The M.E. (Pete) Walley Family
While the Walleys lived at Choteau, Melvin Earl Walley was born at the family home on July 29, 1907. Pete, as he is called, was raised at Choteau and attended school there. As a young man, he held all sorts of jobs in the area, mostly on farms. He did the lambing, shearing, and hearding on the sheep ranches and cowboying on the cattle ranches. At this time he also became a self-taught trapper which he has enjoyed over the years.
This is the story of how Melvin Earl got the nickname “Pete”. There was a big old livery barn in Choteau owned by William Hodgekiss, with old Frank McCabe as the barn tender. Old Frank liked children, and when Pete was about five or six years old, he would go there just about every morning. Old Frank would take a saddle and tie it to the front wheel of the stinkwagon (manure wagon to those of you who are not familiar with the term) and Pete would sit on it and pretend to ride. Judge DeHass’s office was across the street, and after seeing him ride like this for several days, nicknamed him “Stinkwagon Pete”. After he got big enough to kick people in the shins, the name was shortened to just “Pete”.
While Sarah Simmons, from Valier, was working in Choteau for Dr. Maynard, a mutual friend introduced her to Pete. They were married on November 7, 1933, which they recall was during the hard times of the Depression. They moved to Valier in the fall of 1934, and Pete had a job working for the city. He mostly did work on the water system, and Tom Durnell was his boss. The Walleys eventually bought the George Ellingson house that sat east of Jazz Orr’s place. They moved the house to its present location in 1943, and have lived here for the past thirty-eight years.
Pete went to work for the Valier Land and Water Company on April 5, 1935. He first started work as a ditchrider, and recalls that there were a lot of small farms in the area at the time. Pete’s job covered the whole Valier area. He earned $0.35 an hour and was glad to get it since jobs were pretty hard to find. George Ebner was the project engineer at the time and others that Pete worked with were Art Holmes, Henry Struss, “Chick” Duncan, Bert Ferguson, Henry Osterwyck, William Pauli, Floyd Hartwell, Loren Lightner, Jude Monroe, and many more. He worked for the Water Company for thirty-nine years, the last twelve as a manager. He retired in 1974.
Pete served on the Valier town council for nine years. He recalls that while he was on the council, they put in the first transit water pipe that everybody thought wouldn’t work, but did, and also replaced the old street lights. Serving with him was Lloyd Eppe, Jessee Kibbee, and Dick Loel. Ralph Bowman was the mayor and Pete believes he was a damn good mayor, but seemed like nobody really appreciated him at the time. Then the people of the community got together and built the Civic Center. Pete used the Water Company’s back filler and set the flag pole.
Pete and Sarah had two children, Jere Malcome and Sharon Earlene.