is, perhaps, the only political writer of any prominence they have given us; and of distinguished statesmen, they have not produced one. Their own most eminent writers do not hesitate to confess that, as a people, they have no political genius. They had no idea of the state until they came in contact with the Romans; and they have always considered the government as an estate, and not as a trust. We should be inclined to think that, if true to their instincts, they would in this country favor states’ rights, for they have always been impatient of universal governments, ecclesiastical and civil, and a tendency to decentralization runs through the whole of their history. Hence, the small states which only yesterday were united into an empire—a union of which no one feels warranted to prophesy the perpetuity. We repeat it, therefore, it is only socially, and in our religious history that the Germans will act upon us; and, in the long run, perhaps, more in the latter respect than in the former. There seems to be a tendency in the German character that is anti Christian. We recollect finding ourselves one Christmas day in the house of a venerable German patriarch—a man with hair as white as the snow that covered the ground outside. His little grandchildren were about him, climbing his knee, and talking of the Christ-kind, or Christ child, who had sent them all the pretty golden fruit, and the tree that bore it, their aged grandparent the while extolling Renan, and arguing against the existence of God. Before these children had doffed their small clothes, Santa Claus and the Christ-kind were both relegated to the mythic age of the nursery. And something like this is taking place every day among the Germans in the West.

When it is known that one of the objects of the Turnvereins is the propagation of the most radical ideas in matters of religion and politics, and that these societies are to be found in every state of the Union, something is learned of how they are affecting us in that direction. These and other influences will survive the German in America. He will go; but they, for good or evil, will remain. The German’s character will not die out, but will change; his name, his feelings, his thoughts, and his aspirations will cease to be German, and, in ceasing to be German, become American; but, on the other hand, not American in precisely the signification that word bears today; for America, even, is not exempt from the laws which produce the vicissitudes of nations and the constant variation of national character.

Appendix B

Joe Hoffman Tells What He Experienced and Saw On The Trip

Centralia Daily Sentinel, Centralia, Illinois

Monday, July 21, 1890

While I have the opportunity, I concluded to write an account of my trip. Leaving Centralia at 4:30 P.M., accompanied by Arthur Kaiser and Mr. Breeze, of Walnut Hill, we started on our journey for Tacoma. We arrived in Litchfield at 7 P.M., Where we had to wait three hours in making connection with the Wabash. While waiting there a heavy rain storm, accompanied by hail came up. At 10 P.M. we boarded the through vestibuled train for Chicago, where we arrived at 7:20 the next morning. Here Mr. Breeze left us and took the next train for St. Paul. We immediately commenced to take a view of the city and met two Centralia boys, Al Paulis, of the Weldon shops, and Albert Saxe, salesman for Marshall Field & Co. Took a walk to the I.C. depot and saw the crowd of strikers. Everything was at a standstill, and the commission merchants complained of the scarcity of vegetables. Called on some friends in Lake View, where we spent the rest to the day.

At 5:30 P.M. we bid adieu to Chicago, taking the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul route. We noticed on our way to Milwaukee that the forests were more broken, and the corn appeared to be in better condition than in Southern Illinois. When we arrived in Milwaukee it was getting dark, but what we saw of it gave us an idea that it was a nice city. Our night’s ride was a trip across Wisconsin. The headlight, also the cars, were lighted by electricity, and they ran so fast and easy that we enjoyed our night’s sleep. When we awoke in the morning we found ourselves in Winona, Minn., where the train was delayed on hour on account of the air brakes refusing to work.

The scenery here was beautiful; high hills covered mostly with forests, lay to the left of us, while the Mississippi River flowed alongside the track to the right. Up to Weaver the scenery remained about the same, only that we saw a few small cliffs, and I suppose that some of the Indian legends are connected with the same. After leaving Weaver the land was not quite so hilly, but the scenery was grand, and we followed the Mississippi River right along into St. Paul, where we arrived at 8 A.M. As we were an hour late and had only ten minutes in which to re-check our trunk and catch the next train, we had to wait for the one following.

To spend the time we took a streetcar and took a good view of St. Paul, which lies on several large hills and when on top of one you can get a good view of the place. It was very warm, one thermometer registering 98° in the shade. In the afternoon, while going down to the depot, we saw the fire department out trying the Geyser, a new apparatus of extinguishing fires. It consisted of a series of four telescopic pipes, which were raised by hydraulic power furnished by the fire pump. The nozzle was attached to the top pipe and was six stories from the ground. It was adjusted by two men below on the platform, ten feet above the earth, and could be made to move in any direction and angle desired; also lowered to any height at any time. They claim that they can be ready to furnish water in six minutes. We took in the whole exhibition and were well paid for it.

We left St. Paul at 4:15 P.M. and soon crossed the Mississippi River where we had a good view of the Falls of St. Anthony. Leaving Minneapolis we passed through some great timberlands, and saw a great number of logs floating down the river. The land is level here and the soil is good. We passed two large lakes. As we passed the last one some one shot at the train, the bullet going through the window two seats back of us. Everybody was excited but fortunately no one was hurt. It remained daylight until nine o’clock, when we retired for the night. During the night it rained and I caught a cold. In the morning we were on the level prairies of Dakota, and nothing to be seen but green grass and the spring flowers. The houses were scarce. Sometimes we would ride twenty miles without seeing a human habitation. The wheat was very scattering. Believe it is not as great a wheat country as it is claimed. This soil, however, was the best along the trip, and this country would be largely inhabited if it were not for the cold blizzards in the winter.

Traveling over the level prairies of Dakota, we finally reached Bismarck, the capital of North Dakota. It is situated on a high bluff on the east bank of the Missouri River. Crossing the Missouri River we arrived in Mandan at 8 A.M., June 28. This is one of Dakota’s best cities. After leaving Mandan we encountered rain, which had a refreshing effect on the passengers.

The lay of the land now changed considerable. Instead of the level prairies, which we had hitherto seen, we now saw more broken country. It was here that I saw my first cow-boy. The next place of any importance was Sims, where they advertised lots for sale at twenty-five cents each. We stopped ten minutes for lunch, but did not have time to look up the real estate office, so that we could invest our cash for "town lots." Along this country we did not see a tree for miles, but passed a good many lakes and saw flocks of gulls and snipes.

We also saw several coal mines. Their way of mining is different from what it is in Centralia. It is obtained by digging into the side of a hill, and is of an inferior quality, the vein being generally two fee thick. I made myself fairly well acquainted by noon, and found out that nearly every State in the Union was represented on the train; there was one man in our car who came direct from Norway and four from Switzerland. At 2:30 P.M. we were in the Bad Lands of Dakota. I do not consider myself able to describe them, and no one can form a correct idea of what they look like without seeing them. They are composed of a series of hills and valleys. The hills are mostly a mass of red rock, bare of vegetation, with the exception of a creeping vine know as the running evergreen. The valleys have a sandy soil, also bare of vegetation, except the running evergreen and a little grass. The best theory that I heard in regard to the Bad Lands was that it was all level at one time, but consisted largely of coal, which was burnt out and left these hills, making some of the grandest scenery I ever saw.

The next town of any size was Medora, where I had time to get off on the platform and look at the thermometer, which registered 74° in the shade. We crossed the Little Missouri River shortly after leaving Medora, and saw a colony of prairie dogs. The brakeman told me that there was a petrified man and a bear near the side of the track but I did not see them. The scenery was grand and remained so through the rest to the State.

About 4 P.M. we crossed the State line into Montana. The surface of the earth gradually became less rolling and a species or cactus grew wild in large numbers along the hillside. In two hours we came in sight of the Bad Lands of Montana which was a repetition of the Bad Lands of Dakota on a smaller scale. Shortly after leaving Glendive we followed the Yellowstone River and the scenery became more interesting-the Bad Lands on one side of the track, the river on the other. We now came in a good stock raising country; at least it was largely adapted for that purpose, and there was plenty of grass and some clover. We saw several herds of sheep, there being 3,000 head in one flock. We arrived in Miles City about dusk. It was lighted by electric light, and was the first town of any importance in Montana. Being tired and fatigued, I prepared for my night’s sleep. During the night we crossed a good many rivers. I awoke in the morning somewhat refreshed, and found that we had had a fire in the stove all night. We arrived in Livingstone at 9 A.M. and stopped ten minutes for breakfast.

Another engine was added to our train, as the grade from here to Helena is very steep. This day was a rather lonesome one, as we traveled most to the time in a mountainous country, which were covered with snow. Some of the passengers amused themselves by throwing missiles at the gophers whenever the train stopped, and one of them was knocked over, but before any one could get near him he was down a hole.

Helena is situated in a valley, surrounded by mountains. It is almost a desert, the soil being sandy and barren of vegetation, with nothing to be seen but sagebrush. We arrived here at noon and the beat was terrible. Nothing of special interest was seen during the afternoon, except that we passed through a large tunnel and followed a river where we saw a number of fishermen.

Painted Rock, a station, so called because the large rocks have the appearance of having been painted a variety of colors. The next place of any importance was Missoula, and was by far the nicest city that we saw during the day. It was now seven o’clock. A short time after leaving Missoula, we passed over trestle after trestle, the last one of which was called the Mariant and was 226 feet high. The scenery was grand. Looking over the large pine forests, along the hillside, and at the houses and gardens in the valley below was a beautiful sight. After we had passed the mountains, we were on the level prairies of the Flathead Indian reservation, and every one was on the alert to see the first Indian, whom we saw shortly afterwards. It now became so dark that sight seeing was at an end. Our nights journey was a trip through the rest of Montana and Idaho. At 2 A.M. we passed along the side of a large lake in the latter State. In the morning we were in Washington and soon arrived in Spokane Falls, the largest city in the eastern part of the State, where we stopped for breakfast. The next place of any importance was Sprague, where John Pfanstlel, a former Centralian, resides. This town has only a population of 1,500, but has electric light and appears to be having a boom. We passed through good country all along until about 10 o’clock when it became worse and worse, and gradually ran into a sandy desert, where nothing would grow but sage brush. It was very warm, and the sand flying in the car made it very disagreeable, so that we closed our windows and tried to keep cool. I cannot see how the people stand it who live on this desert. The land is irrigated with water by means of canals through which the water flows from the mountains to the land below.

We crossed the Columbia River at Posco, and followed it right along. Suddenly the land changed from bad to good, as if a line had been drawn. It was now tow o’clock and we were in Simcoe reservation. The soil is hard to beat, the grass growing five feet high, but it all belongs to the Indians. Some wee busy making hay, one farmer having a stacking machine; others were herding stock, and I should judge that they were well fixed. The land is mostly level, though at times it would have a rolling appearance. A river flowed through their reservation, with scattering trees along its banks, and the spring flowers were just in bloom, scenting the air with their fragrance.

We next came in sight of Mt. Tacoma and at seven o’clock were on the Cascade Mountains, where our train parted in two places, caused by the breaking of a drawbar, also a coupling of the dining room car, while we were crossing a trestle, and by the motion of our car I thought a car had jumped the track. While they were repairing the drawbar, nearly everyone got out and took a view of the mountains. I took a walk and found a spring, the water of which was very good. It took one hour before starting again and we immediately went through a long tunnel. Our train was due in Tacoma at ten o’clock, but we had another mishap at Buckley. A large amount of lumber which had been piled near the track was on fire and delayed our train four hours, so that we did not arrive in Tacoma until 3 A.M. July 1, where I leave my readers for the present.

Yours Truly,

Joseph Hoffman