A life 'From Homestead Days to the Computer Age'

A Kalispell woman began writing pieces of her experiences on scrap paper and typewriters. The notes turned into the story of her life, which she finished in time for her 94th birthday, which she celebrated earlier this month..

Doris Hall mailed 23 copies of her book, “From Homestead Days to the Computer Age” to family members around the nation.

Hall said she didn’t write the book because she felt like she had something urgent to share with the world; she just wanted her family to know what life was like from the 1920s into today.

“There’s really nothing special that happened in my life, other than technology becoming a thing, terrorism and stuff like that,” she said. “Oh, and people found Montana.”

The stories within the book described growing up on a ranch with neighbors out of reach in winter, seeing a plane for the first time as she played in the woods, finding her version of God in adulthood and raising a family in Montana as strangers from places like California and Canada moved to town.

She never meant for anyone to find out about the pages that outlined her life. But once the book was completed, she kept finding emails in her mailbox from people asking for a copy.

The book opens with things that shared her birthday, March 11, 1922: Reader’s Digest began publication, the first backup light on a vehicle was installed in Chicago, and police arrested swimmers for indecent exposure — they showed their arms and legs in public.

Before Hall wrote her book, she gathered letters she had written for years, some written by hand, others in a typewriter’s script and lastly on a computer.

One of her sons, Doug Hall, said as he read the book with his kids from their home in Alaska, they learned pieces of his mother’s life he never expected.

He read about the time Hall dated airmen who were training for World War II and were stationed in Lewistown. She wrote about how she almost fell in love with one airman through letters they exchanged while he was stationed in Europe — it was what Uncle Sam instructed young women to do, she wrote.

“We got to know her dreams, from childhood to being with our father,” Doug said. “She had dreams of being a writer and grew up writing tales by a river. But she was raised in the days of mothers and wives. As a rancher’s daughter, she never got to fulfill those dreams.”

She described moving to the Flathead Valley with her husband and helping create the Whitefish ski slopes on Big Mountain, now known as Whitefish Mountain Resort. She also raised a family. Another one of Hall’s sons, Gary, is a former Flathead County commissioner.

Some notes that Doris wrote are brief, such as the description of the price of food and stationery. Others, like the day her husband broke his leg skiing and never walked the same, are longer.

Hall wrote about consistently wearing the title of mother, but with her job descriptions changing after each move the family made — such as working on a friend’s farm to opening a family gear business and eventually having the first hydraulic backhoes in the valley.

“People talk about how old people never change, but this amazing woman has started over, over and over again,” Doug said. “I just feel so grateful to have these stories and pieces of history, for history’s record, myself, my children and those who come after.”

Reporter Katheryn Houghton may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at khoughton@dailyinterlake.com.