Livingston Weekly

Firehouse Five Young Actors Workshop

 I should state my biases up front: I do not think it is possible to hear the Oompa-Loompa songs too many times. Having read and loved the Roald Dahl book “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” since childhood, I think the images of its candy wonderland and perfectly eccentric characters translate wonderfully as a musical.  

Singing and dancing their way through Wonka’s magical fortress, the characters seem perfectly believable in their sugary Utopia, chiming their moral lessons, using as foils the degenerate caricatures of petulant brat Veruca Salt, electronics-obsessed Mike Teevee, gum-chewing 

blabbermouth Violet Beauregard, and the over-indulgent Augustus Gloop. Charlie Bucket alone exemplifies a young person with the self-discipline,  integrity, and selflessness to inhabit the world as Master of Ceremonies and candy factory owner Willy Wonka would have it exist: without hypocrisy, dishonesty, greed or selfishness. 

So, upon hearing the Firehouse 5 Children’s Theatre Workshop would be  performing “Willy Wonka” this season, I jumped to register my children, ages nine and seven, who love everything Roald Dahl has ever written. I assume the reader will understand my ecstatic glee on the first night, returning to find my nine-year-old son intently rehearsing choreography with his gifted and enthusiastic instructors Sarah Kelly and Tonya Andrews: two-on-one with him concentrating hard, singing verses over and over while demonstrating the dance—three of them “Oompa-Loompa-ing” across the stage. 

It was an image I will not forget, a glimpse for me of the dedication of the staff of the workshop as well as the diligence they inspire in their students.  It is also one of the most endearing things in the whole world to see a child, especially your own, doing the Oompa-Loompa dance. 

As I observed from the inside, the level of professionalism and coordination the Firehouse staff of eight or nine is able to achieve is nothing less than staggering.  The mere ability to keep nearly 70 children aged five to 18 years old both attentive and also from slamming into each other on stage is a feat in itself, but the workshop accomplishes much more. The working space the staff and participants create is a fun and safe one of exploration where inhibitions drop and the creative energy of each performer can be freed.

The lessons of theatre performance are one layer of the experience of the workshop—the vocal scales, tongue-twisters, limbering-up exercises, blocking, singing, lines and choreography—all are part of the learning experience of performing arts. 

For my children, and for many with whom I spoke, the lessons extend well 

into the social and interpersonal lives of these participants, and in that aspect especially, our community has an important resource for our often insular, disengaged young people. 

The students’ commitment to each other to create the whole that is more than the sum of its parts is just one community-building piece of the experience. Follow-through and discipline are often more readily learned in just such an atmosphere of both mutual responsibility and support as these workshops create. 

Performer Alex Armstrong has been participating in the workshop for years and can’t count the number of performances he’s played. As a Park High junior, he might seem out of place amongst the other young actors, but “loves working with kids” and even in this group ranging over 13 years in age, the camaraderie in their shared project onstage is evident. 

Workshop instructor Sarah Kelly is another example of the full circle of 

community theatre in Livingston. “Since I’ve been in the program since it started, I get to see the kids grow,” she says of the evolution of the young performers she now teaches. She has performed in local workshops since she was seven, and says she “loves getting to be around all the people who inspired me to do theatre.” As a sophomore at the University of Montana’s School of Theatre and Dance with an emphasis in Acting, her experiences with Firehouse 5 have shaped her career choice, and she now returns to help with the workshops along with the crew who once taught her in “Annie,” among many other plays. 

“Willy Wonka” opened Friday, January 21, 2010 at the Firehouse 5 Theatre in Livingston with performances through the weekend of Saturday, January 22, 2010.

To support Crazy Mountain Productions/Firehouse 5’s ongoing capital 

campaign to develop the East Side School building as a performing arts center in Livingston and continue the great work of this group in the Livingston community, visit http://www.crazymountainproductions.org/ and follow the links to donate or to learn more, or call 222-1420. 

—Jen Eames

  

New Issue Now on Stands

Check out a special print edition of the locally-produced online arts journal http://hoboeye.com/.  

The Historic Whithorn Collection

 After over two years of painstaking cataloging of thousands of images, the Yellowstone Gateway Museum now houses a permanent collection of digitally archived photographs originally compiled by Bill and Doris Whithorn.  The Whithorns—Bill as the photographer or photo archivist, and Doris as the chronicler—wrote and published over 20 books on area history, placing them among Livingston’s most unique creative artists, and presented here is a picture of their work looking back at “educational” shots of the area’s past. 

The Whithorn’s photographic records—along with oral and written histories, negatives and video—were donated to the Yellowstone Gateway Museum by the Whithorn’s daughters Alta and Carol in the fall of 2006.  The consequential archiving of the Whithorn photos at the Museum has been no easy task.  The Museum acquired grants to help fund the manpower necessary for the job and along with the trained technicians working to individually scan, catalog, and file each photo in the collection, over 25 volunteers also donated their time and energy to the project, all in the name of preserving Park County history.

By continuing to print selections from the Whithorn collection during the archival process over the past two years, the Current hopes to enlighten locals and visitors alike to the phenomenal heritage of this area.  In the case of this issue, the selection of images chronicles area education over the years, from student bands to one-room schoolrooms.  We do hope that these visions from the past give readers a perspective on the beginnings of this community and inspire an interest in the historical culture of Livingston as well as an interest in the world-class exhibits maintained by the Yellowstone Gateway Museum.

Currently, the Museum is seeking funds to help make the Whithorn collection more accessible to the public through the Doris Whithorn Outreach Program, an effort that includes a fully searchable online database of the images.  For more information about the program, or the 10,000-plus images of the Whithorn collection, contact Jon Watson at the Museum at 222-4184 or see Watson’s note on the online collection at the end of this feature.

We invite our readers take a trip back through time to the days of the area’s beginnings, and enjoy a perspective on the past.  The following notable shots picked by the museum staff are only a hint of what will be preserved for future generations. 

On the Cover: Print, photographic, Shown here is A.W.T. Anderson and the Chico school on April 13, 1897 , An Enterprise item on December 25, 1897, (yes, the local paper did publish on Christmas Day) read: ”Chico School will open again with Mrs. Vesta P. Walker as teacher.” Anderson taught only one year. He became storekeeper and postmaster in Emigrant, a job he held until 1941. August Anderson was always called A.W.T.

Last Day of School

 Although school attendance periods were instituted as summer terms only, nine-month school years were common by 1910. They ended in May with proper last day ceremony - picnic and program, such as that shown here at Porcupine School in 1915. Esther Rahtage was the teacher that year.

Mill Creek School

 The first schools were supported by voluntary subscription and were only a temporary solution to one of the problems of pioneer life. Tax-supported institutions of learning were much more practical, even if they served only one family, as did the school attended by Walter, Rodger, and Ollie Williams (VanAken) in 1900.

Aldridge School, 1902

 With a two-room school until the fall of 1904, this pictures the “Little Room”, which Mary Jane Davies taught for seven years. A third room was added just as the miners went out on the long, long strike. Even with the workmen out for nearly a year, over 100 pupils stayed registered in school.
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The Whithorn Collection Online

The Yellowstone Gateway Museum has recently passed the two year mark since starting the process of the organization, preservation, and accessioning of the Bill and Doris Whithorn Collection.

With the help of a team of volunteers, the archiving team has made tremendous strides in the organization and cataloging of the collection, and providing outreach programs. Currently, all 7,361 images have been digitized and properly stored within the Yellowstone Gateway Museum. 

In early November Museum Board of Trustees gave approval to provide access to the collection by way of the internet.  Making available public access to this collection was seen as a priority, and an essential step in providing research and educational use for researchers and the general public.  

We were very proud to announce the unveiling of this website last month at the Whithorn Christmas Photo Show by Park Photography. The website address for the collection is http://yellowstone.pastperfect-online.com

The website, which currently contains 3,300 images, can be accessed by anyone in the world interested in Park County or southwest Montana history.  Visitors to the website can perform keyword searches which allow users to instantly pull up photos on a particular place, family name, or subject within the collection.

If one wants to generally browse through the collection, the “Random Images” function allows "clicking" through pages of digitized photographs.  Other functions of the site include the “Send Feedback” and “Order Image” buttons.  The feedback option allows the user to send a comment or addition to the description of the photograph by filling out an informational form which will be emailed and reviewed by a technician at the museum.  The image ordering function facilitates the ordering a digital JPEG print from the museum at a cost of $25 each. All proceeds helps support the continued development of the Whithorn Project.       

In the upcoming months the staff at the museum will upload an additional 4,000 new images on the Whithorn Online Database and in time, with the help of additional financial support, other materials such as audio interviews, research documents, and informational videos will be uploaded and added to the search capabilities of the site.

One of the key aspects of the mission of the Yellowstone Gateway Museum is to promote educational resources relating to the history of Park County.  Continued support of the development and management of our collections will help us to fulfill this mission.  With this support we will be able to keep these valuable collections accessible to people throughout the world.  

Support the efforts of the museum by either purchasing photographs from our website or donating to our fund raising branch: The Friends of the Yellowstone Gateway Museum at P.O. Box 815, Livingston, MT 59047.

We sincerely thank you for your part in preserving Park County’s past for generations to come.

Jon Watson

Museum Technician

Yellowstone Gateway Museum 

The Wan-I-Gan and the Wan-I-Gan Press

 In the late 1920s, the Wan-I-Gan store was built on East River Road about midway between Livingston and Gardiner.  In the Ojibwa language, a “wanigan” refers to a trunk or chest used for storing supplies.  Besides selling tourist supplies and gasoline, the Wan-I-Gan had 12 cabins for fishermen, hunters, construction crews and overflow patients from Dr. Townsend’s small hospital at nearby Chico Hot Springs.  It also served as a café, diner, general store and a delivery place for hard rock miners awaiting equipment.

The Whithorn family bought the Wan-I-Gan in 1948.  At the time, Bill and Doris and their children were on the move from Billings and they were looking for a new home.

Doris once related the story of one holiday weekend prior to purchasing the Wan-I-Gan when she and Bill parked their car at some discreet distance and watched for hours to get an idea of how much business the place was generating.   It was very busy that particular weekend and they ended up buying the store, but Doris later confessed that business never seemed to be as brisk as during their test survey.

It was at the Wan-I-Gan that Doris began to collect stories from the residents of the Paradise Valley, and to research them in the newspaper files at the Livingston Park County Public Library.

Bill also became an expert photographer as he made copies of photographs supplied by neighbors and friends.  In 1965, through collaboration with Fred Martin of the Park County News, the Whithorns began to publish a series of some twenty local photo history books.

The Whithorns ran the Wan-I-Gan until 1976, when they moved to Livingston.  In Livingston they were part of a group that established the Yellowstone Gateway Museum on Chinook Street.

In 2005, the Friends of the Yellowstone Gateway Museum, a nonprofit group, purchased all of the Whithorn books and copyrights from the Whithorn family.

After raising funds from the community, the Friends hoped after the purchase of the copyrights they would have a hefty monetary surplus.  The surplus funds, together with income from annual book sales, would allow the republishing of out-of-print books, and publish similar new titles. 

The Friends named their small publishing house the Wan-I-Gan Press after the place where the work all began.  Although the fund raising surplus was not so hefty, the Friends did manage to print, reprint or publish the following four books:

“Life and Adventures of Calamity Jane,” by Herself.  (1896, reprinted 2005); “Yankee Jim’s National Park Toll Road and the Yellowstone Trail”  (1989, reprinted 2006); “Pics & Quotes of Yellowstone” (1972, reprinted 2009); and “A is for Aldridge, An Index for the Whithorn Books” by Richard J. Dysart, (published 2009).

This last volume is a list of over 12,000 names from all twenty of the Whithorn books.  When used in conjunction with the new Whithorn Online Database created by Jon Watson, readers will be able to locate many, many people and places throughout Park County, Montana.

The Wan-I-Gan Press hopes to reprint one or more out-of-print Whithorn titles each year.  Five titles are currently out-of-print: “Montana in the Good Old Days, No. 1”, “Photo History of Chico Lodge”, “Photo History of Aldridge: Coal Camp That Died A-bornin’”, “Photo History from Yellowstone Park”, and “Montana in the Good Old Days, No. 2.”

For more information about the Whithorns, the Friends of the Yellowstone Museum or the Whithorn collection, contact the Gateway Museum at 222-4184. 

—Dick Dysart