Centenarian remembers childhood friend,
Buffalo Bill Cody


By Rhonda Schulte

April 6, 2001

     When Edith “Dolly” Erskine Duffield turns 100 years old on Sept. 6, 2001, she will join a handful of Hot Springs County residents who are now centenarians. Because of her close connections to the founders of Wyoming and local prominent figures, Dolly’s life story is one rich in historical significance dating back to the American Civil War when both her southern grandfathers fought for the North. One grandfather, Harlow L. Erskine, was an auditor for the U.S. Treasury.
     As a child Dolly sat on the lap of Buffalo Bill Cody (1846-1917) known as one of the most colorful figures of the Old West, and mostly famous for the shows he organized with cowboy themes.
     She has danced with former Wyoming Gov. Milward Simpson, elected to office in 1954.
     With her coiffed short white hair, bright jewelry and stylish clothes, Dolly presents a dignified appearance. At this milestone age, she takes pride in her ability to stand without assistance and in her clarity of mind.
     “I’m about as old as any of them that’s mind is still good,” said Dolly, a resident of Canyon Hills Manor in Thermopolis, Wyo., since September 1999.
     The exquisite doll collection and antiques she valued in years past have been sold; her friends and schoolmates are gone. Four of her five children have passed away as has her beloved husband of 57 years.
     Yet she takes pleasure in her remaining relatives, including her son, Thermopolis resident Walter Boulware, his wife, Darlene, and 14 grandchildren.
     As she flips through old photos, Dolly’s memories flow. She is a virtual history book filled with knowledge of the Big Horn Basin’s early days.
     Her mother, Anna Young, widowed with two children, Bertha and Mark, worked at the New Natrona Hotel in Casper, Wyo., when it was first built and was employed at the Higgins Commissary on the Platte River. When she moved to the Big Horn Basin in northwest Wyoming, she worked at the post office of the Middle Palette Ranch on the Greybull River.
     The Palette ranches were owned by A.A. Anderson, the first superintendent of the Yellowstone Forest Reserve established by President Teddy Roosevelt. Anderson had studied art in Paris and maintained a studio in New York. His ranch was named for an artists’ palette.
     “He built a wonderful lodge,” said Dolly. “The whole outside was covered with buffalo heads. The pieces of furniture in the house were from all different countries.”
     At the time her parents met, Dolly’s father, Eugene Erskine, was working at a newly-opened mine called the Gold Reef above the Palette Ranches. Her mother made leather britches for the miners working there.
     When the couple married, they farmed and raised cattle on their homestead near the Palette Ranches. After Dolly’s mother became pregnant, the couple leased their land and moved to Meeteetse where Anna ran a boarding house and Eugene returned to mining. The Erskines eventually sold out to A.A. Anderson.
     Another rancher, Louis B. Phelps, also wanted to buy the homestead to add to his Pitchfork Ranch.
     “Mother said she would give it to Anderson before she would sell to Phelps,” said Dolly.
     She was born at her parent’s home in Meeteetse, Wyo., in the same year the town was incorporated. Meeteetse’s first physician, Dr. W.S. Bennett, brought her into the world on Sept. 6, 1901, the same day, possibly the hour, when President William McKinley was shot and killed by an assassin in Buffalo, N.Y.
     As a young girl, Dolly apparently failed to appreciate Dr. Bennett’s important role in her birth. She remembers kicking his black satchel, angry he had arrived for a visit empty-handed.
     “Everybody’s getting babies,” accused the young Dolly. “How come we don’t get a baby?”
     Dr. Bennett was later a Republican candidate for the Wyoming Senate.
     Photos of the first buidings in Meeteetse are among those in Dolly’s collection. She can name the origianl business proprietors.
     There is a picture of her as a baby in her mother’s arms. They are part of a group of people sitting at a table with two Civil War figures, colonels McNair and William Douglas Pickett.
     Pickett earned his commission under the Confederacy and moved West after the Civil War. He was called the “father of Big Horn County” for his effort with territorial legislation. He raised Herefords at his settlement at the mouth of Pickett’s Creek, a tributary of the Greybull River that runs through Meeteetse.
     Dolly attended a school near Meeteetse. She still remembers the name of every child in her school photographs. At the time there were three Ediths, she said.
     “My teacher said, ‘You can’t compete with three Ediths. You’re a little thing. We’ll call you Lolly.’”
     Eventually the nickname became Dolly.
     She had a childhood friendship with Buffalo Bill Cody, who attended old timers’ meetings at Meeteetse in 1908.
He always held me in his lap,” Dolly said. “He always gave me money.”
     Her family lived across the road from the hotel where the meetings were held. Her mother loaned her piano for use at the meetings. Dolly remembers the men carrying the combersome instrument across the street.
     Floyd Noble, a rider and marksman with the Buffalo Bill show, and his wife, Helen, Pawnee Bill and Curly Downing were also among her close friends. Dolly attended the final Wild West Show in Sioux City, Iowa.
     During the 1920s she lived at Grass Creek where she and her first husband, Albert Gee, owned an amusement store and ice cream parlor.
     They sold “all kinds of sundaes and good things for 15 cents,” Dolly said.
     When the couple separated, the large building was rented to a woman who turned it into a picture show. The building later burned down.
     She married Noah Duffield in 1939. His work with the railroad took them to Missoula and Billing, Mont. In her later years Dolly worked as a practical nurse at Missoula.
     The many snapshots in her photo albums capture for future generations the special people, events and places that make up Dolly’s personal history. Reflecting over the past 100 years she seems satisfied with the end result.
     “I’ve had a good life,” she said.

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