Zonolite

I was born in Libby, Montana and lived in Libby until the end of my third grade year when we moved to Salem, Oregon. I've heard that the Native Americans a hundred years ago used to call Libby, the Valley of Death. You may have heard on the news about the cancer deaths in Libby caused from Zonolite.

My cousin sent me a letter written by my mother in 1946. I was born in 1948. One paragraph of my mother's letter talks about zonolite. "Did the girls fix candles up with the zonolite? It's pretty on vases, flower pots, picture frames, etc. If you want more of it, Alma, let me know. We have lots of it upstairs."

I remember sitting in a circle with two of my cousins in Libby. There was a big pile of zonolite in the middle. We threw it up in the air and watched how the sun made it sparkle and shimmer.