The Luthje Family of Upper Willow Creek

According to Anne Luthje, author of “Upper Willow Creek”, Hans Luthje, born in Ohe-Schleswig-Holstein, Germany October 14, 1860, lost his mother at the age of two and shortly after, his father left baby Hans and his siblings to travel to America. In 1881 Hans then traveled to Philipsburg, Montana to join his uncle Nicholaus who had lived in America for ten years and was sponsoring Hans. Hans arrived at Ellis Island and after processing traveled by train to Corrine, Utah. From there he traveled by stagecoach. 

Hans and his uncle traveled extensively (even by horseback) to California and New Mexico where Hans worked in butcher shops and on ranches. When Hans returned to Philipsburg he worked at Kroger’s Brewery and at the bar in The Kaiser House. During this time they were also working a placer mine along Sawpit Gulch, where they built a small cabin. By 1890, Nicholaus and Hans decided it was time to settle down and they bought 160 acres from Jacob and Eliza McConkie on Willow Creek for $2,000. Deciding they both needed their own place in 1898, Hans bought the south one-half of a Railroad Section from Northern Pacific Railroad adjacent to the original 160 acres and he and Nicholaus became neighbors. 

 At the age of forty, Hans returned to Europe, attending the World’s Fair in Paris then traveling to his childhood home where he met Margaretha Bohrnsen and after a one month courtship the twenty-five year old agreed to return to America with Hans and become his wife. The couple married in Omaha on May 8, 1901 at Margaretha’s cousins home and the couple then traveled on to Philipsburg where they were met by Nicholaus and his wife “Mina Nick”. After being introduced to the lively town of Philipsburg, Margaretha was taken by wagon on a bumpy ride to her “Castle” a hand hewn one room log cabin with a dirt floor. Years later she “admitted to her daughters that if she’d had the money and a way to go she would have closed the door on that dirt floor and America and returned to her home in Germany” states Anne Luthje. 

Margaretha (Bohensen) and Hans (Sr.) Luthje 1901

Their first child, Hans was born February 2, 1902; the second child Marie (Mary) (Hollings, Sanders), August 30, 1903 (1976); the third Anna (Superneau), September 19, 1905 (1960); the fourth Margaret (Hayes), November 1, 1907 (1986); the fifth Henry, May 6, 1910 (died in WWII Combat in Germany,1944); the sixth Catherine, February 26, 1912 (1978); the seventh John, January 29, 1914 (1999); the eighth Elsie (Reinoehl), March 17, 1917 (2019). (Hans took Margaretha by horse and sled to Philipsburg; then by train to Butte where Hattie the Midwife now lived for this birth. Hattie had delivered the other seven at the ranch) 

To make the land a home and prosperous ranch, life was filled with hard work. Family members immigrated to the area, including Bohrnsen siblings. As the Luthje children grew they attended school at Spring Creek as did the cousins and neighbors. 

Hans Sr. age 81, died of a ruptured gangrenous appendix at St. Anne’s Hospital August 9, 1942. Margaretha lived on at the ranch until dying in 1965. 

Years after young Hans graduated from Spring Creek and was working at the Sapphire Mines, he met the newest school teacher Marcia Lester in 1927. Marcia, born in North Dakota graduated from High school in 1924 and attended Teacher’s College in Billings. She was hired directly out of school by the Granite County School Board. The couple were married in Thompson Falls on December 22, 1929. Anne Luthje states “Martha would always proclaim that when they married she had money in the bank while Hans had nothing.” and with a smile Hans would reply “I had a 1923 Buick, a fine horse named Red Bird, a Miles City Association saddle with matching bridle and spurs with inlaid silver.” (A rancher always keeps his priorities straight!) 

Hans (Jr) and Marcia (Lester) Luthje 1929

Hans and Marcia had two children, Loren, September 22, 1934 and Trilbe (Fortunati), April 30, 1936 while Hans continued working in Philipsburg for The American Gem and Bi-Metallic Mining Company. Shortly after Trilbe was born they bought the “old Grant Place”, on Willow Creek that had been taken over by the bank during the depression and took up the family life of ranching. 

Hans died February 9, 1996 at the age of ninety-four. Marcia retired from teaching in 1973 and lived on the ranch until two weeks before her death in 2003, at the age of ninety-seven. 

Loren, widowed, continues to live on the Luthje ranch; Trilbe lives in California; Loren’s son Tim owns the Willow Creek “Mungas Ranch” and leases the Luthje meadows; daughter Lori (Ruch) lives with her family in Helena.