Archives West Finding Aid

Jessie Mae Smith (ca. 1881-1882 – June 21, 1971) was an early resident of Bozeman and the Gallatin Valley, descended from white settler pioneers to the area. She was the daughter of A.J. (Andrew Jackson) "Jack" Smith, a Confederate veteran who was part of the 1st Regiment of the Mississippi Cavalry. After the Civil War, Jack Smith and his wife Rachel (Jones) moved to the Gallatin region and took up residence there. They had five daughters and one son. Jessie completed a degree in bookkeeping at Montana State College in 1898. In 1900, she married Andrew Lewis (A.L.) Coshow, who was also a child of white settler pioneers in the Gallatin Valley. They had two daughters, Rachael (Rachel) Alice (b. 1901) and Valeria Ruth (b. 1905). In 1905, A.L. Coshow died unexpectedly of pneumonia at the age of 34. Jessie then moved to St. Louis, perhaps to be closer to A.L.'s Missouri relations, and she attended Keister's Ladies' Tailoring College, earning her degree in dress-cutting and tailoring in 1907. By 1912, Jessie and her two daughters had moved back to the Bozeman area, where she married George Davis. Jessie and George had a daughter, Virginia Dorothy, born June 16, 1913. Jessie's daughter Rachel married Leslie Andrews Lawrence and they had two children, L.A. Lawrence, Jr., and Virginia Lawrence (married name: Roat). L.A. Lawrence, Jr., was President of the founding Board of Trustees of the Museum of the Rockies and, between 1958-1975, served as a professor of English and Speech Communications, as well as Director of the Intercollegiate Forensics team at Montana State University (known as Montana State College until 1965). Jessie died June 21, 1971, in Bozeman.