MUSEUM GIFT SHOP

This extensive collection brings the flavorful foods of some of Lemhi County, Idaho’s, best cooks to your own kitchens. It is designed to allow you to add your own recipes to the binder.

OVERVIEW

“Her name was Elizabeth, and she was an American princess as surely as her mother, the invincible Emma Russell Sweringen, was the ‘Sheep Queen of Idaho.’ Old-timers in Idaho, Utah, and Montana still remember the Sheep Queen with love and awe. And Elizabeth? ‘I have only twice in my life seen women as beautiful,’ her son recalls, ‘and both of them were strangers.’”
The Sheep Queen of Idaho, originally published under the title, I Heard My Sister Speak My Name, “is a magnificent chronicle of five generations of an American ranching dynasty who shared a unity and a heritage which made the family all but impregnable—and of the shy beauty who, by one act, threatened that unity and became a stranger even to herself. It is the story, unforgettable, incredible, but true, of a child who never knew her, but devoted half a lifetime to seeking her secret out.
“. . . Thomas Savage speaks directly to every adopted child among us. He speaks, eloquently, to those who have been raised in the American West and have experienced the joy and loneliness of ranch life. He speaks, with compassion, honesty and hope, to parents fearful of the future or regretful about the past. Indeed, this timeless novel speaks to us all.”

OVERVIEW

“Set in 1920s Montana, this compelling domestic drama tells the story of two brothers—and of the woman and young boy, mother and son, whose arrival on the brothers’ ranch shatters an already tenuous peace. From the novel’s startling first paragraph to its very last word, Thomas Savage’s voice—and the intense passion and cruelty of his characters—holds readers in thrall.”

Museum staff: This is one of the finest books we have ever read, and we recommend it highly.

OVERVIEW

“John Metlen, once a successful rancher and the proud proprietor of the town’s first hotel, sees his family tumble from prosperity to near indigence. Martin Connard, the tough, aggressive patriarch of the town’s banking family, ruthlessly presides over his clan’s ever-increasing wealth and power. As the complex relationships of their families intertwine over the course of thirty years, one woman will emerge at the center—a woman who shockingly flouts convention to save what she loves.”

“Somewhere south of Butte—east of Salmon, Idaho, and near the center of Thomas Savage’s imagination—lies the town of Grayling, Montana.”
(Chicago Tribune)

OVERVIEW

Savage’s first novel sets the stage for a half-century of fascinating characters and compelling plots. According to Annie Proulx, his work captures, “family complexity of names, identities, of east coast culture and western mountains, of manual labor and writing, of a lost past and private secrets.”