Mignon was the only child of James Bruce and Nora Manley Trickey. She was an accomplished pianist and talented artist, using first water colors and later oils. In high school she had many friends particularly in the "chemistry club" where she met Herbert States. According to his daughter, Margaret States Blacker, they had much in common, sharing a love of horses and the outdoors. She graduated from Lincoln High School in 1902.
She married Herbert on Thanksgiving day, Nov. 30, 1905. In the dead of winter, January, 1906, they left for Canyon Ranch in Lander WY., which had been purchased by Herbert's mother in 1904. They traveled by stagecoach from rails' end in Casper WY in weather so cold that a lantern was used under the buffalo robe to keep their feet from freezing. Mignon had no experience in housekeeping or cooking, but she threw herself into this new life with great enthusiasm. One concession to civilization was to wear kid gloves to bait her fish hook. She and Herbert lived in the 2-room house already present on the property and worked to finish a "honeymoon" cabin across the river (States photo of Mignon on cabin logs). They were soon joined by Herbert's parents and three sisters, Olive, Mabel, and Margaret. Herbert assisted his father Gus in a fledgeling lumber business, cutting logs and hauling them with horses to their mill and the market. They homesteaded on adjacent pasturelands and rented the Seton house across the river where Herbert James Jr. was born in May 1909. A daughter, Margaret , was born in Lincoln on September, 1912.
Upon the death of Mignon's father, JB, the home in Lincoln at 1547 L Street was sold and an "Emigrant Car" was secured to transport the furniture and trunks of clothing, fabrics, children's toys, and incidentals. Thus follows Margaret's story of "The Coat", "a beautiful full-length white fur coat with quilted orange silk lining. It would be hard to imagine an occasion on the ranch at which this coat would be worn, so it is safe to assume that it remained in the trunk for a considerable time. At the ranch there was always a roof over heads and food on the table, but there was also always a shortage of cash. One Christmas, Mignon (then known as Mama by the three children (the last addition to the family was Mignon, or "Billie", as affectionately named by her brother James) found herself in desperate need of gifts for her two daughters, one niece, and the daughter of a good friend of the family. Being very creative, she cut the large full sleeves out of the coat, and made lovely muffs and neckpieces from the fur. And that is the full and true story of why I have in the family keepsakes, a beautiful white fur coat with no sleeves."
Mignon died at the home of Margaret States Blacker in Laramie in 1980 at the age of 97.