The Fergus County Sheep Company was incorporated on December 1, 1909 as a general stock raising and real estate business. P. T. McDermott was the first president and Mathias Staff was the secretary. The Company, as it was called, was in this area before the land survey of 1912.
  Alphonso and Susannah Jackman homesteaded in the area in 1903. Jackman ran sheep with Nick Welter. Jackman and Welter built the "L" shed and the Twin Sheds for their sheep. They sold out to The Company in 1909. Lewis Penwell was president of The Company in the 20's and 30's. The land was sold at a sheriffs sale in 1934 to Union Bank and Trust Company of Helena, the mortgage holder. The land was sold to various people with Mike Delaney buying much of it. Dick Delaney lives where the company headquarters and Staff Post Office were once located.

Staff district was created in 1918. Some of the people in the area were C.G. Donahoo, W. P. McEneany, G.H. Colver, N. H. Allen, John Anderson, Gee. Shipe. In 1925 it became part of Petroleum county. Some of the teachers were Marie Afflerbach, Helen Knight, Fannie Allen, Nellie Kakela, and Inez Houts. The last year school was held was in 1922-23.

  Olaf Eike was born in Skorter, Norway and came to this country as a young man. He homesteaded in the Staff area and became the first postmaster of the Staff post office which was established in 1906. Staff was previously known as the Fergus County Sheep Company and Busch Ranch.
  He married Hannah Kraft, who also homesteaded in the same area. His homestead was on Bear Creek and hers was on Box Elder Creek. The Sheep Company headquarters was at the conjunction of Big Bear, Little Bear and Box Elder Creeks.
  Olaf was a foreman at the Fergus County Sheep Company and also was the postmaster at Staff from 1906 to 1932. He then bought the Helland place which was one mile west of Staff and lived there until 1936.
  A mail carrier who was known as "Coyote Jimmy", hauled the mail from Grass Range to Staff in a buggy with a team of horses. In the winter he used a bob sled. Groceries and supplies came from Grass Range and Lewistown where they were freighted in with teams and wagons. Sometime after 1935 mail began to come from Winnett. Two of the mail haulers were Marvin Lewis and Frank Marshall.
  Sheep were shipped out at Roy and at Teigen. The Fergus County Sheep Co. had 14,000 sheep, or 7 bands of 2000 each. The Company had a shearing plant at the "Twin Sheds" east of Roy. Edwin Booth bossed the crew of twelve shearers. Before, the shearing plant was headquartered at Dengels. The Company controlled 36,000 acres when it was sold to the Union Bank.
  The Eike offspring were Olaf Lyle born May 28, 1915 and Rose Jean born September 10, 1919 both at Staff; Robert John born August 31, 1923 at Grass Range and George Hialmer born January 29, 1925 in Lewistown. Another child, Charles, died as an infant at Staff.
  Olaf passed away on December 15 in 1963 and is buried in Winnett. Hannah passed away in February of 1931. She is buried in Brooten, Minnesota. George is also deceased and is buried in Winnett.
  Olaf had two brothers, Sam and Osten, who also came to America from Norway. One, or both, worked for Bower Brothers Sheep Company at Two Dot.

  Opitz homesteaded in the Staff area on the Sage Creek-Box Elder Divide, about 10 miles southwest of Valentine.
  He married Doris Ware, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Francis Ware. They lived in the area for a number of years before moving to Billings. They had a family of 3 boys and a girl.

  Mr. and Mrs. Francis Ware were originally homesteaders in the Little Crooked area, as was their son, Harold. When they lost the homestead they moved to a place near Valentine, in the Staff area, south of the Southworth place. It is believed that Francis died while they lived at Staff. The Wares came from Michigan and northern Wisconsin where Mr. Ware was employed in the woods.
  Harold served in WWI and was wounded in action in France.
  The Ware's daughter, Doris, married Albert Opitz of Staff.

  A May 10, 1929 article in the Winnett Times, about Harold, reads as follows:

  Harold Ware, of the Valentine community, was taken to the Lewistown hospital last Sunday, suffering from a severe attack of Spotted Fever, presumably caused by a tick bite.
   Friends who saw Mr. Ware, just prior to his departure for the hospital, stated that he was covered with small eruptions even to the soles of his feet, and that he had swollen so it was difficult to remove his clothing at the hospital.
  This is the first case of Spotted Fever to be reported from the north country.
  Ticks are more numerous this year than many years past. Horses are being severely punished by the ticks which gather in bunches on the lower lips, bellies and hind legs.

  Rachel was born in July of 1886 in Toronto, Canada. Her father, a soldier at Fort Walch, died before her birth. Her mother's name was Ruth McDowell. When Rachel was three or four years old she was sent to live with an aunt and uncle, Omar and Alice Harvey, in Montana. They settled in Lone Pine where Omar passed away and Alice remarried a Mr. Alexander, a kindly man, whom Rachel knew as Uncle Al.
  When she was seven she overheard her Aunt Alice tell Uncle Al that they would have to return Rachel to her mother. It was a terrible jolt for a little girl to hear; this was the only family she really knew. But the aunt and uncle had to move to the Klondike and felt it was no place for a little girl.
  Four months after Rachel was returned to her mother, (who by then lived in Columbia Falls), and a stepfather and four half-sisters, all the children were put up for adoption--for reasons never known. Two were adopted locally. Rachel, the eldest, was adopted by William and Elizabeth Eschmeyer an elderly couple that lived at Gilt Edge. The other two girls were adopted by a couple in Great Falls.
  Elizabeth Eschmeyer was originally from New York City and Rachel found herself surrounded by paintings, tapestries and fine china. Life became pleasant. She had a private teacher, as there was no school near.
  As the couple grew older they decided to retire and so they sold their holdings to Oscar Stephens and left, eventually settling in Spokane, Washington where Rachel received an education including piano and voice lessons.
  The Eschmeyer's hired man, Nick Welter, and the couple kept in correspondence over the years. Rachel was 16 when she learned that the Eschmeyer's had promised her to Nick as a wife. It was a shock. There was considerable age difference and they had never been on intimate terms. Nevertheless Nick came to Spokane and on December 22, 1902, Rachel became his bride.
  Welter and Alphonso Jackman, of Forest Grove, were partners in a sheep-raising business. After their arrival back in Montana they spent a couple of days purchasing supplies before heading to Jackman's and then to the Musselshell breaks. Rachel's status had changed abruptly from that of a carefree l6-year-old girl to a married woman living in a remote area of Montana.
  In a period of one year she had only one opportunity to talk to another woman. Mail was received once a month. Life was not easy in the sheep camp. Leisure time was unheard of. Preparing meals for the crew was no easy task, a wash tub of dough had to be made and baked into bread each day, plus dozens of pies. When supplies ran low they subsisted on mutton, beans and coffee.
  One bright note to Rachel's life was her piano, a gift from her parents. It was hauled back and forth, wherever home might be.
  Rachel's first child, Katherine, arrived on March 18th, a year later, after a long night of struggle all alone. There were no doctors within a hundred miles. The baby thrived. She slept in a shipping crate and drank canned sweetened condensed milk. A man cook was hired to relieve Rachel of some of the chores so that she could care for her baby.
  Nick finally went out of the sheep business. He'd bought when prices were too high and then they kept falling. Larger outfits managed to hold out, but for the lack of feed and money the Welters sold out and moved to Lewistown.
  Their son, William Nicholas, was born.
 

  Nick worked at whatever jobs he could find and eventually rented a ranch, now Lewistown Heights, and the family made some progress. Three more daughters were born: Lucille, Florence and Margaret.
  Seven years after being on the ranch, the owner, a Mr. Hobson, sold and Nick, who was anxious to own his own place, filed on a section of land, using Rachel's name under the 'desert claim' law. The homestead was near Valentine (Twin Sheds area). They moved in November.
  It took several days to reach the homestead. What started out as beautiful weather evolved into a winter blizzard. After several days of staying in a little shanty, moving supplies painstakingly in shifts on two borrowed bob sleds, battling snow, spending another few days at a ranch, losing some of their possessions in a creek of "angry water" when the bridge caved in, the family finally arrived on the land which was their home for the next 16 years.
  Rachel again knew hard work and hardship. A well drilling adventure was a total loss. Water had to be hauled from over a mile away. In winter snow was melted.
  One of the hired men taught the children at first. As more people moved near, a schoolhouse was built. Will Townsend was one of the first teachers. Later a more adequate schoolhouse was built.
  A home was built. The main part was of cement blocks that Nick made with the assistance of Rachel and the older children who hauled and mixed sand, gravel, cement and water. The house was also the Welter post office for 11 years.
  Times became extremely tough. Rachel began to learn practical nursing through experience as babies were born, accidents happened and deaths occurred. She studied all printed matter on nursing that she could and took a correspondence course from a Chicago School of Nursing which enabled her to get a certificate of Nursing from Helena. She was called on with more frequency as time went on, to nurse the ill.
  Nick became ill and Rachel nursed him as best she could. Finally their son, Bill, took him to Roundup and put him on a train for Minneapolis. He never returned. He died a week later in Rochester in 1926.
  Many people left the area. The post office closed. Forbes Leslie helped out by furnishing meat and potatoes. Florence's husband cut firewood from fences and sheds. The remaining cattle were sold in the spring of 1927. All that remained after 20 years of ranching were some clothes, an old trunk and a few coins.
  Rachel went to work at the N-Bar as chief cook. Margaret accompanied her. They remained there for four years.
  When Margaret reached high school age they moved into Grass Range and Rachel boarded teachers and students and practiced nursing.
  Following Margaret's marriage to Robert Noonan after her graduation, Rachel moved back to Lewistown and worked as a hotel maid and then she catered dinners for prominent citizens.
  Eventually Rachel met and married Clarence Turner. They enjoyed traveling and she had a happy reunion with her aunt Alice at Thompson Falls. Turner died in 1947 and Rachel returned to nursing and worked at the hospital with Drs. Welden, Wilder and Saltero.
  In June of 1949 she married Robert Greeves. Rachel passed away on February 14, 1967, thus ending a long and eventful life.

PHOTO-DESCRIPTION

• Olaf and Hannah Eike