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A Way West, R. P. McAlister Family History and Genealogy, encompasses the history and genealogy of eight families: Brittain, Gibbs, Humble, Keller, McAlister, Perkins, Powers and Steinmetz. These are ancestral links to Raymond Powers McAlister (Ray) and Minnie Gay Humble McAlister (Gay). As a child, I was told stories of connections to passage on the Mayflower, and roles ancestors played in the American Revolutionary War.
I learned how a great-grandfather fought in the American Civil War, survived and was left with a disabled hand. A different ancestor also served and kept a journal. My mother let me handle that leather bound diary and the eyeglasses the soldier had worn. A grandfather, an architect, would draw ink drawings for me with his palsied hand. I did not know he was an icon, an architect to the film stars of the early twentieth century, a man who held a distinguished place in Montana and Wyoming history.
His wife came West by covered wagon to homestead. Her job as a five-year-old child on that journey was to gather dried 'buffalo chips, ' bison dung, which the family burned for their campfires since the plains offered no wood. These are the stories handed down to me. Now I share them with you.
