About Gladys Kauffman

Gladys Mary Mullet grew up on a farm north of Glendive, Montana, with six sisters and two brothers. Her grandparents had come to the area in 1903 and were among the first settlers near Bloomfield.

Between 1943 and 1951 she taught in rural one-room schools in Dawson County. In 1949 she married Morris Kauffman and moved into Glendive, where they raised nine children. In spite of being busy with the family, both Morris and Gladys managed to get degrees from Dawson Community College in Glendive.

In 1964, during Montana's territorial centennial celebration, Mrs. Kauffman noticed the dwindling numbers of the pioneers who had settled Eastern Montana, and felt it best that someone record their stories before they were gone.
Although she had 9 children, the youngest still a baby, she set out to interview as many settlers as possible. Over the next 10 years, she recorded the stories of over 160 pioneers and published those stories in the local newspaper, the Ranger Review.

Those stories have been published in book form (two volumes). An excerpt from one of those stories appears here (left). Also, see Mrs. Kauffman's website: www.as-i-remember.com.

In 1978, the Kauffmans moved to Bozeman to continue education at Montana State University, where Gladys received her B.S. in Elementary Education in 1981. She was one of the original teachers at Heritage Christian School in Bozeman and taught there for nine years before semi-retiring in 1991. Morris passed away in 1984.

Gladys still lives in Bozeman and enjoys her children and thirteen grandchildren. She has put much effort into her As I Remember project and is thrilled, at the age of 84, to have the stories published and widely available, in that they represent Montana history from the perspec-tive of those who lived it.