Part 5

About the Author:

Born and raised on the family homestead ten miles east of Lewistown, Anna Zellick, is a first generation Croatian, her grandparents, George and Anna Pipinich being natives of Bribir. Her mother, Mary Pipinich Zellick, was born in Slavonska-Pozeba; her father, the late Sam Zellick, in Dvor. The Pipinichs and Zellicks came to Lewistown shortly after the turn of the century and filed on homesteads. George Pipinich was an experienced stonemason, but preferred farming, using his trade only for supplemental income.

Miss Zellick, who attended Lewistown Public Schools, earned A. B. and M.A. degrees in American history from the University of Chicago, and has long been active in educational and public service circles in Montana. Currently she is a lecturer at the Lewistown College Center, an accredited branch of the College of Great Falls. She was a staff assistant to Prof. Carl. F. Kraenzel of Montana State University during preparation for his significant study, The Great Plains in Transition, published by the University of Oklahoma Press in 1955, and later for Dr. R. R. Renne, president emeritus of MSU, during his research for a treatise on tourism in Montana.

For a number of years, the author was a national field staff member for the Girl Scouts of America, and for some five years, served on the Montana Citizens Committee on the State Legislature, which did much of the preliminary work leading to a new constitution for the state in 1972.

In recent years, a primary concern of Miss Zellick has been the preservation of historic buildings. As an active member of the Central Montana Historical Society, she is deeply interested in saving those in Lewistown, including many created by the stonemasons from Croatia. She has made two trips to Yugoslavia in recent years, tracing her personal ancestry and that of the stonemasons, visiting at length in Bribir, Rijeka, Pozega, Dvor, Zagreb, and Belgrade.

Sources and Acknowledgements

Sources for the study of Croatian stonemasons in Lewistown range from oral history interviews to general histories of Yugoslavian immigration to the United States. General treatments of the latter are few, but useful are : Gerald Gilbert Govorchin, Americans from Yogoslavia (Gainsville: U. of Florida Press. 1961) and George J. Prpic, The Croatian Immigrants in America (New York: Philosophical Library, 1971).

Primary information on Lewistown’s Croatian families and their personal experiences came from interviews conducted by the author between 1969 and 1976 with : Daisy Tuss Monkelin, John T. Plovanic, Ray L. Plovanic, "Andy" Kalafatic, Katherine Plovanich Wright, Anna Kovacich Tuss, and Mary pipinich Zellick. Personal reminiscences of Lewistown Croatians may also be found in Joseph Plovanich. "A Short History of Our Family," October 20, 1967, and Walter Valacich, "Many Yugoslavs Migrated From Bribir," delivered at the Conference on Ethnic Pioneers of Montana, College of Great Falls, May 25, 1974.

The growth of Lewistown and the decisions of its elected officials can be found in: proceedings of the City Council of Lewistown, April 3, 1899 and May 5, 1902- August 4, 1904: Proceedings of a Special Session of Fergus County Commissioners, May 8, 1899. Finally, the noteworthy affairs of the stonemasons and the city of Lewistown may be traced in the press, including Fergus County Argus, 1898-1913: Lewistown Democrat, 1901-1904, and Fergus County Democrat, 1904-1913.

Aside from those who furnished information by interviews, already listed, the author acknowledges assistance and encouragement from Minnie Paugh of Montana State University Library; Robert G. Dunbar, professor emeritus of history at MSY, and John Opie, professor of history at Duquesne University and editor of Environmental Review, which accepted for publication Miss Zellick’s article, Immigrant Homesteaders in Montana.