A truncated hipped roof reflects this circa 1895 home’s modest beginnings. Carpenters used shorter, less expensive pieces of lumber for hipped roofs than for triangular-shaped gable roofs. Owners added a full-length front porch (since removed) and a rear addition before 1903. That year Ida Northway purchased the residence, where she lived with her husband Joseph and their son Glen. Women like Ida often owned their family homes because in some circumstances their property could be protected from their husbands’ creditors. Montana’s boom-and-bust economy made any such protection welcome. An open range cowboy in the 1880s, Ida’s husband Joseph tried several businesses before his election as Rosebud County sheriff in 1902. He later owned a successful meat market at Tenth and Main, an easy walk from here. Ida, for her part, was a renowned homemaker. “Home was the dearest place of all to her,” according to her 1927 obituary. “…As a consequence, she kept it so that not only her own family delighted to be there, but her many friends to drop in for a little time of its fellowship.”