Longtime rancher shares colorful life experiences
Berl Tiskus
Carl Lindburg smiles from the front seat of a 1926 Model T farm truck that he talked owner Shari Kelley, Palm Springs, California, into donating to the Garden of the Rockies Museum in 2007.
Berl Tiskus
Carl Lindburg smiles from the front seat of a 1926 Model T farm truck that he talked owner Shari Kelley, Palm Springs, California, into donating to the Garden of the Rockies Museum in 2007.
Berl Tiskus
Alice and Cal Lindburg celebrate their 64th wedding anniversary April 15.
Berl Tiskus
Alice and Cal Lindburg’s four granddaughters are all beautiful, according to their proud grandmother.
Berl Tiskus
Berl Tiskus
Berl Tiskus
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RONAN — When you start talking to Cal Lindburg, his wife Alice, and some of Cal’s friends, an image emerges — a family man, involved in his church, a good businessman and a civic leader with a sprinkling of the practical joker for leavening.
Cal and Alice Lindburg will be celebrating their 64th wedding anniversary on April 15. They’ve spent most of their lives in the Ronan area.
Alice’s maiden name was Elfers, and she was born and raised in Ronan.
Cal was born in Wagner, South Dakota, the southeast corner near Sioux City, Iowa. It’s flat and windy there, Cal and Alice agreed.
The Lindburg family moved to Ronan and lived on Mud Creek.
Local rancher Laurence Cornelius said the first time he remembered seeing Cal, Cal was a young man walking into Ronan early every morning to start the kilns at Tim’s Bakery.
Cal served his country in the United States Army as a medic in the Korean War. He was stationed in Japan, and he remembers boarding the U.S.S. Breckinridge and sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge.
“I was leaving my own country. It was getting smaller and smaller and then it was gone,” Cal said.
He recalls at dinnertime meals on the ship were served on a large, long tray. When the ship hit a big wave, the plates would slide on the tray.
To continue eating, “You had to wait until your plate came back,” he said, smiling.
Cal talked about asking Alice out on their first date.
“Well, I’ll tell you, I had my mind made up I was going to ask for a date,” he said.
He went to Sunday school class, which Alice’s mom taught.
“Well,” he thought, “I’ll sit in the front row and save her a seat.”
Alice was outside playing, though, so Cal went outside and asked if he could take her home. Alice said, “Yes,” and the rest is history. They married in 1951. Alice had attended Whitworth College in Spokane and then the University of Montana.
When Cal returned from the army, he went to pharmacy school, and Alice took the opportunity to get her masters in home economics.
Cal worked at Missoula Drug and then he came to Ronan and took a job with Don Hurt, who was ready to retire. After two years, Hurt wanted to sell the business, but he wanted the money in two days. Cal and Alice borrowed the money in the nick of time.
“We started out with zero, but that’s a good place to start,” Alice said.
Cal worked as a pharmacist in 1961 and unofficially retired in 2000.
“Time went by pretty fast,” he said. “I enjoyed the work, though.”
Alice and Cal have three children, Jonathan, Merri Lee and Robin. The Lindburg children attended Ronan schools and graduated from Ronan High School just as their mother and her siblings had.
“They’re our greatest accomplishment,” Alice said.
The family line continues with four granddaughters and four grandsons, six of whom live in Missoula. The remaining two live in Wyoming.
One of Cal and Alice’s granddaughters, Victoria Valentine, happens to be Miss Montana. Alice said all of her granddaughters are beautiful and smart and could be Miss Montana, too, although the couple is very proud of Victoria.
Cal and Alice are churchgoers. Cal was a charter member of and helped build three Christian and Missionary Alliance Churches; when he was 17 or 18 he helped lay the floorboards on the first of those churches. At church Cal served as a deacon, an elder, a Sunday School teacher, a youth leader and men’s president. He also sponsored events for the church, including valentine banquets and a Flathead cruise.
Alice has always led a Bible study and continues to this day.
According to Alice, who keeps track of everything for their scrapbooks,Cal was one of the main men who built the Ronan hospital and nursing home. He was president of the hospital board for 12 years. Cal held potato feeds to raise funds to repair the old Dupuis barn and was stalwart in the Ronan Chamber of Commerce.
“As long as we had a business, we had a float in the parade,” Alice said, remembering how hard they worked on the floats.
The Garden of the Rockies Museum was a pet project of Cal’s; he helped move the old Catholic Church, the main museum building, and the Round Butte gym. He moved the stagecoach house that was on the golf course, mostly by himself.
When he wasn’t running the pharmacy or involved in civic activities, Cal raised Hereford and Black Angus cattle and had a big interest in mules, burros and horses. He did his own farming, Alice said, putting up hay and raising grain.
Cal collects and has rebuilt antique cars; his pride and joy is a little Model A. Cal has also amassed a selection of license plates from Montana and other states.
“I like the pictures on ‘em,” Cal said.
In addition to hard work and hobby activities, Cal made time to attend a coffee club. He and a bunch of other men, including Paul Metzger, Jack Fay, Ward Mendenhal, Lloyd Ingraham and Arnie Armstrong, met at the Quick Lunch, then changed venues to Denault’s Bakery and to the Ronan Café.
They played a game invented by Cal to see who would buy coffee.
Metzger and Cal hunted together, traveling to Great Falls and Superior for elk or deer or whatever they could find to go out after.
“Cal could cover those hills like an old hound dog after a chick pheasant,” Metzger said. “He was a good shot, too.”
The Lindburgs traveled, too, cruising the Caribbean and Alaska and visiting Mexico and Canada.
Alice liked the Caribbean, and Cal liked Alaska.
“Well, it was a lot like Montana,” he said, grinning.
He likes animals, wildlife and the outdoors, Alice said.
“We went to Juneau, that bridge to nowhere.
It’s only 60 miles to Russia,” Cal said, “too close for me.”
In case Cal sounds too good to be true, sources who did not want to be named said he was a jokester. The sources said Metzger and Cal went back and forth tricking each other. Metzger once put an ad in the local paper after Christmas. The ad said Cal was buying people’s old Christmas trees at his business, so he had many, many trees sitting around his pharmacy. Cal had many pranks played on him, too. For example, somebody painted “Love” on the side of Cal’s old milk cow and another time caught Cal’s donkey, dressed it in a hat and tied it at the end of Main Street. One of the best may have been a tape recorder under Cal and Alice’s bed, set on a timer to wake them at midnight, with greetings from the local highway patrolman, the preacher and other friends.
The Garden of the Rockies Museum was a pet project of Cal’s; he helped move the old Catholic Church, the main museum building, and the Round Butte gym. He moved the stagecoach house that was on the golf course, mostly by himself.
“He’s a true friend,” Metzger said.
