Shirley Says

Of all the hats that Shirley Blunt has worn in Phillips County in most of the 93 years she has lived here, the one she misses the most is being a ranch hand.

"I have been riding horses since I was two years old," Shirley said in her living room on Friday afternoon. "That is the thing I miss the most about living on the ranch."

Shirley was born in Malta in 1923, the daughter of Pearl (Watson) and George Aikins. It was a little more than a decade since Aikins has married (1921) and migrated to Montana to homestead in Phillips County before the couple had baby Shirley, the only child.

The one tim...