Victor E. George was born on June 6, 1893 in Carbon County, Montana. He grew up on his parents' ranch near the present day town of Roscoe, Montana and attended the Billings Polytechnic Institute where he earned a teaching certificate in 1911. That year George began teaching school in rural Carbon and Stillwater Counties, but he left the profession after five years to resume ranching full time. He married Margaret Ryan on December 31, 1931 and the couple had four daughters. In 1950, George retired from ranching and moved to Billings, Montana where he worked in retail sales and real estate. He died in 1980 at his home in Billings.
The Victor George diary is a positive photocopy of a ruled notebook containing entries which document his activities from 1907 to 1931. Although presented in chronological order, it does not appear as if the entries were written on the recorded dates but rather transcribed at a later time from memory or another source. Most of the entries are quite terse, and few are beyond a single sentence that summarizes a day's activities such as teaching school, travel to different Montana towns, and ranch chores. Beyond the chronological entries, George recorded in his notebook cattle and livestock numbers and sales, family birthdays, and short essays regarding particular events or people in his extended family.
This collection is open for research.
An original diary created by Victor E. George, Billings, Montana, was loaned by him to Special Collections for copying on March 22, 1971.
This collection was processed 2009 October 8