A series where we take a #lookback at the stories and history of our community, brought to you by Mick Pryor, Financial Advisor with Edward Jones.
Alice Jane Amoss married Dr. Francis H. Welty in 1868, after they met in Baltimore, Maryland. By April 1889, the couple and their young children moved to Wyoming. One child, Frank Sr., stayed behind in Baltimore to finish schooling before joining his family out West. Dr. Francis Welty was the appointed physician at the Shoshone Indian Agency in Fort Washakie. While he worked, Alice raised the children and ran the household.
Sometime in the late 1880s or early 1890s, the family homesteaded on Horse Creek about a mile north of Dubois. To prove up on the property, Alice and the children had to journey from Fort Washakie to the Upper Wind River country every summer. This was a hard trip to make in those days. The family took wagons and horses on the journey, following thinly marked trails, fording rivers, encountering rugged terrain, and camping each night. It could take four to five days to reach the homestead. When her son Frank Sr. moved his mercantile business from its original location on Horse Creek to where it stands today, Alice ran a post office in the store.
Though this picture of Alice Amoss Welty, taken in June 1870, might make her look delicate, she was as tough as any woman who makes a home in the American West. According to records, Alice was an excellent horsewoman who could even shoe her own horses. There was not much in the line of outdoor work that a woman of that day in the West might not be called upon to handle. Alice Amoss Welty was fiercely independent, but always a lady. Once, when on a family outing in the mountains around Dubois, Alice came out of her tent only to find a bear in camp. Not the least bit intimidated, she grabbed and brandished a stick, shouting “Shoo—you ugly beast!”
Next up for the Fremont County Museums
March 7, 7pm at the Dubois Museum, “Early Dubois Residents with Steve Banks”
Wyoming Community Bank Discovery Speakers Series
March 9, 2pm at the Riverton Museum, “Hide Painting”
Bailey Tire/Pit Stop Children’s Exploration Series
March 14, 6:30pm at the Riverton Museum “Carol L. Deering: Havoc & Solace Poems from the Inland West”
Wyoming Community Bank Discovery Speakers Series
April 11, 7pm at the Pioneer Museum, “Lander in 1919”
Wyoming Community Bank Discovery Speakers Series
The Dubois Museum, the Pioneer Museum in Lander and the Riverton Museum need your financial support. In the current economic environment the museums are more reliant than ever on donations from the private sector to continue to provide the quality programs, collections management, exhibits and services that have become their hallmark over the last four years. Please make your tax deductible contribution to be used specifically for the benefit of the museum of your choosing by sending a check to Fremont County Museums 450 N 2nd Rm 320 or taking it directly to the museum you choose to support.
