Wearn Ivey Rowe (1868-1956)

From the Great Falls Tribune, January 18, 1956.

  Hailing from a state that was last featured here back in December 2016, Wearn Ivey Rowe was a transplant to Montana from Wisconsin. Following his establishing roots in the "Big Sky Country", Rowe operated a ranch in Chouteau County and later won election to the Montana House of Representatives from that county for one term. Born on March 6, 1868 in Wisconsin, Wearn Ivey Rowe was the son of James Henry (1833-1895) and Catherine (Ivey) Rowe (1838-1924).

   Afforded limited education as a youth, Rowe left Wisconsin with his family at age ten, traveling via steamboat to the Montana Territory. The Rowe family established a homestead near old Fort McKenzie in Chouteau County, and through the succeeding years James Rowe built up a livestock ranch in that vicinity. At age 21 Rowe left his family's ranch to strike out on his own, homesteading near his father's ranch. Through the succeeding years Rowe built up a reputation as one of Chouteau County's leading stockmen and ranchers, participating in cattle round-ups and during these sojourns developed a friendship with Charles Marion Russell (1864-1926), later to become notable as an artist specializing in Old West paintings and sculpture.

   A member of the  Society of Montana Pioneers and the Montana Cowboy's Association, Rowe also was a charter member of the Kiwanis Club in Fort Benton. Rowe married on Valentine's Day 1899 to Galena, Illinois native Cora Estella Snyder (1879-1906), who predeceased him. The couple would have three children, Bertha (1900-1996), Frank Kenneth (1901-1991) and Alice (1904-1906). Rowe would lose his wife to an unspecified illness in March 1906 and suffered further tragedy in October of that year with the death of his youngest daughter Alice, who was accidentally killed while playing with a pet calf. In the years following his wife Cora's death, Wearn Rowe remarried to Charlotte Smith (1880-1968), who would survive him upon his death.

  Wearn I. Rowe made his first foray into Montana politics in 1912, when he received the Republican nomination for state representative from Chouteau County. Following his win that November, Rowe served in the session of 1913-15 and held seats on the committees on Livestock and Public Ranges, Railroads and Transportation, State Lands, and Townships and Counties. At the conclusion of his term, Rowe returned to ranching and stock-raising, and in 1918 reemerged on the political scene when he was an unsuccessful candidate for Chouteau County Commissioner.

  Rowe maintained an active schedule well into his senior years, and in December 1946 testified at a Federal Power Commission hearing in Helena, which aimed to "enforce government licensing upon Montana Power units operating on the Missouri river." In 1954 he and his wife retired from their ranch and relocated to Great Falls, where they kept a home until Rowe's death at age 87 on January 17, 1956. Memorialized as a Montana pioneer and a "sterling character, good neighbor and fine friend", Rowe was subsequently interred at the Riverside Cemetery in Fort Benton, Montana.

From the Great Falls Tribune.