MONTANA COWBOY HALL OF FAME INDUCTEE 2014
Jay Frederick Nelson (1923-2016)
Jay Frederick Nelson was born in Butte, Montana, July 3, 1923, to Fred L. and Margaret (Woolaghan) Nelson of the Big Hole Valley in southwestern Montana. Margaret’s father was an Irish Miner in Butte who died of “miners’ lung” in 1907, leaving her mother with four daughters to raise on her own. She cooked for the hired men at the Marcus Daly Mansion in Hamilton to earn a living. Fred’s father, Soren P. Nelson, was a Danish immigrant who walked into the valley with a quarter to his name but soon filed on a homestead when he could qualify. Later, he bought several other homesteads and raised Hereford cattle. Soren married Lena Hirschy in 1899 and they raised three children, Fred, Stella, and Isabel. The original barn on their home place was built around 1907 and still stands today, looking much like it did back then. They lived in the cow barn while the two- story home was being built.
Jay was the oldest of three sons, John Thomas and William Peter. Jay’s early job was milking the cow, feeding the chickens and helping his dad make the family cheese. Jay and his brothers spent the summers riding horses all over the mountains on the west side of the valley and would camp out days at a time, cooking over a campfire. They knew every lake and creek and climbed many of the mountains during their childhood.
Haying was done with horses and the teams were changed at noon so they had a considerable horse herd. Jay always liked mowing; he was soon the lead mower and put up hay for over 70 years before he gave it up. The beaverslide hay stacker had been invented in the valley in 1910 by Dade Stephens and Herb Armitage. The stacker was used to build 20-ton haystacks that fed the cattle in the winter.
Jay trailed cattle for Fred to the railroad at Armstead from the time he could ride. He and his brothers rode horses to school, with the exception of bad winter days when they rode in a covered sleigh built by Fred. Many days, the brothers trapped along the way and arriving at the Jackson school with skins on their saddles to the dismay of their teacher.
In 1941, Jay married Jean Renz of Dillon and they raised six children - Jenny, Ruthie, Sherry, Kathy, Mary and Bob. In 1943, Jay joined the U.S. Army and was sent to train in Texas. He shipped overseas in 1944 and landed in England, and then to France. He spent the winter in Belgium near the German border. Jay was a member of the 99th Division and one of the last to cross the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen before it was blown up. It was here he was wounded on March 13, 1945, and flown to England to recover. He finished his recovery in Texas and came home for good in November, hitchhiking to Dillon where he called his folks and Jean and was met with thankful hearts.
Jay spent most of his 90+ years in the Big Hole Valley where he built beaver slides, barns, homes and whatever else ranchers needed to keep the cattle moving in and out of the valley. He built the family home in Jackson in 1950. Jay logged all the material and cut it at Fred's sawmill on the ranch and used his GI monthly income to pay for it.
He has built over 50 beaverslides for ranchers and has built seve scale models for area museums- Beaverhead County Museum, Granite County Museum and Grant-Kohrs National Park in Deer Lodge. For more than 20 years he took his beaverslide and two-pole derrick to Bannack Days at Bannack to demonstrate how they work and are used. He loved having the children do the demonstrating. Jay served on the school board, fire department, sewer and water board, and spent 41 years as a REA director of the Vigilante Electric in Dillon, taking over for his father. In 2013 he was honored for having served 56 years as the Post 9040 VFW Commander. In the Montana Centennial Cattle Drive, he and Jean gathered up all the family pioneer clothing and headed out in a covered wagon to celebrate Montana’s 100 years. Their wagon was one of three chosen to represent the trip when they reached Billings.
Jay wrote two books about his life in the valley- A Scrapbook From the Big Hole and Big Hole Memories. Family reunions are held every five years with about 100 family members camping at Miner Lake where most of the swimming, rafting, hiking, snipe hunting, storytelling, and fishing has been a family pastime for over 100 years.
Jean passed away in 1997, after 56 years of marriage. Jay passed in 2016.