Episode 17 - Mollie Kirk

Welcome to Mining City Reflections. I’m your host, Marian Jensen.

The first two installments of our series included immigrant stories of Butte women in the early years of the 20th century, and then the oral histories of members of the Women Protective Union in mid 20th century. In this third installment, we shift to the stories of women currently living in Butte.

During the early 1980’s nearly 3000 workers would lose their jobs when the Anaconda Mining Company closed its doors. The women in this group of podcasts lived through that day which brought the once glorious mining city almost to its knees. We’ll hear how they survived and flourished.

In this edition we’ll hear from Mollie Kirk, a lifelong resident and a product of Butte’s close-knit Irish community who embodies its powerful history of survival and overcoming adversity. With a healthy mix of Celtic irreverence and a love of life, Mollie is straight forward, unrepentant, and a consummate storyteller

“You can’t escape your past, just like you can’t outrun your relatives. So, it all makes you who you are.”

Mollie’s grandparents on both sides were descendants of Irish immigrants who arrived in Montana in the 1860’s and 70’s.The Blinn’s, the Ralston’s, the Driscoll’s, the Kane’s were involved in the mining industry in various capacities. Miners, foremen, mining engineers, one great grandfather was even a mine superintendent.

She was born to Michael Ralston Blinn and Sheila Elizabeth Driscoll Kane in 1949.

“Two boys, three girls and all our names begin with “M”. Michael, Molly, Marnie, Martha and Mark. My Mom called us the M Squad. She’d start calling our names, I told everyone she stuttered.”

The heart of Mollie’s childhood was her grandparents’ home at the foot of Big Butte on Copper Street. The center of activity in the neighborhood, a menagerie of animals and kids, the memories are idyllic.

Her maternal grandfather Dr. Patrick Kane was the patriarch with seven children. Mollie had 49 cousins. Her generous heart and appreciation of those down on their luck was inherited from her grandfather.

“My grandmother would drive over and pick him up at like 4 o’clock when he finished his appointments. Then they would go do house calls all over. Those days are gone, in fact when he died… well while he was alive I remember him taking payment… he’d come home with baked bread or a live chicken or this or that or the other thing and that was fine with him. He never sent out a bill. People just came and asked what they owed and payed. When he died it was in his will that the files containing the money owed to him be destroyed in our fireplace. So, we did that, we sat there and burned file drawers full of bills. And that was the way he wanted it, he never was in it for money he didn’t really care about the money. He did rounds every single day of the week at the hospital. He took Thursday afternoons off, that was his fishing day and he was off on Saturday and Sunday but he still did his rounds and if there were house calls to be made he went on house calls.”

The Kanes’ home was huge and had a pond and enough property on the edge of town to accompany the many gifts of payment Dr. Kane received or adopted: horses, ducks, pheasants, and even a turtle.

Its giant kitchen was the heart of the house and Mollie’s grandfather had his den fitted with floor to ceiling books where she began her life long love of reading.

“Everyone gathered at our house. I mean… my Mother and Grandmother were like… everybody’s welcome there was always room for somebody else.”

Mollie and her brothers and sisters went to school at Immaculate Conception, the steepled, white mission style Catholic church, so recognizable on the hill.

“We went to the IC School which was down the alley. It was a block away so, I went to mass everyday. I got the outstanding choir girl award only because I was there everyday. Generally the nun would tell me to mouth the words because I don’t sing very well.”

Mollie’s mother worked as the receptionist in Dr. Kane’s office. So grandmother over saw life at home.

“My Grandmother was a little less strict than my Mother so… we’d often go to Grandma when we had a special request. My Mom worked in my Grandpa’s office so, my Grandmother loved soap opera and some days I didn’t feel good and I would stay home and watch soap opera’s with her. That was fun, my brother Mark got into that habit in fact I think he still holds the record for least amount of days in school at Butte Central. Mark was a night owl since he was a little kid, he’d stay up and my Grandfather would say to my Mother, “You’re going to have to send him to night school. There’s no way he’s ever going to get up to go to school.” And he finally did, he got kicked out of first grade because they had to draw Jack and Jill and he had seen Barbie dolls so he put boobs on Jill. The nun was not happy!”

Catholic education was integral to Mollie’s family and she attended Catholic schools all the way through college.

“I got along very well with the nuns because they would come in mid august to get ready for school and I would go down and help them. Then the school year came and I wasn’t… I was a good student but there was a thing they had, it was called deportment. If you got a check in deportment it wasn’t a good thing. I always had a check in deportment because I just was too busy visiting and doing other things. So at the end of the year we would help them pack up and in fact, when I was in eighth grade at the ed of the year this nun… they had these big black trunks that they kept in the basement and put all there stuff in. And this nun had gotten a new trunk so she gave me the black trunk which I still have. I keep sweaters in it.”

Mollie’s parents’ divorce would be a defining point in her childhood, that meant moving away from her school and friends.

“My parents got divorced which was difficult for me ‘cause I was the first girl in the Blynn family in like 90 years… then of course my mother had to have two right after me which kinda blew my whole thing. I loved St. Pat’s and my two best friends were Mary-Ann Petrich and Katy Maloney, the three of us were inseparable. So we moved up there right after Christmas of my first grade year and we finished out the year at St. Pat’s my Grandmother or Mother would ride us down and pick us up after school. I really missed St. Pat’s and of course in 1955 divorce was a very bad thing, especially if you were a Catholic. It was, y’know, you were a fallen woman. Anyway, there were kids that weren’t allowed to play with me because I was from a broken family. That’s a term I’ve always hated and I used to say “my family’s just fine I don’t know why you always say it’s broken.” I had already had a little run in with some kids from IC up on Big Butte, I was picking some wildflowers and they said you can’t pick those you don’t live here, so I said I do too and my Grandfather says I can do what I want. So that was the start of my experience with the IC. Then when I was going to school my Mother said hold your head high and don’t get mad at what anyone says, cause I’ve always had a little bit of a temper. Someone once told my husband that I have a short fuse and he replied that she doesn’t have a fuse.”

Thankfully there always seems to be one teacher to make the situation tolerable.

“I had a very good nun though, Sister Mary Clarence. She could throw an eraser at about 50 miles an hour and hit someone in the head I swear to God. But, she was very good to me and very understanding and made it clear that nobody was to bother me about my mother’s divorce. So they didn’t. But I got along very well, I was kind of a class clown, my third grade teacher told me that if I wanted to be a comedian I should quit school and be a comedian.”

While her mother worked to contribute to the household, she made time to provide moral support for her children.

“ My Mom very soon became involved I the school, she was a PTA president, she coached girls basket ball and volleyball, she had a Cub Scout troop, she had a 4H group. I mean she just was the volunteer of everything. But there was a lot of meanness towards her, particularly from women, my Mother wast very attractive and she dressed very well and of course all the men would look ate her and all the wives thought she was just a fallen woman, y’know. She was divorced! So it was a strange situation but I think my Grandparents and my Mother made me a song woman. They made all of us strong cause they knew that we would face some things. And, they were strong women.”

Clearly Mollie had an active imagination which by her own admission resulted in her having a knack for getting into a jam.

“One winter night we went to the evening mass and it was very cold outside and we were on the porch waiting for our ride. Mike said go inside and stay warm, so anyway I went in and I heard someone coming… I don’t know if you ever saw those big old confessionals they had Y’know there was three little compartment and the priest sat in the middle and slid the door open when he went to take a confession. Anyway I got scared because of the noise so I went and hid in the confessional, well the priest came and locked up the church. The priest happened to be the brother of my godfather. Anyway, so my Mom gets there and Mike goes to open the door and tell me and the doors locked and he’s pounding on the door and everything. By this time all the lights are out in the church and it’s dark except for the little candles flickering, so I make my way through the church and I’m screeching “I’m locked in here!” So they had to go get Father Kelly and they had to let me out which was something I never lived down from the priests, y’know it was like a big story.”

Mollie attended an all girls Catholic high school in the swinging ’60’s but had the nuns to keep her on the straight and narrow or at least attempt to.

“That was before they realized that boys and girls could go to school together and not have sex. I mean, that was there own thing I think. I think the thing with the nuns and the sex thing, I think all that made Catholic girls really want to have sex. The nuns had such bad things to say about it, in fact I don’t know if they even ever said the word sex.”

Despite a lifelong love of learning, which didn’t necessarily all happen in the classroom, Mollie’s penchant for adventure continued at Carroll College.

“I did things like they held me upside down and I had India ink on my feet and I walked across the roof of the elevator. And they had a big investigation and these two girls that were with me and held me up were nice catholic girls that had never been in any trouble, y’know their parents had never been called for anything. This girl from Anaconda figured out that we did it and was gonna rat us out so I said, “This is how it works guys, we turn ourselves in and they’ll go easier on us.” So, we went down and turned ourselves in and I did all the talking and I said it was my idea, which it was. And I said it was just a harmless prank, we they didn’t think it was a harmless prank, but anyways the other two girls started crying and crying and Mrs. Ilvetson, the dean of women, said, “I should call your parents.” I said my Mom’s used to that, so they didn’t call our parents but I went home and told them anyway. They weren’t surprised.”

In her senior year of college, snowmobile racing became a passion.

“My senior year I would go to school Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and then I would be gone Friday through Monday racing in Canada, Idaho, Wyoming or Washington. It was one of the best years of my life, I had a grand time.”

Graduating from college with a degree in English, Mollie had flirted with career options from snowmobile racing to teaching, and even considered entering the convent.

“I was living in Helena after my freshman year and I met these nuns from Ireland and they were in Billings. We wrote back and forth. I thought that I might want to join their order so I called my mother and said that I’m not going to go back to Carrol this fall I’m gonna do this. Well, of course everyone went ballistic. My mother knowing full well that I was not cut out for that vocation or occupation, so everyone came over and y’know the whole family in force. So, I agreed that I would wait until I graduated. Obviously it never happened, I came to realize that I probably… it probably would not have been a good thing for me. Nor for the order!”

Eventually she began work as a drug counselor at the Galen state treatment center 25 miles west of Butte.

“In the first outpatient drug program in the state and then the first inpatient one which was at Galen. And I was in a car accident and broke my back so I went back to school at Tech and got one of the last history degrees out of there.”

After “test-driving” marriage twice, she found the third time the charm with Scott Kirk to whom she has been married for thirty years.

Despite her college degrees, Mollie found her passion in the service industry working as a bartender at two legendary, uptown establishments in Butte, — the M&M Cigar Store, and the Sportsman Bar.

Opened in 1890 the M&M bar and restaurant stayed open around the clock to serve the miners coming off shifts in the rough-and-tumble mining town. Aside from a few years in the naughts, the bar has remained open for more than a century. Part social worker, therapist, and friend, Mollie worked there off and on for 20 years.

“Bartending… I probably couldn’t have chosen a better profession an I think good bartenders are born they’re not made. But, I had good teachers as well and it was a fluke that I ever ended up at the M&M. I never even applied, they just called me and asked me to come to work.”

The M & M was in its heyday in the mid 70’s, especially on the first of the month when retirees and Veterans needed to cash their checks.

“A lot of my favorite customers and regulars and friends were old miners y’know? A lot of them were tramp miners that went from place to place and this happened to be the last place they ended up. They all had me call them uncle. I had Uncle Clancy and Uncle Lyle, except Hutch who Scott and I adopted as our son. He was ten years older than I am, or twelve. Anyway they would all come in and all tip so big at the first of the month and they had all this money and it was great. Then by about 7th or 8th they were broke. They’d buy a meal ticket at the M&M so they had food then they’d bum a few bucks and come in to have a drink or often times they would borrow ten bucks from me, I always got payed back. Charlie at the M&M always lent them money cause he knew he would get paid back on the 1st. They were always there and they told such wonderful stories of old Butte and I ended up taking them to the fort when they had to go to the fort and taking them to the doctor. I remember going to the fort with this one old guy and a lot of them lived in these rooming houses uptown, the Lasalle was across the street and a lot of them lived there. And this woman there said, “Y’know he needs to quit drinking is there a gym he could join or maybe he could take up hiking or something.” And I just looked at her and I said, “Boy lady you gotta lot to learn, these guys worked underground their whole lives. They got off work, they went to have drinks, most of them don’t have wives or if they did they’re far behind somewhere. Most of them don’t have children or if they do they aren’t friendly with them. This is what they do, they get up in the morning, come over to the M&M and have breakfast, have a couple of beers, have lunch, have some more beers, have dinner, have some more beers and maybe a couple of shots because it’s the end of the day. That’s how they live.”

She said, “Well really, they have to change they can’t live like this.” And I said’ “well good luck with that.” So he never did join a game, he never took a hike. The biggest hike was across the street. But they were so interesting and it was so much, it was such a fun place to work. We were all like friends and family, we all ran around together, we just had great times and it was a fun place to work and a fun place to be. Their own little after hours y’know like drinking whiskey out of a coffee cup like nobody knew. And they had poker games that would last for two or three days.”

Molly had a soft spot in her heart for all of them, and she also knew how to keep them in line.

“A certain group of guys that would come in there and start a fight and if you called the police and said their names, the police wouldn’t come. They just wish they would kill each other y’know? So, when I’d call and they’d say, “who is it?” I’d have to say, “I don’t know!”

But not all those characters were rough and tough

“There was a lady that came in once and wanted a pink squirrel. And I told her, uh that’s not the kind of bar we are. I don’t even have a blender, y’know? So anyway, we became good friends later but she brought a blender in the next day. There’s nowhere to plug and Danny said, “We’re never gonna have pink squirrels in here! This is a shot and a beer joint” But she and I became friends and, Catherine O’Brian was her name and her son was a dentist, we would go to dinner at the Red Rooster or some other place often. I mean it was just a place that you made good friends.”

Mollie witnessed a cavalcade of events at the M&M that warranted legal attention. A former Carroll College classmate had become a special state prosecutor, before becoming governor, and raided the infamous bar on a Super Bowl Sunday. Mollie was there.

“The worst day was when my friend Mark Roscoe raided the M&M over the big $10,000 Super Bowl pool. He made everyone go outside while the checked everywhere for these things and that’s why I never ever put my real name on a pool. I used to always put Patti Hurst. So anyway, there was people eating dinner in there and it was around Christmas time so people took their plates outside and were eating their dinner on hoods of cars while the government was raiding the place. I walked in and said you can’t go in there and I just walked down to the basement and Danny Delmoe was down there, the longtime owner, and he was just rolling his eyes. So we sat there and had a drink and waited for them to get done. Everybody who’s name was on that pool had to go in and talk to the state department of revenue, the agent down there. Nobody said anything that they could use, it’s a pool that’s all I know.”

Like a Shakespearean comedy, as Molly described it, the M&M embodied the soul of the mining town. Whether it was a drawer for abandoned false teeth, a file for customers’ IOU’s, or the secret knock for the office which everyone knew, the M&M lay legitimate claim to its legendary status. Molly loved the characters she met and the stories she heard.

“I think that one of the greatest parts about Butte is not only all the ethnicities and the different types of people, but also the age group. I think that there was before… always you could go to the M&M and there’d be a miner sitting with a lawyer or a doctor. It seemed like everybody that came through town came to the M&M and you immediately became their friend. I have addresses from everywhere in the world.”

For 25 years Mollie also volunteered for Butte Celebrations which oversaw the city’s community events including St. Patrick’s Day festivities. And the 4th of July fireworks.

Following two back surgeries and related medical problems, a difficult chapter of Molly’s life unfolded after she received a DUI in 2012.“A glitch” she calls it.

“Well everybody knew where I was, it was on the front page of the paper, c’mon! I think they expected me to say that I was at a spa or visiting relative and I’d say, “Well I was in the slammer!” It’s part of who I am and I’m not gonna make up stories y’know? Get over it. I chose to drink, because I liked to drink. I liked the camaraderie, I loved the people that I was around, I loved the conversation. All of it. I still go to bars because I love it. If I’m driving I never take a drink, sometimes I do if I’m not driving. But, it was a lifestyle.”

A barstool philosopher, Molly believes that life is what you make it, despite her up’s and down’s she feels like she is still on the up side.

“I didn’t color inside the lines most of my life. And sometimes I did things that were not good. But I believe I’m a good person, and I believe that comes from my family. My Mom and my Grandma. “

Now retired, she still volunteers for the Butte Archives and the VFW, and deeply respects sacrifices made by those who came before, and maintains hope for those who will come next.

“People who say that Butte is ugly- that’s fine. If they don’t want to move here I don’t want to be like Bozeman or Missoula or anywhere else. I do not think Butte is ugly. I look over at that pit and the color of the copper and all those things and I think of the fact that it helped us win two World Wars, streetlights, all that came into being because of the men that worked underground. And I think that its part of our history and instead of calling it ugly, we should look at what it did in a positive way. Butte has great history, but I believe there is a great future for it as well.”