Elizabeth Chester Fisk
Lizzie:
The Letters of Elizabeth Chester Fisk, 1864-1893
(Missoula, Montana: Mountain Press Pub. Co., 1989)
Elizabeth Chester Fisk was born in Connecticut on February 18, 1846. She died in Berkley, California on April 21, 1927. The events that transpired between these two dates have shaped a country as well as an individual. The letters written by "Lizzie" have given us an intimate and accurate window to both.
Lizzie grew up and completed school in Vernon, Connecticut. Under the strong influence of her very religious and republican parents, Lizzie became a school "Ma'am" as well as a staunch republican. That was a good thing for her too, because in 1867 at the age of twenty-one Lizzie married another zealous republican, Robert E. Fisk.
Lizzie and Robert's courtship began serendipitously. While sewing quilts for the soldiers during the civil war, Lizzie's sister Fannie included a note in one of the quilts she sent as her contribution to the war effort. Robert Fisk was the recipient of the quilt as well as the correspondence. Robert initially wrote to Fannie, but being younger and much shyer than her sister, Lizzie took the responsibility upon herself to respond to Robert. Lizzie's letter writing abilities proved to be outstanding. She carried on a two and a half year courtship with Robert by mail that resulted in their marriage in the spring of 1867. Her later correspondences with her sister and mother further established her letter writing talents by providing very detailed and heartfelt accounts of her journey to, and life in, Helena, Montana.
When Lizzie arrived in Helena it was nothing more that a crass mining town with no higher aspirations for itself than for its inhabitants to get rich. But within two years of their arrival Robert and others started the Helena Herald. With the beginning of their very own newspaper, Helena began its transformation from rural mining camp to eventual state capital.
Lizzie and Robert became important and prominent members of the community. Although she was well received in the community the main focus of Lizzie's time was the upbringing of her six children. While Robert was busy running the paper and securing political connections to further the advancement of Helena, Lizzie made sure her children were instilled with the same New England values that she felt had served her so well. Elizabeth's New England traditions and beliefs on raising her children are very evident in most of her letters, she makes many references to the claim that the children of Helena could do with some of the Yankee discipline she found had worked so well with her own children. Her "mothering" however, did not take up all her time; she led her town socially and was instrumental in the forming of the first Presbyterian Church in Helena
Lizzie copiously recorded every experience and each child's birth. Her letters are a testimony to her thoughts, feelings, and criticisms of her life, and the times in which she lived. The personal milestones that make up her life are recorded in every way so we hear first hand about the events that shaped this part of the west. These detailed accounts of her everyday life contextualize the life and times of the pioneer in a very personal way.
Lizzie's family continued to grow and life went on, all the while being recorded through her letters, till neither her children nor Helena needed the benefit of her help any longer. The children nearly grown and Helena recognized as an urban financial center, Lizzie and Robert retired to California. Robert sold the Herald and retired to Berkley. His retirement lasted exactly six years; it was six years to the day he had sold his paper that he died. Lizzie continued to live in Berkley after Robert's death and died there at the ripe old age of eighty-one.
The letters so carefully written and executed in perfect detail are her legacy. Her unfettered correspondence, first to Robert and then to her family provide a first hand account of a time and place whose history is not as closely choreographed as we would most often like. Elizabeth Chester Fisk tells us in her own voice the story of he life. Her letters contain the facts of pioneer life that may have been lost if she herself hadn't so ardently and masterfully taken the time to record them. Thanks to Lizzie and her family for doing such a wonderful job of providing us with such a perfect portal to our nation's past.
Further Readings:
Paula Petrik, No Step Backward: Women and Family on the Rocky Mountain Mining Frontier, Helena, Montana, 1865-1900 (Helena: Montana Historical Society Press, 1987)
Paula Petrik, "Mothers and Daughters of Eldorado: The Fisk Family of Helena, M.T.,1867-1902," in Montana, The Magazine of Western History, XXXII, 3 (Summer, 1982).
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