Grant-Kohrs Ranch Historic Resource Study/Historic Structures Report/Cultural Resources Statement

G. Augusta Kruse Kohrs (Born 20 Jan. 1849, Wewelfleth, Prussia: Died 29 October 1945 , Helena, Montana)

"We adored her, and were grief-stricken when she died." [49] This straight-forward tribute from a great granddaughter of Augusta Kruse Kohrs sums up the striking impact she made on family and friends. Augusta's long life bridged almost the entire existence of the Kohrs and Bielenberg home ranch. Her husband had owned the ranch for only two and a half years before she came on the scene, and she saw it grow to its fullest size, be almost all sold off, begin its renaissance under Con Warren's leadership, and be purchased by Warren in 1940. She remained always the grand lady of the ranch and had a dominant part in the collection and arrangement of the home furnishings. Although she married a man whose presence on the Montana scene was great, he never eclipsed her, never relegated her to a second class role in the family. She possessed too much individuality to be overshadowed by anyone.

Augusta first entered Montana as a bride at the age of nineteen. She had been courted in Ohio for no more than two, at the most perhaps three, weeks. Married in Iowa, she soon found herself aboard a river steamer going upstream against the considerable efforts of the Missouri River to push the boat back to Omaha. Thus her first introduction to the rigors of the West came in the form of the dubious pleasure of river boating in the early spring across the high plains. Six weeks on the craft as it inched its way upstream should have been hardship enough. But the next trial came soon afterwards, specifically, her five-day trip in the cold and rain of a Montana spring overland in a wagon to Deer Lodge in the far west of the young Montana Territory. Family legend has it that had she been able to go back East she would have. She could not, of course, and from that time on she served as the home manager for the ranch house and as hostess to its many visitors, involved with an active family and in the comings and goings of her husband and brother-in-law.

Her pictures seem to confirm what the family remembers of her. The earliest known photograph of her, in 1868, shows a lovely young woman of nineteen: proud, erect and direct in look and bearing. This is the young woman who came to Deer Lodge and immediately imposed her personality on the rather informal bachelor's paradise then thriving at the Con Kohrs place. She was, as her husband accurately described her in his autobiography, a young wife with "the German pride in taking care of her own household" [50]

In the next known photograph she was twenty-five years old and the mother of two children, a veteran of six years of dynamic existence in Deer Lodge. By this time, 1874, she had become a major figure in Deer Lodge society, serving on several committees and acting as a hostess to some of the new settlers in the community. [51] She was an uncommonly lovely young woman, sophisticated and beautiful in an equally striking but far less polished land.

Blessed with that rare quality that exists in but a chosen few, she became more attractive as she grew older, as evidenced by her later photographs. And it is the older Augusta Kohrs that we know the most about.

Her tastes and decorative bents are obvious at the home ranch. The collection and arrangement of the furniture, the placement of the pictures, the rugs, and the sofas, all tend to reveal much about the lady during the height of the grand days of Kohrs and Bielenberg at Deer Lodge. Augusta Kohrs chose furnishings directly in tune with the styles dominant in Europe and in the design and style centers of America. She and the family made almost yearly visits East, and there Augusta absorbed many of the main themes of fashion as they were developing. She considered these ideas, and transported her perception of them to her spacious home in Deer Lodge, making it an outpost of fashion. A contemporary described both Con and Augusta and their home as he experienced it in his visits there: "In his house he was at his best. He had the faculty of making you at home. In this he was doubly assisted by his wife. There was no show or display, but everything was solid, substantial, in good taste." [52]

Yet the gracious lady's life as the hostess of the home ranch is known only through knowledge of her life in the 20th century (primarily after Con and John died between 1920 and 1922), of which we know a great deal. Surely the dominant and strong, yet gracious, presence of Augusta Kohrs in the later years of her life mirrored that of the earlier period.

Perhaps one of the most well-established qualities of Augusta's personality was that of loyalty to family and friends. She demonstrated it frequently. In the early weeks of the hard winter of 1887, Augusta showed her concern for a sister-in-law. Con Kohrs reported that "my brother's wife was dying of consumption and my wife was with her during her last days. After her burial we made preparations to return to Hot Springs, and left on January 22nd." [53] Augusta travelled to Iowa to be with many of the women in the family at the birth of their children. [54] Friends, too, came to be close to Mrs. Kohrs, and she often helped at the birth of their children as well. [55]

The ties of loyalty to family remained strong for as long as Mrs. Kohrs lived. After 1900 she spent the winters in Helena, but about six weeks of every summer she stayed at her "home" as she called it, in Deer Lodge, living at the ranch house. But that visit began in June, usually, so that her annual trip down to Deer Lodge on Decoration Day in May was a special one. She would be chauffeured down from Helena, first picking up flowers at the State nursery on the south edge of town. All the family graves—except that of one of Con's half brothers whom she never liked—were decorated. Augusta remembered all the anniversaries and birthdays, too, and decorated the graves appropriately. [56]

Loyalty to family and friends blended with other qualities. Among them was bluntness, for Mrs. Kohrs was direct and plainspoken. In fact, her ability to mix graciousness and loyalty with a directness and forcefulness of speech was remarkable. A young bride once experienced that aspect of the Augusta Kohrs manner.

The young woman had always known Mrs. Kohrs as a dear friend of her mother. Augusta had assisted at the young lady's birth and at her sister's as well. When the women grew older, she spent many pleasant hours at the Kohrs Ranch and with Mrs. Kohrs and Con at their Helena home. Later she and her husband often visited the ranch during the summers when Mrs Kohrs visited at Deer Lodge where the young couple lived. One such day Augusta Kohrs and the young couple were sitting down to Sunday dinner in the ranch house dining room. The table, as usual, was formally set, with china, crystal, silver, and a damask cloth and napkins. The maid served everything but the meat portion, a duty Augusta always reserved for herself. Such was the case at this meal, at which chicken was the main dish. Augusta, serving, asked the young husband what piece of chicken he preferred. "Just anything," came the reply. "Just anything doesn't grow on a chicken," Augusta retorted.

This quality tended to overawe some who knew Mrs. Kohrs. Her somewhat imperious, almost regal bearing, in conjunction with the dark colors in which she invariably dressed, could create a considerable distance between her and others. Yet this facade hid another side of her character—a warmly sentimental one.

By the time grandchildren arrived to enliven Con and Augusta's life, she bore the affectionate family title "Ohma," meaning grandmother in German, by which she was known for much of the twentieth century. [57] And Ohma took extra pains to be kind to friends. A special pattern of china would be matched when Christmas or a birthday occasioned the sending of a gift to a friend. Once her son-in-law John Boardman and a young man fished in the Blackfoot River, north of Deer Lodge, for trout. The young man connected with a good one and proudly brought it in. Not long afterward the young man became engaged to the daughter of a close friend of Augusta. Mrs. Kohrs remembered the event, and commissioned one of Montana's best landscape artists to paint the site. She then presented the young couple with the artwork as a wedding gift. [58]

Philanthropy, too, formed an important part of Augusta Kohrs's life. The private gifts probably outweighed the public ones, considerable though they were. These public donations included the Conrad Kohrs memorial, a $115,000 addition to St. Peter's Hospital in Helena. The extent of the private contributions remains unknown, although it is believed today to have been considerable.

Generally, the private and discreet help Augusta Kohrs provided went to educate the community's young men. [59] One such student became a doctor and saved money to repay Augusta for her assistance to him. He had met the only requirement she placed on the recipients of her largesse, that they write her of their progress and visit when they were home from school. But he wanted to repay the money as well, so he brought it with him when he visited Mrs. Kohrs. Augusta heard the young doctor out and answered: "I never expected the money back. Keep it and get a wife and buy her a house." [60] Reportedly, he did.

Yet the overriding trait in the remarkable character of Augusta Kruse Kohrs seems to have been a vitality of the mind, an awareness of exactly what she was doing when she did it. Actions were not executed on a hunch or without good reason. Her understanding of the arts is an example of this. She had been trained as a pianist, tradition has it, and played acceptably well. Music remained a vital part of her life, and she seldom missed a chance to go to New York for the music season to hear operas, concerts, and the symphony. Yet she did not simply listen, she understood what she heard. She also read about music and the arts, and would present her outspoken views, firmly founded in knowledge, with clarity. It is no accident that she decorated her home as she did. Although as yet we have no documentary evidence, letters or a diary, to prove it, her decorative scheme in the ranch house seems to have been a clear and precise approach utilizing the elements of furnishings style and design that were a product of her age, her German background, and of her visits to Germany in the early 1880s. All these influences were distilled through her own tastes and produced the comfortable parlor, living room, and dining room in which she entertained her guests and discussed current events, politics, art, and music.

One evening she and friends listened to a community concert in Helena. Augusta focused attentively on the well-known pianist and listened to the playing with care. At the conclusion of the work this ranch wife turned to a companion and commented that the artist did not know his Debussy very well.

This lady almost defined the word. She had adapted to a rough pine floor house—the largest in Montana territory, but still an informal dwelling—and quickly made her cultural mark on it. She had developed a sharp and incisive sensitivity to the tastes of her time and their cultural manifestations. Her knowledge of music showed it as did her carefully decorated home. She took her place in the community as the wife of a prominent rancher, legislator, and investor, and moved within that community with both grace and a nonpatronizing noblesse oblige. She managed to present an image almost patrician, yet not snobbish. In all ways, she was the grand mistress of the home ranch of Kohrs and Bielenberg.

Introduction
Historic Resource Study | Cultural Resources Statement | Historic Structure Report