Distinctly Montana Magazine

w w w . d i s t i n c t l y m o n t a n a . c o m 77 Young Evelyn disdained the standard activities expected of an Englishwoman at the time, like participating in noon teas, conver- sational pleasantries, and fox hunts. Instead, she embraced her intellectual curiosities and pursued the pleasures of education, learning and physical exertion. She dismayed her family at age 21 by marrying a 34-year-old Scotsman named Ewen Cameron. Traveling was part of her cultural polish, and both Ewen and Evelyn shared a passion for it. As newlyweds, in 1889, they rejected their insular English gentili- ty to claw out a minuscule place in an unfathomably vast universe. After traveling approximately 1,800 miles of mystery and, at times, misery, the couple arrived in eastern Montana, along with a cook and even one of Custer's former scouts as a paid guide. They settled around Miles City and Terry, though only briefly. In 1890, they returned to the U.S., and this time Montana would become their permanent home. Only 14 years removed from the Battle of the Little Big Horn, Montana's non-native population was estimated at 143,000, with the lion's share of the residents in cities such as Helena and Butte. They hoped to raise polo ponies from Arabian stallions for the European market, but that type of effort could not yield a profit. They initially lived off the largesse of Evelyn's trust fund, yet that reserve soon dwindled. It was a hard time for the British expats, requiring their strictest adaptability. The women typically found in the mythic Western are often subservient damsels; not Evelyn. Wildly resourceful, Evelyn began by planting a large garden and selling vegetables. She constructed her own fence posts and re- duced the slack in her own barbed wire; she made bread about once a week, on average, seven loaves each time. Still, hard work does not always translate into real income. After her business plan to take in wealthy boarders failed, and Ewen foundered at his attempts to raise cattle, Evelyn kicked her industriousness into overdrive—and the creative saga starts there. In about 1894, Evelyn taught herself the brass tacks of photog- raphy while using a dry-plate glass negative Kodak. Despite the availability of cheaper, quicker methods, "Evelyn preferred the more laborious method that used five-by-seven plates," wrote one of her biographers. She used financial frustration as an inspiration TERRY Ultimately, Cameron embodied e myic West: THAT IT WAS POSSIBLE FOR STRONG INHABITANTS TO WORK OUT THEIR OWN SALVATION

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