Grace Stone Coates

Grace Stone Coates: Her Life in Letters, cover, 2004.

 

Holiday card promoting Coates's book, 1931.

 

Black Cherries, cover, 1931.

Grace Stone was a young teacher in Butte, Montana, when she married Henderson Coates in 1910. They moved to Martinsdale, a small Montana town, where Henderson and his brother built a general store. Although Coates lived in the Musselshell Valley for the next 55 years, she always felt that she had been brought “into an alien land. " From about 1920 until 1935, Coates immersed herself in writing poetry, short stories, and letters. She published two books of poetry and the acclaimed novel, “Black Cherries.” Her poetry is passionate, her short stories are intense and revealing, and her letters are prolific and personable.