One of the “laws” of historical research is that personal recollections are unreliable, as a person's memories fade with time and are often jumbled together. Consequently, a competent researcher will cross-check personal testimony with records and outside sources. This is paramount. While old-timers' stories of “how it was” can be very entertaining, they are not always reliable as history, often being closer to fiction than truth, thus the need for verification.
The bulk of the book was written from the personal recollections of Charlie's youngest daughter, Alicia Ann (1892-1981), who was in her late 70's at the time he interviewed her and was but ten years old when her father died in 1902.
By the time Mr. Murphy interviewed her, those childhood memories had gotten very fuzzy. He should have spent a little time fact checking some of her tales, but he failed to do so and took her at face value, thereby continuing to promulgate the falsehoods and innuendos initially promulgated by her mother, Alicia Davenport (Stanford) Conrad, who had several axes to grind.
Foremost among those axes was her attitude towards her husband's first-born, Charles Edward Conrad, Jr. She did all that she could to erase him from the family story, as he was not hers, but the child of C. E.'s first wife, the Kainai (Blood) woman, whose name was actually Kaiyis (more on this in a later post). To make it short, despite claims to the contrary, Edward (as he was often called) was not a drunk, did not abandon his wife and most likely did not commit suicide, although that is still being researched.
Murphy's notes, MS, and related papers are in the archives of the Conrad Mansion Museum in Kalispell, Montana. A perusal of this small collection was very enlightening. It is evident from them that he finished a chapter and then moved on, never referring back to previous work and thus creating several inconsistencies, the most obvious of which is the existence of two completely different stories of how Charlie's mother-in-law, Catherine Elizabeth Alicia (Coggan) Stanford came to the States.
The version of Catherine's arrival that is briefly recounted on pages 74-75 is fictional and is devoid of any actual dates. He has her arriving accompanied by a chaperone, Guglielmo Marconi. She did indeed arrive in Boston, Massachusetts, in June of 1848 as Murphy states, but Marconi was born in 1874. The problem is obvious and indicative. Mrs. Stanford liked to tell stories, and young Alicia loved to hear them, but failed to distinguish fact from fiction and Mr. Murphy failed to fact check anything. This version is, in fact, a somewhat garbled summary of a romance novel that Mrs. Stanford had written (Hearts vs. Diamonds. London & NY: F. T. Neely, [1899] under the pseudonym of Carl Chester).
He also gives some erroneous details concerning Mrs. Stanford's life in England, one of which is his reporting (based on Alicia Conrad's memories) that her brother died of the plague, leaving her alone when in fact, the brother mentioned, George Simmons Stanford, died in 1934. They did, however, have a falling out and rarely, if ever, corresponded with each other afterwards. Catherine's father died about ten years after she emigrated and they corresponded as often as possible during that time.
The only fully reliable part of this book is the accurate information on Ft. Benton which was provided by the late Ft. Benton historian, Joel Overholser, which contribution the author does acknowledge.
One final problem, and then I shall draw this critique to a close: Mr. Murphy provided no bibliography. You are left to find what sources were used by pouring through the text.
Until next time!
--- Richard L. Hardesty