B.B. “Boen” DeLay

**B.B. DeLay, Son-in-Law Ed Covey and son Walt DeLay about 1920**

Boen DeLay walked into his Homestead on the Missouri River. He and his cousins John and Jay Cochran had come to Miles City in 1912 but found no desirable land available. They decided to look farther north. John said, “If we go anywhere else, we’ll have to walk.” Boen replied, “I will if you will!” The two gathered their few necessities in light packs and hiked away. We don’t know whether they were able to find people to give them a meal or shelter now and then.

They arrived in good shape at the river where they filed on land side-by-side. There was much to do in the line of clearing and building before the DeLay family could come. When Mrs. DeLay and the four children came in 1914 they were fields cleared and a house almost built. It lacked a roof to top the log walls, a floor and a cookstove. Would you believe that anyone could make out about a year with an airtight heater for cooking? Must have been sort of limited meals unable to make bread the cook would fry dough gobs in that. These little hunks of light bread fried like donuts are delicious with butter and sugar but to make them every meal of every day?

The roof went on quickly but the floor had to wait a while. I always think of a dirt floor as having such hazards as a bunch of cactus sprouting under the stove or a gopher excavating a home under the word box. Nothing like that happened though and it wasn’t as hard to keep clean as you think.

The children were Belle, who married Ed Covey maybe because they were both musicians, Leona who is Mrs. Thill, Walter, who died some years ago, and Floyd who lives in Mesa, Arizona and came to visit a few weeks ago and told us a lot about his folk’s early days in Montana. Some near neighbors were Pinters (another family than the Pointers further up the river) Payants and MacLain’s.

Later Mrs. DeLay homesteaded back from the river. Her neighbors were the Hellands. Cochran sold his homestead to Mr. DeLay and moved on.

The principal crop in the place was alfalfa. It didn’t take too much to winter a herd in the brush on the river bottom so they had plenty to sell. Some sheepmen who ran up on the bench bought hay from DeLays year after year. The years that the second cutting of alfalfa produced a seed crop were red letter ones. According to Mrs. Walt Wittmayer, everyone paid all his debts, bought a new car and waited for the next seed year. A record that still may stand was made when the DeLay outfit shipped a whole carload of seed from their land.

The cattle grazed up on the benches (free range at that time) because of the direction of the river ran and the prevailing wind the first storm of the winter usually drifted the cattle right into their home grass where they wintered comfortably in the shelter of the trees. Sometimes during a very cold winter huge long horned steers came in from some remote coulee and competed with the tame cattle for feed.

The family got acquainted with some of the old trail rider‘s, part of the outfits that trailed the herd from Texas. They were Ernest Pearson , Frank Kinkaid and a character named Billious Bill. One day both Frank and Ernest rode into DeLays and spent the evening showing the boys how to tie useful knots in rawhide. Floyd said to himself, “Remember this, it may be the last time these find old gentleman get together.

The people who lived nearby were the best neighbors in the world, Floyd declared. They helped each other work and had wonderful times together at dances where Mr. and Mrs. Covey furnished the music along with our old friends Cliff and Lucy Doke. The whole country came to school affairs and brought plenty of lunch so they could spend most of the night visiting.

Leona’s children are Mrs. Merrill (Belle) Wilson who is employed at the First National Bank and resides in Fort Peck and DeLay Stockton to this day call “Dee” for short. They spent a good deal of time with their grandparents on the river. Belle had lived in Wichita Falls and thought Glasgow couldn’t even be called a town. Once it was over a year between trips to town for her. People didn’t care to make the journey very often behind a pair of oxen which was the only means of transportation DeLays had at first. Neighbors were very obliging about bringing mail and supplies and besides there was so much interesting work and fun right at home.

It was an ideal place for picnics with green meadows, large shade trees and wonderful cooks with the best of materials to work with. They had many picnics. Fishing parties were usually successful with everyone catching and eating all they could possibly want. Belle remembers a fishing expedition with her brother and grandmother best. The children had been warned never to go near the high bank of the river’s edge because of the water undercut, which left the top unsupported and easily broken off. The children heard an unusually loud splash. Frantic glances failed to locate the grandmother so they were sure she had fallen in. Little Bell was consoling smaller Dee, “Even if Grammy is lost, I know the way home.” But Granny was just out of sight behind a tree. She knew all about the dangerous banks.

Another memory is of a steamboat going by. The minute they heard the whistle the children hiked down to the place where they could see the boat through the opening in the trees.

Belle and Dee were with their grandmother one day when they came upon a man down on the ground, blood running from a wound in his shoulder. He needed help but Mrs. DeLay thought it must be a job for men not an old lady with two frightened kids. She whipped the horse toward home in record time.

Floyd remembers trying to teach Dee and Harold Helland to swim and dive. They learned to keep afloat and not to dive like a falling tree.

Dee said that he would rather ride a horse then go to school or to town or anything else you could think of. They all encouraged Dee to stick to it, never let any horse get the better of him. Dee became a very good cowboy and earned fame as a rodeo rider in saddle bronc. He rode by balance and knew in his bones what the horse was going to do next.

Floyd said some of his most precious memories were those early days in the best place in the world to live with the best people on earth for neighbors.

The above article was originally printed in The Glasgow Courier on September 14, 1967. It was also Published in the book, Pioneers Gone But Not Forgotten: Memories of Valley County, written and compiled by Wib an Sue Dolson in the 1970’s.

B.B DeLay and his extended family homesteaded on the Missouri River in the Lismas/Ninth Point area. Fort Peck Lake now covers the original homesteads. The DeLays, Cochrans, Leona (DeLay) Stockton, Coveys and Pointers were all related. They came from Oklahoma in 1912-1914. The DeLays were originally from Appanoose County, Iowa. The DeLay name is French and was originally spelled DeLaye. Claude DeLay Stockton’s nickname is usually spelled De.