Laura Mandercheide Zook (née Brown) was born in Sioux City, Iowa, on 25 November 1868. She came to the Miles City, Mont., area with her parents in 1878. She received her education from the Mary Baldwin Seminary in Virginia and began teaching in Montana in 1886. She married John I. Zook on 29 October 1889. The couple had one son, Frederick, who was born in 1895. John Zook died in 1896, leaving Laura and her infant son. She campaigned for and was elected county superintendent of schools in 1896, a post she retained intermittently for several years. In 1906 Laura Zook orchestrated the construction of the Miles City public library with the financial help of the Carnegie Foundation. For thirty-six years she remained as an administrator and librarian, retiring in 1943. Laura Zook died on 9 May 1944.
The Laura Brown Zook reminiscence consists of a typewritten transcription prepared by Cheryl Dee Lewis on June 10, 1964, and credits Zook's daughter, Lora Margaret Hoff, as the person who originally took the dictation from her mother. In the reminiscence, Zook talks about her life in the budding community of Miles City, Montana, her early education, and various notable events in the area.
This collection is open for research.
A typewritten transcript of an undated original reminiscence by Laura Brown Zook was donated to Montana State University by Cheryl D. Lewis in the summer of 1964. The location of the original is unknown.
This collection was processed 2015 August 12
[Creator Name], [Date of Creation], [Brief Description of Object], Folder [#], Box [#], [Collection Name], [Collection #], Montana State University (MSU) Library, Bozeman, MT