Dora

This is daring Dora. Her full name was Isadora Montague. She grew up in Payson, Utah, and she was not afraid to do things other girls would not try. In 1916, she was one of a party of young people who were in a car that was hit by an interurban train. Dora's collar bone was broken in the accident. The following year she sued the Orem Interurban Railroad and was awarded over $1000. All this happened when she was 17 years old. When the United States entered World War I, Dora enlisted in the navy. She worked in the recruitment office in Salt Lake City. She was perfect for publicity for the navy and often found herself pictured in the newspapers. In one picture, she is bravely holding out her bare arm to the long needle of a navy surgeon. If a girl yeoman can receive her injection of typhoid serum with a smile, boys, why can't you? After the war, Dora still doing stunts for the papers, including, throwing pamphlets out of an open airplane cockpit for American Legion Day. While in Salt Lake, she enrolled in the University of Utah and studied art. This made it perfect for her to be featured painting in Zion National Park early in 1920. Her daughter told us that she loved to in front of the camera. One of the most publicized picture from the week in Zion in May 1920 was of Dora hanging over a cliff in Zion on a rope swing calmly sketching. I don't think she was afraid of heights, but she was afraid of snakes. That was why it was Anne who boasted killing a rattlesnake in Zion and not Dora. That was probably a traumatic event for Dora. After Dora was married, her daring exploits died down, but she remained as spunky as ever. She spent more time in Zion after 1920 than any of the other girls. Her daughter recalled camping there as a family many times. In her later years, she moved to St George, near Zion National Park, so that she could continue to pursue her art among the grand vistas of Southern Utah.

Our Book (part 3)

Why did we decide to write a book? Well, what else could we do when so much was practically given to us? This story was begging to be told, and I don't think that we could have done otherwise and felt good about it. Here was a story that anyone that we asked in Zion National Park about, had never heard about it. All the history books on Zion, that we could find, never even hinted at it. In fact very little was ever said about any park history between Zion becoming a national park at the end of 1919 and the opening of the lodge in 1925 except the dedication ceremony. Most of the wonderful photos hadn't been published since the early 1920s. Here was a chance to tell a story that hasn't been told for 90 years. How often does that happen? The closest thing that we could find was an article written by a daughter of one of our girls in 1973 for the Salt Lake Tribune. While researching the story, information kept falling into our laps like it was just waiting for someone to take a little notice. John, who has done a lot of research for his automobile histories, said that none of his other research ever came this easily. We received encouragement from all sides, and the families of the girls that we found were so thrilled to help us out. We always came away from those visits with renewed enthusiasm. John had collected related park items and maps over the past 10 years that fit perfectly with the story to fill it out visibly even more, and it helped that John is a graphic artist who could do all the design work. He created a ''mock up" version of the book to send to potential publishers including the University of Utah Press who responded quickly saying they wanted to publish it for us. What all of this means is that we wrote the book because it was a great unknown story with great photos that was practically pushing us to produce it. I just don't know that we had any other choice. For all we know, one of those six girls might have started to haunt us if we had just tucked the photo albums away in a box.

Please note that the text of the book was written by my husband John and not by me. He is much better at writing this story than I am. I am afraid that my enthusiasm gets in the way of my writing skills.

The above photo is just one of the great photos found in the photo albums. That is Dora Montague doing a flying dutchman over the cliffs in Zion. I don't think that girl was scared of heights.