From age four to ten, my family lived in Billings, Montana. My two youngest brothers were born while we lived there. My love for storytelling started there. After a big snowstorm, my oldest brother and I went under the back porch and picked up the lint from the dryer vent that lay on the snow. We used twigs and the lint to make people, and we made up stories. When I was in second grade, I wrote and performed a play with friends that was pretty much seat of the pants. That’s the way I still write my books.
Although it has been decades since I lived in Montana, I have vivid memories of that time. The first house we lived in had no indoor plumbing when we moved in, so we had to go to the outhouse. I’m sure the weeds alongside the path that led to the outhouse weren’t six feet tall, but they sure seemed like it to my four-year-old self. We took baths in a big steel tub with water heated on an old black stove. Not long after we moved in my dad added another bedroom and a bathroom to the house, then built another house on the adjoining acreage, and we moved into that house soon afterward. My good friend Connie moved into the house next door. We walked to and from school together no matter what the weather. I remember walking over a mile to school when it was really cold, bundled up in coats, gloves, hats, snow pants, and boots. I remember getting in trouble for spending too much time playing in the snow on the way home. Our parents were worried that something had happened to us. Blizzards, tall snowdrifts, sledding, building snowmen, and ice skating were a normal part of winter.
I’ve probably mentioned before that when I started writing books, I decided I would set at least one book in every place I’ve ever lived. When I set out to write the adult stories of three teenagers who were secondary characters in some of my early Love Inspired books, I decided to set one of those books in Montana. Brittany’s story became Montana Match, first published by Love Inspired and now republished as A Match to Call Ours, the first book in my Front Porch Promises series.
I relied on my memories of living in Montana in writing this book. Although I didn’t live on a ranch, we had a mini-ranch just down the street from us. Our neighbor raised cows, horses, and goats. We got fresh milk from the lady who lived at the end of our lane. My oldest brother and I even saw a calf being born. A year or so later, we moved to a house several miles away, but I still went to the same school.
Eventually, we moved to the other side of Billings. That meant a new school and new friends. One of those friends in my fourth grade class was Rose. She had Crow Indian ancestry, and I used her as a model for the twins that my hero adopts. I even named one of them Rose. I put my hero on an isolated ranch about an hour’s drive from Billings. He has isolated himself on his ranch to keep from interacting with the people who believed the false accusations against him. He refers to himself as a gentleman rancher. He lives on the ranch, but he has hired hands who do the actual ranching. He is self-employed as a medical writer, and he’s in desperate need of a nanny to take care of his six-year-old twins.
The ebook version of A Match to Call Ours is on sale 99 cents. Get your copy at the links below.
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Thanks for sharing in my memories. What special childhood memories do you have?
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Merrillee Whren is an award-winning author who writes inspirational romance. She is the winner of the 2003 Golden Heart Award for best inspirational romance manuscript presented by Romance Writers of America. She has also been the recipient of the RT Reviewers’ Choice Award and the Maggie Award for Excellence. She is married to her own personal hero, her husband of thirty plus years, and has two grown daughters. She has lived in Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Chicago and Florida but now makes her home in the Arizona desert. When she’s not writing, she spends her free time playing tennis or walking while she does the plotting for her novels.
I really enjoyed reading about your “Montana Memories.” I can see how that would influence your writing and make for some interesting books.
Hi Merrillee! Thanks for sharing your childhood Montana memories. I was born in Berlin, Germany – not to many memories there. Our family immigrated to SW Michigan and I have many memories of walking to school, riding my bike and more. My grandkids groan whenever I take them to their mom’s dental office for checkups because Oma tells them stories about walking to school or takes them by my family home. In 4. grade my parents purchased their first home in the USA and I attended a different elementary school. By now I spoke English and was no longer bullied – called Nazi. Being German during McCarthyism for a youngster wasn’t fun. Best wishes. I enjoyed your Front Porch Promises series.
As someone who has lived in the same area my whole life, I always find it fascinating to hear from others what it’s like living in different parts of the country. Thanks for sharing.
This book is in my TBR stack! I grew up in the same house I still live in. My neighborhood has changed some over the years, but it’s still basically the same. However, I now lock my doors at night, and when I was little, we never did! I have a lot of good memories of friends in my neighborhood, our Utote’em store, and other things/places that aren’t around anymore.
I love hearing your memories, it’s so interesting hearing how your memories form the bases of some of your stories.
I can’t remember the first house I lived in so the earliest memories are from the house where I lived from 2-7. It needed a lot of updating (although it did have an indoor bathroom) as it was over 159 years old, it was in a small town in Oxfordshire, England. I can remember when my dad and the builders were building on an extension which was going to be a kitchen and extra bedroom they showed my sister and I a hole in the brickwork where you could see the old plaster had been mixed with horsehair (apparently this made it stronger – no idea if this was true lol).
Thanks, Merrillee, for sharing your childhood memories in Montana. I grew up in small town Ohio in the 50’s. Life seemed more simple then. I have vivid memories of riding our bikes. There were 4 of us the same age. We would ride our bikes in an oval pattern. On one end of the oval was a tree from which we picked the leaves to use as money. On the other end was a group of mailboxes. That is where we stopped to get gas for our bikes and pay for it with the leaf money. Sometimes we would venture down the hill. We would do that for hours. As we got older we were allowed to ride our bikes to another neighborhood down the road from us. Aww, the good old days….
We lived in a little trailer before I was born until I was around 18 months then we have been in the same house ever since but last summer we did a big house remodel cause wheny parents built they only had 3 children and now they have 13 children and 6 grandchildren and one one the way so needed it bigger. Lots of my cousins live in our neighborhood as my grandpa bought 80 acres for his children years ago so my sibblings go back in forth between our houses . Their is a store pretty close to our house so my sibblings ride bikes to it if it’s warm.
we are finally getting warmer weather this week after snow with rain,snow hail and rain since February until last week the last two years has been very wet it’s not normal for us to get snow in April but we got it this year and last year in April.
Thanks, Lori.
I’m glad you enjoyed my memories.
Hi Renate,
Thanks for sharing. That had to be a tough time. My dad’s parents were Germans who came to the US via Russia, where many Germans had gone to work as farmers. My dad says he knew very little English when he first went to school.
Hi Jessica,
I’ve been blessed to live in 11 different states, and I’ve been to all 50 states. There are similarities across all the states, but each state has it’s own unique flavor.
Hi Trudy,
You’re right. Even when we don’t move, things don’t stay the same. It’s fun to go back to the places I used to live and see how they’ve changed.
Hi Ruthie,
Thanks for sharing. After we moved to South Dakota, we lived in an old house that also had horse hair mixed into the plaster.
Hi Bonnie,
I loved your memory of riding bikes and your pretend money. Such good times!
Hi Kendra,
How fun to have cousins close. We never lived very close to family. Even now we are all spread out across the country.
Thank you so much for sharing. I have memories of being at the homeplace where my Mom was born and raised in West Virginia. We would always go the last two weeks in August. Most of my Mom’s seven siblings would try to be there too. I had a lot of cousins to play with. There was a creek across the street. I loved being with my family. Thank you so much for sharing. God bless you.
sounds nice
Hi Debra,
Getting together with family is so fun.
I really enjoyed reading about you living in Montana. I’ve always wanted to go there.
I grew up in California until 9th grade. Then my family moved to Kentucky, where my parents and two siblings still live. After college I moved to Virginia and have been here over 20 years now. When people around here talk about growing up my stories and memories are very different than theirs! Instead of stories about sledding and snow storms, mine include weekly beach visits and earthquakes. It’s always fun to hear all the different experiences of people.
Hi Mary,
Montana is definitely worth a visit if you get the chance. The mountains are spectacular.
Hi Melynda,
Different climates definitely make for different experiences.