Ben Stein research collection, 1908-2003

Bennett Harris Stein was born in Ravinia, Illinois, and attended Dartmouth College, where he earned a BA in English literature. After moving to Montana, he married Hildegard Balke in 1939. They were divorced in 1966, and Stein married again in 1967, this time to Glenna Hamilton, with whom he remained until her death in 1978. Between 1957 and 1971, Ben Stein served a total of fourteen years in the Montana State Senate as representative for Park County, first as a Democrat, and later as a Republican. In 1960, Ben Stein, John D. Stephenson, and Hugh D. Galusha became incorporators and directors of The Rock Foundation, a non-profit organization with the purpose of acquiring historical documents for study and publication. Stein passed away in 2001 in Livingston, Montana, at the age of 86. He left behind five children(Karen, Linda, David, Leslie, and Peter Stein).

Andrew Garcia was born around 1855 in El Paso, Texas. As a young man, he became a civilian mule handler for the U.S. Army and traveled to Montana in that capacity in 1876. In 1878, Garcia left the army to become a trapper and trader in the Montana wilderness, and thus began a period of about nine years in which he lived among Native Americans, primarily the Pen d’Oreille tribe. Also in 1878, Garcia met a Nez Perce woman called In-who-lise (the name means Broken Tooth in the Pen d'Oreille language; she was originally known as Kot-kot-hy-hih, meaning White Feather, and was christened Susan), who was living among the Pen d’Oreilles after having been badly injured and separated from her people during the Nez Perce War of 1877. After a brief courtship, she and Garcia were married and the two of them began a journey together to the Lapwai reservation in Idaho to reunite with her remaining family, but In-who-lise was killed during a Blackfoot raid during the journey. After her death, Garcia continued living among the Pen d’Oreille until 1887, during which time he married two women from that tribe. The first, Squis-Squis, died in 1882 when she was thrown from her horse. He married the second, Mal-lit-tay-lay, in 1883, and she died in 1889 after moving with him to a homestead near Alberton Gorge. Garcia married for a fourth time in 1899, to Barbara Voll. The two remained together until Barbara’s death in 1936, and together had four sons named Jack, Trinidad, Andrew, and William.