Historian brings Montana single mom homesteader's history to life
Lily Bell Stearns was no one important when she arrived by train in Montana in 1912. Stearns was a recent divorcee with three children, including one daughter left behind in a mental institution. Yet she now has her own online museum exhibit. Thanks to Sara Gregg, a University of Kansas associate professor of history and environmental studies, Stearns’ Eastern Montana homesteading story has been excavated like the bones of an unknown dinosaur.