The Mellette County pioneer. [volume] (Wood, Mellette County, S.D.) 19??-1971, 1924-01-18
FORMER HCnESIEADER
MAKES GOOD IN new YORK

AAALAz1 NoVD ALN ANA" VANAA
CCnquering of obstacles is the ia.
vorite pastime of Miss Helen Moore
former Mellette county homesteadel
now a successful interior dccora ting
contractor OF New York. While
others give up in despair when en-
countering adverse conditions, Miss
Moore welcomes them as sort of
adventure, according to an article
entitled, "What One Woman Did, =
which appeared in the New York Sun
and Globe.
The New York newspaper devoted
a column to Miss Moore s adventures
relating that she was born in Omaha,
Neb., but snent most of her child,
hood il Sioux City, Ia, to which
city her family moved when she was
a very small girl.
Sllas Moore, pioneer druggist OF
Sioux City, Iowa, was her father Her
mother is now visiting in Sioux City
with her sister, Mrs. j. G. Duncan.
Both Miss Moore and her father
homcstcaded about six miles south
east OF Wood near the old Chiffon
townsite, and for time they con-
ducted store at Chiffon.
Stakes Out Claim
The New York Sun and Globe story
follows:
The family had plenty of money
and Helen was sent to school in the
east and finished up with an art
course, specializing in miniature
paintings. She really paints exquisite
miniatures, and her first venture in
the business world was a New York
studio which she opened as soon as
she had completed her art training.
Painting miniatures is good business
if one can only get plenty OF orders
but these do not roll in in sufficient
number, usually, to keep the wolf
from the door if there is wolf
around, and Miss Moore tired Of oc-
casional orders and a surplus Of lei
sure. Some members of her family
had become South Dakota ranch
owners, and this young artist decid
ed that ranching was the life! She
closed her studio, turned her face
westward and wound up by stalking
out a l60-acre ranch or homestead in
the Rosebud Indian territory, three
and a half miles from the nearest
and 81 miles beyond the
end of the Northwestern railway.
Things were quite exciting out
there with prairie fires, Indians
:" hotched up on patent medicines
and lemon extract roaring around at
all hours of the day and night, and
stepping from rattlesnake to rattle
snake whenever | went out of doors,
says Miss Moore, who brought back
with her to civilization a shoe box full
of rattles cut from snakes she had
killed with her own fair hands and a
trusty stick or fence rail. The big
gest of the lot was five and a halt
foot fellow who crossed her path the
day before she departed from South
Dakota, said rattler contributing II
rattles to the shoe box collection.
"She stuck to the ranch three years
living in most interesting little
house which she built herself with the
aid of one cowboy. 1t was repro
duction of 18th century log cabin.
At the end Of three years she sold the
ranch, and the family fortunes having
by now become nil, the proceeds OF
the sale went in to the family ex
chequer, and Miss Moore came back
to New York to try job hunting. She
landed III the city with $50 and ap
piled to the head of one OF the big
stores for job. He asked her what
She could do. She admits that she
lad not thought of an answer to that
question, but her eye fell on a pile
Of odds and ends of fabrics which
we're evidently designed for the rag
man. = can take those, she said
and make them into things that will
sell. All right, replied the mana.
ser, take them home and let me see
what you can do with them. In a
'ew days she turned up with cushions,
.able covers screens, ETC., etc, etc.
galore. She got the job.
After staying here for few
months she moved on to similar
position i'll another establishment.
Interior Decorator
Following this she found employ.
nent with an interior decorator, and
within comparatively short time she
lad determined to set up shop for
lersef. She has a thriving place