Collection is open for research.
This collection was part of a 2005 transfer of materials from the Museum of the Rockies to the MSU Library. The materials were originally part of the Virginia Roat donation to the Museum of the Rockies.
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.
[Creator Name], [Date of Creation], [Brief Description of Object], Folder [#], Box [#], [Collection Name], [Collection #], Montana State University (MSU) Library, Bozeman, MT.
Small photographs have been placed in mylar negative sleeves to display. Larger photographs have been placed in acid-free envelopes. A number of oversized certificates and diplomas have been flattened and placed in an oversize flat box. Fragile newspaper clippings have been photocopied and the deteriorating originals were discarded. A set of photographs of the Gene Quaw sextet were removed from this collection and added to the Gene Quaw Collection. A city map of Bozeman was removed from this collection and added to the Uncatalogued Maps collection. Newspaper clippings from a scrapbook were removed from the scrapbook and photocopied, and the scrapbook and original news clippings were discarded. A framed photograph was removed from the frame and placed in an acid-free folder.
The Jessie Mae Smith Family papers consist of materials associated with the family history of Jessie Mae Smith. In addition to materials from the Smith family, the collection contains materials from her two marriages and her descendants from these unions, connecting her to the Coshow, Davis, and Lawrence families of Bozeman and Livingston. Included in this collection are photographs, diplomas and certificates, homestead claim documents, memorabilia, scrapbooks, and news clippings documenting the lineage and major life events of these families. Additionally, the archivist has compiled and printed a document showing the Jessie Mae Smith family tree in order to clarify the relationships between people in the family. This document has been placed in its own folder in the collection.