A couple of years ago, traveling back to Missoula from Oregon, I stopped in Eugene for the night. A bit lonely and thirsty, I walked from the motel to a local brew pub, where I struck up a conversation about beer with the bartender. He asked where I was from and I said Missoula. I added that I liked the beer at the Kettlehouse, a little microbrewery on the south side of town. He smiled at me and said, “I do too. I used to live just around the corner at the Babs.” What a small world! I told him it seemed like everybody who’s ever lived in Missoula has lived at the Babs. “No,” he corrected me, “everybody who’s lived in Missoula has just WANTED to live at the Babs.”

In the fall of 1990, I took a position as Missoula City Historic Preservation Officer. At that time the process of nominating the Southside Historic District for the National Register of Historic Places was nearing completion. The Babs was my favorite landmark of the district. It was listed as a “Primary Element” in the historic district nomination. That meant the building was so historically important that, because of its architecture and connection with A. J. Gibson, it could be listed individually on the nation’s honor role of historic structures even if the district nomination were denied. As a Gibson design, the Babs stood out as the Grand Dame of apartment buildings within the proposed historic district. In March 1991, word came back from the Keeper of the Trust (now that’s a title I always wanted!) in Washington DC that Missoula’s Southside Historic District was approved. The Babs and its historical neighbor-buildings had made the National Register of Historic Places. The next day, when I walked by the Babs, I felt sure I saw her puff up with pride.

The last time I was in the Babs, it was 1963. I was sipping a beer and waiting for my girlfriend to get changed—we were going to the Foresters’ Ball that evening. Looking out the window, I spotted a big parade heading down Higgins. There was this wild horde of loggers all decked out in their backwoods best, marching five or six abreast, hooting and hollering for all they were worth. A bunch of them were packing big poles that had been slicked clean with a drawknife. They had something swinging from the ends of the poles, but they were still a ways off and I couldn’t make sense of it. By the time they were out in front of the Babs it was pretty clear what was going on—they were hanging all the attorneys in town in effigy and beating the bodies like rented mules. I figured it was all intended as good clean fun, but you couldn’t have talked me into wearing a tie and packing a briefcase on the street that night for anything.

What is it about the Babs? What makes this grand old building so special in the minds of so many through the years?

It was 1956. Ike was in the White House and had just visited Missoula to dedicate the new Forest Service Aerial Fire Depot west of town. Ice cream cones were 5 cents. The soda fountain at Woolworth's store on Higgins did a booming business. The Sky-View Drive-In Theater packed them in almost every night. America and Missoula, Montana, were at peace.

Laura Christiani fought the good fight as a caseworker for those less fortunate clients at Missoula County Welfare. After a hard day, her piano music was the balm that soothed the beast of grindingly oppressive work amid stories of sorrow. In 1956 she moved from the lower Rattlesnake into the Babs. She brought her music with her, and for 23 years it filled the halls of the Babs and floated out the windows, rising up across the university blocks—and finally slipping into the clouds above the hillsides of Mount Sentinel.

Ruth Forbis's voice cracked as she related how her mother, Laura McDonald Christiani, resided in the Babs during her last decades of independent living. Laura taught piano lessons throughout her life. She loved teaching music—and taught it with a passion few have known. According to her daughter, when Laura moved to Missoula, "She thought she was in heaven." And, when she moved into the Babs, "she KNEW she was in heaven!" Laura loved the large turn-of-the-century apartment #3 on the third floor with its charming appointments, especially the tall, beautifully framed windows looking south over the city.  "The Babs," said Ruth, "was 'A Big Deal!' for my mother."

Through the years living in the Babs, Laura Christiani taught hundreds of children and teens the basics of piano and beyond. Her studio came alive with excitement as she decorated it for recital time. Nervous parents were eased by the smell of fresh baked cookies and hot chocolate as their children took center stage and displayed the fruits of their labor. The spacious room with its strong shoulders and graceful curves, was truly a fine concert hall, embracing the carefully played notes as they filled its grand space. "My mother was never happier than when she lived at the Babs," related Ruth Forbis. "It's just an incredibly unique place. It IS Missoula in my mind."

Ruth Forbis, from a conversation with Allan Mathews on June 24, 2008