Walter and Mariam Skeels Cooper and their daughter, Mariam Cooper Bunker, were a fairly typical early Bozeman family. Like most, they experienced their shares of ups and downs. The letters, diaries, and photographs they left behind offer a glimpse into their steady love for each other and for the Bozeman community.

Walter Cooper was born in New York state and lived briefly in Michigan before heading west in 1858. As a young man, he lived a nomadic lifestyle and dabbled in fur trading, prospecting, scouting for the U.S. military, and freighting. He arrived in Montana in 1864, where his talent as a gunsmith soon led to a successful business in Bozeman.

In addition to his work with firearms, Walter Cooper was a key figure in the establishment and the early growth of the community. He served as one of Bozeman’s first council members and lent his talents to the governing board of Montana Agricultural College (now MSU), established in 1893. Cooper was also involved in local business enterprises, including lumber operations in nearby Bear and Gallatin Canyons.

It was likely during his mid-1860s mining and freighting activities in Montana that Walter met Mariam Diane Skeels. Mariam was born in 1852 to Nelson and Lucinda Skeels, who arrived in Montana from Illinois in 1865. The Skeels family settled on a farm in the Boulder Valley in what is today Jefferson County. Mariam Skeels and Walter Cooper were married April 19, 1870. They built a home in Bozeman on West Main Street, very near the current location of the Baxter Hotel.

Mariam and Walter happily welcomed their first child, a boy, on November 26, 1871. The Bozeman Courier announced: “Walter is justly proud of the first issue, which we hope will require but few corrections, and attain manhood with as few mistakes and as free from slurs as his worthy progenitor.” Tragically, their son died only weeks later. The Bozeman Courier printed a message of sympathy: “We tender our warmest sympathy to Mr. and Mrs. Cooper in their severe and untimely affliction. But three weeks since we had the pleasure of announcing the birth of this their darling first born, which gave evidence of vigorous health and a longer life, but the little boy has been early called.”

Twenty years later, the Coopers were blessed with two daughters – first Mariam, then Frances. Tragedy struck a second time when Frances died at age ten months in September 1892. Once again, the Courier reported the heartbreaking news: “She was a sweet babe, aged one year, and had wound the tendrils of love so closely about the father and mother, that they are stricken with grief at her loss. We know of nothing else so touchingly sad as the death of a child.” 

The Cooper’s only surviving child, Mariam, came into the world on September 28, 1890, when her parents were 37 and 49 years old. It is obvious from family letters and photographs that they loved Mariam tremendously and treasured her dearly. She was raised in the family’s large home on Main Street, which in the 1890s, was one of the most popular social hot spots in Bozeman.

Local resident Helen Noble Creasy reminisced about the Cooper home in a 1976 oral history interview. “They lived where the Baxter Hotel is now and that was from the alley to Main Street. It was fenced with beautiful white iron fencing and there’s where the parties were. Ladies went with beautiful dresses and lovely coats and capes and hats before they went to an opera or a show.”

Mariam graduated from Gallatin County High School and then enrolled at National Park Seminary; a girls finishing school located in Maryland. The separation and distance must have been especially hard on the close-knit Cooper family. In October 1907, Mariam wrote a letter home to her parents in which she joyfully described attending a live theater production of “Peter Pan” and her elation after being accepted into Kappa Delta Phi sorority.

“My dearest family:

It is Sunday morning a quarter past eleven, and raining outside – just the day to write letters. I would have begun this earlier but after making up my bed with clean sheets and pillow cases I sat down and read & re-read all your dear letters to me... I became so interested that the time slipped & I have no idea how late it was...

Well, Friday night I was “pledged” into Kappa Delta Phi, and am now wearing a little silver bracelet with a red and white bow tied on – the colors of the Sorority... Tomorrow night is initiation. I am a little bit scared but think I can live through it...

My music gets more interesting every day. I do love it so, and Mme. is very interested in me. She said again to write you that I was doing well. I am afraid you will be awfully disappointed if I don’t do well, but remember I did graduate from High School, thanks to only you, Mother. I appreciate that if it hadn’t of been for you dear, I am afraid I would yet have been no farther than the 9th...

Well, dear folks, it is now 12:30 and I must dress for dinner... remember – just so I get home in June.

With lots and acres of love, I am,
Your only and loving daughter,
Mariam Cooper

National Park Sem.
Forest Glen, Maryland.
Nine miles out from the city of Washington, D.C. and several thousand miles from Bozeman, Montana.”

The end of Mariam’s letter home suggests how much she loved and missed her parents and Montana. Her father Walter felt the same way. Two years later, he wrote a sweet letter to a family who had befriended Mariam during her education in the East.


“Bozeman, April 30th, 1909

My Dear Mr. Myers,

I write to thank you and Mrs. Myers for your great kindness to our little daughter, Mariam. You have certainly made it possible for her to spend the most delightful and happy vacation of her life. She has written us of your care and thoughtful consideration of her every want and pleasure. It is difficult to find words to suitably express to you how grateful we are.

We are also most thankful that it was Mariam’s good fortune to have so delightful companion through her school year as your charming daughter Miss Hazel, whom Mariam loves dearly. May we not hope to have the pleasure of welcoming you and your family to our mountain home in the near future. Montana is considered a most delightful summer country...

With kindest regards to yourself, family and friends I am,

Sincerely yours,
Walter Cooper”

Walter Cooper’s invitation to the Myers family to visit their Montana cabin was a thoughtful gesture, and evidence of his love for his family and his state. The Cooper’s “mountain home” was located near Hellroaring Creek in Gallatin Canyon. They spent idyllic summers there, relaxing and enjoying the outdoors and each other’s company.

In 1909, the nearly nineteen-year-old Mariam Cooper was crowned Sweet Pea Queen at the Sweet Pea Carnival in Bozeman. This great honor was bestowed on one young woman every year, and undoubtedly Mariam’s parents celebrated with her and shared in her recognition and congratulations. The Republican Courier proudly reported on Mariam’s selection as Queen on September 7: “A Bozeman girl and that proves her a natural queen. Born and all her life spent in Bozeman, there could be no flowers too sweet and beautiful to crown her with. The committee chose well and the city will be proud of Queen Mariam of the Carnival.”

By the 1910s, Walter Cooper was experiencing financial difficulties, which unfortunately continued for the rest of his life. He focused his attention on writing a memoir of his youth spent traveling the West. Walter hired cowboy artist Charles M. Russell to produce illustrations to accompany his work, but due to high costs, Cooper was unable to publish his manuscript. After his death in 1924, and his wife Mariam’s a year later, the work was passed down to his daughter and grandchildren, who kept the dream alive. Cooper’s manuscript, A Most Desperate Situation, was finally published in 2000, and serves as a tribute to his love of the West.

Mariam Cooper married attorney Eugene Francis Bunker in Bozeman in 1913, and the couple moved into the family home on West Main Street with Mariam’s parents. Mariam and Eugene Bunker later purchased their own home at 319 S. 3rd Avenue, where they raised their three children – Virginia, Elizabeth, and Eugene Francis, Jr. Eugene, Sr. died in 1956, and their South 3rd Avenue home was sold soon after. Mariam continued to live in Bozeman until her death in 1981 at age 90.