The Carlisle goal: “Kill the Indian, save the man.”

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In the 1890s, when Zanna Olive Grove (Sanda Olivia Grof) was in her 20s, she worked for a few years at the Willow Creek Boarding School on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation west of Browning in northern Montana. In the wedding announcement that was printed in the newspaper in Fairfield, Iowa, where she grew up, she is said to have been a teacher. That seems not to have been exactly true. According to Annual report of the Department of the Interior she was a laundress in 1895. In the Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs in 1896 she’s an assistant matron. She was paid $480 a year as a laundress and $500 as an assistant matron. There are also records that show that Olive claimed land under her married name, Olive Trommer, close to the Blackfeet reservation.

Supposedly (we can’t be certain, I found the photo online) a 1898 photo of Old Willow Creek Indian School, west of Browning, Montana. Students and teacher in classroom.

“Indian” boarding schools aimed to assimilate Native American children into mainstream American culture. There were many such schools across the country. The image below is from the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania.

The students of the Carlisle Indian School are amassed on the grounds of the school in March of 1892. (Photo by John N. Choate/Provided by Cumberland County Historical Society Photo Archives)

From a WHYY story:

The remains of about 180 children are buried on the grounds of the former Carlisle Indian Industrial School in central Pennsylvania — which was created to assimilate native children into white culture. 

Some of those bodies are now being reclaimed by families, and given proper burials.

From a Philadelphia Inquirer story:

/…/ from 1879 to 1918, [Carlisle] was home to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, the flagship of a fleet of federally funded, off-reservation boarding schools. It immersed native children in the dominant white culture, seeking to cleanse their “savage nature” by erasing their names, language, dress, customs, religions, and family ties.

The Carlisle goal: “Kill the Indian, save the man.”

Tom Torlino, who was Navajo, as he entered the school in 1882 (left), and how he appeared three years later. (From the Philadelphia Inquirer story.)

The European whiteness, and the European Christianity, that my family members brought with them from 1800s Sweden had no problem uprooting children, scrub or beat their culture out of them, and make them white.

I knew it, but I wasn’t prepared for it to hit so close to home. Which is, of course, just another consequence of the white privilege I enjoy.

Anna E. Grove

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An unmarked newspaper clipping:

Miss Anna E. GROVE was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. A. G. GROVE, and was born in Jefferson county, near Lockridge, Ia., February 4, 1877. Here she grew to womanhood and here too she spent practically all of her life in an unselfish service and in caring for others. She gave at least twenty-five years in an unstinting way for the care of those whom she loved. First, she cared for her mother, and then upon death of her oldest sister, Mrs. Olive GROVE TROMMER, she cared for her five motherless children, the youngest of whom was but three weeks old at the time of the mother’s death. 

Three years ago she left Iowa and moved to Colome, S. D. where she resided until a few months ago when because of ill health she gave up her home and continued to live with her sister in the same village. Here she died on Friday afternoon at five o’clock, December 4, 1931, aged 54 years and ten months. 

She was a life-long member of the Lutheran church, the church of her parents, having been confirmed in the Lutheran faith at the age of 14. 

She was preceded in death by her parents, one sister Mrs. Olive GROVE TROMMER, two brothers, Charles and Joe GROVE. 

The following sisters and brothers remain to mourn her death: Mrs. Hannah DAVIS, of Colorado Springs, Colo., Mrs. Esther BRESLEY, Colome, S. D., William Axel, Ellmer and Ray of Fairfield, and Dr. E. G. GROVE, of Boone, Ia. 

Interment was December 7th, in Evergreen cemetery, at Fairfield. 

Anna was my grandfather’s first cousin. Her parents and older siblings had emigrated from Skaraborg, Sweden in 1870.

Haunted House

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Dutch Ed, the northern Montana pioneer, seems not to have recovered from his wife Olive’s death. The five children were raised by Olive’s parents and siblings in Iowa, and didn’t have much contact with their father. Ed took to gambling and drinking.

There are claims that the house he built for Olive became haunted. Footsteps were heard from upstairs, doors blew open, and sheepherders were said the have disappeared.

Dutch Ed’s second wife left him. He died in 1945.

Olive and Ed’s second daughter, Helen, lived until 1999. She died in Santa Ana, Calif. and was buried alongside her younger brother Jack who died there in 1995.

Death of Dutch Ed, pioneer

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Liberty County Times (MT), 15 Mar 1945:
Funeral services were held on Wednesday of this week for John E. (Dutch Ed) Trommer, old-time settler of this section of the country. Trommer passed away Friday evening after only a very short illness, although his health has been failing for a number of years.
He was born in Colberg, Germany in April of 1859 and came to the United States as a young man, shortly after the Northern Pacific started their railway westward. He had been in Montana for 65 years. Among the first jobs he held after leaving the employ of the Northern Pacific was freight-boss on a freighting string from Fort Benton to Fort Browning.
Later he married a woman that had come to Montana to teach school. She was employed at the schools in Browning. After their marriage they came to the Lothair district and he settled there to make his home and operate a ranch. At the time the land was opened to homesteading he was operating a successful horse ranch north of Lothair. By squatter rights he obtained a homestead and has remained on it the rest of his life.
The most of his family has been gone from this country for considerable time. It is known that he had five children, 2 boys and 3 girls. One of the boys has been in Panama for a number of years. The whereabouts of the rest is not certain.
Interment was made in the local cemetery following services in the local Methodist Church.

PS. The “Dutch” part of Ed’s nickname came from the English miss-translation of the German word for ‘German’, Deutsch. So, the Pennsylvania Dutch are really of German descent.

Married: Aug. 29, 1898

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Fairfield (IA) Ledger, Page 3, Column 8:
Trommer-Grove. Married, at the residence of the bride’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Grove, six miles east of this city, Monday evening, August 29th, by Rev. Wm. J. Funkey of Fairfield Lutheran church, Mr. John E Trommer, of Chester, Montana, and Miss Zana Olive Grove.
The nuptial tie that made of twain one, was made at 8 p.m., in the presence of thirty-five or forty friends. After the ceremony and abundant and delicious [meal] was served, and several hours were spent in a pleasant, social good time.
A little after 12 o’clock, the bride and groom started for Fairfield, escorted by a large number of the guest, to take the train at 2 a.m. for the west. They expect to spend a day in Minneapolis and reach their home in Chester, Montana Friday or Saturday.
The bride is well and favorably know in and around Fairfield. She has been serving very acceptably as teacher in the Willow Creek Boarding school of Blackfeet Agency for the last six years. The groom evidently is a genial gentleman and successful business man. For several years past he has been engaged in stock raising and and owns a large ranch near Chester, Mon.
The many friends here of the bride and her excellent family will join in hearty congratulations, wishing them a long and happy life together. Besides several friends from Fairfield, there were present from abroad Miss Emella Bredline, Chicago, Miss Mary Nelson, Lockridge, Mr. and Mrs. Tall, Rome, and Mr. and Mrs. Wm. Grove, Stockport.

Mrs. Trommer has gone to her Heavenly home

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Sandra Olivia was born on November 4th, 1868, in Marka, Skaraborg, Sweden. She was the fourth child and the first daughter of Anders and Maja Christina Grov. When she was about a year and a half, in the summer of 1870, her family emigrated to Jefferson County, Iowa.

In the 1890s, when Zanna Olive Groves was in her 20s, she worked for a few years at the Willow Creek Boarding School on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation west of Browning in northern Montana.

In Montana she met John Edward “Dutch Ed” Trommer, a German immigrant who had come west working on the Northern Pacific Railroad. Olive and Ed married on August 29, 1898, and filed claims for land close to Chester, Montana. They became sheep ranchers and quite successful.

In the fall of 1905 Olive was visiting her parents in Iowa, giving birth to her fifth child. From the Fort Benton River Press, Nov. 29, 1905:

From the Fairfield Daily Journal, Nov. 25, 1905:
“…. This community was shocked Monday evening to hear that Mrs. Ollie Trammer was dead. She had come from her home in Montana with her husband and children two months ago to visit her parents, Mr. and Mrs. A. G. GROVE. The husband had gone back and Mrs. TRAMMER and children remained. A little babe was born three weeks ago and the mother was apparently on the road to recovery. Monday she was bright and hopeful all day, planning when she would be able to return to her Montana home, but about six o’clock she was stricken with heart failure and in half an hour she had gone to her Heavenly home. Messages were sent to the husband and to a brother and sister in Colorado. The deepest sympathy of the entire community goes out to the bereaved husband and parents and to those who cared for her so faithfully and to the five little ones who so much need a mother’s care.”

Maria Christina/Mary C.

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Cedar Township, right outside of Fairfield in Jefferson Co., Iowa, is where Johanna’s older sister Maja Christina ended up with her family. Maja, b. 1842, had married Anders Gustaf Grof in 1860. In 1870 they left Sweden for the US with their four children.

Cedar Township, Jefferson Co., Iowa, 1905.

The old map shows 140 acres belonging to A. G. Groves. That’s Maja’s husband, Anders Gustaf. Grof has turned into Grove, or Groves. A little to the west of their property there are 103 acres belonging to Elmer Grove. That’s their son, born in 1874 in Lockridge, Jefferson Co. There are also 100 acres belonging to C. J. Groves. That’s their son Karl Johan, or Charles John. And, there are 40 acres belonging to Groves & Groves. Father and son? Or two sons?

Maja and Anders, or Mary and Andrew, had 12 children. Eight boys and four girls. Many of them continued to farm. All of them were given Swedish first names, but as grown-ups they used American versions of those names.