Vera Satterfield arrived in Livingston in 1978 with a typewriter, a dog named Buster, and the conviction that the wind was a personal challenge. She covered school board meetings for the Livingston Enterprise for thirty-two years, typing her notes with two fingers while the presses rattled below. The wind never stopped her. Neither did the planning department.

In 1996 she applied for a permit to build a chicken coop behind her house on South Main. The county said the setback was six inches short. Vera said the chickens didn’t care about setbacks. The resulting correspondence filled three bankers boxes and became something of a local legend. The coop still stands. So do the chickens, technically — her granddaughter Clara keeps them now.

“She never let the wind win,” said Earl “Early” McGee, who delivered her mail for twenty years. “And she never let the county forget they worked for her.” Vera voted straight-ticket Democrat in every election since 1972 but referred to the zoning board as “communism with a permit process.” No one ever corrected her.

She is survived by her daughter Claire of Belgrade and her son Micah of Missoula, along with four grandchildren who all know the chicken coop story by heart.

Services will be held at Livingston Presbyterian Church on Saturday at 11 a.m.