By 1939, Butte was no longer the roaring “Richest Hill on Earth” of earlier decades when his parents met and married, but it was not broken either. The worst years of the Great Depression had begun to ease. Federal programs had accomplished what was intended—roads improved, forests replanted and people had been put to work. The mines of Butte, though quieter, were still being churning out the metal of industry. Copper remained the backbone of Butte, and as demand slowly stirred again, so did the town.
Yet even as life steadied at home, the wider world was slipping into horror. In Europe, Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland in September of that year ignited a new war, drawing Britain and France into what would become World War II. Farther east, conflict had already been burning for years. Since 1937, Japan’s invasion of China—marked by brutal campaigns such as the Nanjing Massacre—had spread devastation across the Chinese mainland in what is known as the Second Sino-Japanese War. These events were distant from Butte’s streets, but not entirely removed. News traveled by paper and radio, and men who had known one war not long before were beginning to sense another on the horizon.
Reminiscences
By Lois Callahan Aaron Martell
When Ross and I showed up in Butte, Mom, Dad, and the boys were living in a rooming house, so we took a room across the hall. I was pregnant with my fourth child and couldn’t even scrape together a dollar to see a doctor. Finally I walked eight or ten blocks to the Catholic hospital and asked if they would allow me to work off my hospital bill after the baby was born.
An elderly nun listened to my story and took my hand. “Little mother,” she said, “you already have a job—three children who need you. When the time comes, our doors will be open.”
That kindness meant everything. After the long walk home I collapsed with severe pain. Mom summoned a doctor, who dismissed it as false labor. Later that night I woke lying in a pool of blood.
The ambulance drivers argued with Ross about payment until my father promised them a week’s wages.
At the hospital doctors prepared me for an emergency cesarean. They told Ross the baby would likely be stillborn and that I might not survive either. I wasn’t Catholic, but a nun came to administer last rites. The doctor told me the baby was already dead.
But I felt it move. I prayed, "God, let it move again." And suddenly—kick, kick, kick. My baby was alive. Lorne William was born December 3, 1939—perfectly healthy.
I wasn’t so fortunate. After a month in the hospital I was finally released to weeks of bed rest at home.
Life in Butte
By Earl Edward Callahan
Moving back to Montana was hard on me. In California I had been doing well in school and even played football. In Butte only the bigger boys made the team.
Soon after that disappointment, a teacher embarrassed me in front of the class for not having a pencil. We were so broke there wasn’t any money for school supplies—not even a pencil. I walked out of school that day and never returned.
A one-armed Dutchman named Clyde Larsen and I partnered up and leased a magnesium mine above Meterville. I was about sixteen. The day I turned seventeen I began working in the Butte copper mines. You went underground before the sun rose and came out after dark. I rarely saw daylight and hated the mines. The copper water took the skin off my feet and ankles, but the pay was steady and Mom and Dad needed a hand—gone were Dad’s days of working long shifts. I worked there only until the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.
