Rosalind “Roz” McElroy arrived in Bozeman in 1992 with a U-Haul and a job at the university library, intending to stay three years. She stayed thirty-four. The house on South Third she bought for what she called “a reasonable amount” now has a Zestimate that makes her daughter wince.

She worked the reference desk until 2012, then volunteered at the Friends of the Library book sale every spring, pricing hardcovers at two dollars because “books should circulate.” She witnessed the M Trail go from local secret to Instagram backdrop, and the vacant lot across the street become a four-plex with a yoga studio on the ground floor. She attended every city commission meeting on the neighborhood plan, took notes in a spiral notebook, and mailed letters to the editor signed “A Concerned Resident, Since ‘92.”

She remembered when the Co-op fit in one building, when Bridger Bowl had one high-speed lift, and when “traffic” meant waiting for a herd of elk on Bridger Canyon Road. She complained about the growth and benefited from it in equal measure, a contradiction she accepted as the price of staying.

Her daughter Frances lives in Missoula now, where housing is only slightly less impossible. Her son Thomas stayed in Belgrade, commuting past the new subdivisions where hay fields used to be. Both inherit the spiral notebooks.

The view from her kitchen window still shows the Bridgers, though the rooflines have multiplied.