|
 |
Below: Jane
Morton
Jean Mathisen Haugen
Smoke Wade
Bruce Matley LaVonne
Houlton Nona
Kelley Carver Barbara
Bockelman
Jack
Sammon Rusty
Calhoun Janice
Mitich
More about The Western Memories Project
What inspired the project
See the Photo of the Week here.
|
When Grandpa Bet the Farm
Jane Morton writes, "I grew up on the plains of eastern Colorado in the midst of the drought and the depression. My father taught school and helped his father with the family farm near Fort Morgan. This farm had been in the family since 1911 when my great-grandfather bought the original 320 acres. They owed the bank, and there was little money coming in, so the whole family had to pitch in and help if we were to keep our land." continued below
She writes about her grandfather, William Edmon Ambrose, in this poem from her award-winning book, Cowboy Poetry: Turning to Face the Wind:
When Grandpa Bet the Farm
A fellow making money
grazing cattle on his land
Got Grandpa thinking time had come
when he too should expand.
Though Grandpa winter-grazed some stock
each of the last four years,
The biggest herd he'd ever had
was 'bout a hundred steers.
By fall of 1928, he thought
he'd move ahead,
And up the number of the setters
he wintered, and he fed.
He had some apprehension
when he went to buy a herd,
So took the banker out with him
to see if he concurred.
Steers weighed around six hundred pounds
and cost ten cents per pound.
The banker said he liked their looks
and thought the deal was sound.
Two hundred sixty steers in all
went onto Grandpa's range
The last week in October
right before a weather change.
A blizzard shrieked in from the north
and Grandpa felt a chill,
The thought of steers out in that storm
Enough to make him ill.
"They're likely driftin' south," he said,
"their backs to wind and snow."
He never did have much to say,
but what he said was so.
One day more the storm raged on,
and then the weather cleared.
But when he went to find his steers,
it was as he had feared.
His eyes swept over prairie land,
grass blanketed in white.
As far as the horizon, though,
he saw no steers in sight.
Next morning when his son got there,
they saddled up and rose.
With Grandpa thinking all the time
of money that he owed.
They let the dog go out with them,
although he was high-strung,
and he had never worked a herd,
so scattered and far-flung.
The horsemen made their way down south,
encountering drifts of snow.
The horses found the going tough.
The progress was made slow.
They finally caught up with some setters,
who'd stopped along the way.
Kept riding till they found the rest
much later in the day.
Then gathering strays, they headed for
corrals behind the barn.
The horses were exhausted
and the dog not worth a darn.
The men themselves were 'bout played out,
and weakened steers hung back.
They had to push them hard's they could
to keep the drive on track.
As steers came near the home corral,
they all got in a rush,
And pushed and shoved and crowded in
'til six died in the crush.
As far a winter weather went,
it downhilled all the way.
The temperatures turned bitter cold.
That winter came to stay.
Though Grandpa planned on feeding some,
mid-winter when it snowed.
Before Thanksgiving he bought feed
shipped in by railroad.
As long as cattle prices held,
they'd make it through the spring.
When steers went down five cents a pound,
he saw those hopes take wing.
He sold one-half immediately,
kept half should they rebound.
Then six months later sold the rest,
which brought three cents a pound.
Before he went to buy the steers,
he'd saved almost four grand.
By time he sold he'd gone through that
like water drains through the sand.
He'd lost money he had saved
and thousands more besides,
Some seventeen to be exact.
All he had left was pride.
The man he tried to emulate
lost all he hoped to own.
Then he committed suicide,
and never paid his loan.
But Grandpa stayed and strove to pay
despite desperation, drought.
Bankruptcy not an option,
nor was suicide an out.
It took him more than ten long years
to pay back money owed,
And I believe the rest his life
he rued that episode.
He went without and worked the farm
and left it free of debt.
So though he gambled and he lost,
I'd say he won the bet.
© 2003, Jane Morton, from Cowboy Poetry: Turning to Face the Wind
This poem may not be reprinted or reposted without the author's written permission.In her book, she adds "The winter of 1928-29 started in October, and lasted through March of 1929. A foot of snow fell on Morgan County on October 31. Then the sun came out, and the snow melted leaving the fields a sea of mud. On November 3, temperatures ran 4 degrees below zero. On November 7, seven inches of snow fell and about 35 percent of the beet crop remained in the ground. On November 22 the thermometer dipped to 14 below zero. By December 9 the beet fields were frozen to a depth of ten inches. By January 31, the best harvest was over. The Great Western Sugar Company said the beets were no longer salvageable and delivery to the company ended.
Farmers who had both livestock and beets recouped some of their losses by letting their cattle feed on the beets. However, Grandpa hadn't planted beets that year since he had decided to graze cattle, so for him that winter was a total disaster.
Ranch Beginnings
Jane Morton shared the story of "Ranch Beginnings" as recorded by her father, W.E. Ambrose Jr.:
My grandad, William Harrison Ambrose owned heavily mortgaged land across the road from my dad's brother Jim. Harry, as they called him, was more interested in mining than in farming, though, so he rented his farm out and spent his summers in Breckenridge. When winter came he came down from the mine and moved in with Jim and his family.
Dad decided to buy his place, so he took over the mortgage on the two hundred acres Harrison had been renting out. One hundred and twenty acres were supposed to be irrigated, but we could only irrigate twenty, because the rest were above the ditch.
On March 9, l9l6, Dad and I came to Fort Morgan on the train. We traveled in an emigrant car, a rented boxcar that carried our livestock, equipment, furniture and us. That summer and winter it was just the two of us. We left Mother and Sis in Arvada. Mother's brother, Redge, was taking care of our garden track in Arvada.
Our livestock consisted of two cows and two weaned calves. We had one old red cow and she had the two calves we came down with. We'd paid $800 for a tractor that was to be delivered to us in Fort Morgan.
There were some trees on the property. A row of trees along the creek, about a hundred feet apart and a row of willows. I have no idea who planted them.
At first we packed our water from Jim's across the road. Then we put casing down with a post hole digger. We went about 40 feet to water. Then we used a sand bucket. It was a pipe about four feet long with a trap door. We dug the well a hundred feet deep.
We planted twenty acres of oats and alfalfa. The land had already been plowed and forty acres of beans and a little corn had been planted by the time we got there. The corn didn't amount to much. The beans did real well, so we bought a threshing machine. We pitched the beans in with a fork and threshed them.
We lived in a little one room shed across the road at Jim's place. My job was to get home from the school up the road, peel the potatoes and put the dried prunes or dried peaches, or whatever we had on to cook.
There was a country school on the corner of Jim's place, and it was known as the Ambrose School. I went there part of the seventh and all of the eighth grade. Sometimes there were as many as twenty or thirty students. When beet harvest started, we went down to five. The others had to work topping the beets and getting them out.
Ambrose School
The war was coming, so prices were high. We sold the beans that year for $8000. That was a lot of money. That winter we built the granary. In the spring Mother and Sis moved down. We put a stove in one side, linoleum on the floor and wallpaper on the walls. We lived there for five years. There were two big rooms upstairs. Upstairs was cold. In the winter when it got light enough, you could see frost on every nail, but downstairs with the stove, we never felt the cold.
We built a straw barn in back of the granary for the cattle and the horses. We strung hog wire over poles for the roof. The sides were made of two sections of wire placed four feet apart. We packed the space between the wire with old straw that wasn't any good. The animals wouldn't eat it unless it snowed and they were in there for two or three days. Then they'd pull the straw out and eat on their straw shed.
In 1921, the year I finished high school, we built the house. Every day we got a load of gravel down by the river. We had a hand driven cement mixer, and we mixed the cement with that mixer and poured it into forms.
The house cost $4000, including the lumber and the plaster. We did all the work ourselves except for the lathes. Mr. Beggs on the corner built a house a year or two before, and it cost him $8000 and he lost his place.We didn't have any power tools. We got the blueprints from the lumber company. All of the boards are on a bias. They ran from one corner to the next. Every board was laid on the same bias, so there was no give.
The Ambrose Ranch House
The Straw Barn
Jane Morton recorded her father's description of their straw barn: We built a straw barn in back of the granary for the cattle and the horses. We strung hog wire over poles for the roof. The sides were made of two sections of wire placed four feet apart. We packed the space between the wire with old straw that wasn't any good. The animals wouldn't eat it unless it snowed and they were in there two or three days. Then they'd pull the straw out and eat on their straw shed."
Jane preserved the memory in verse:
Straw Barn
My dad and my grandfather built a straw barn.
Out of woven wire fencing and straw.
It would shelter two cows, and their calves and a team
In the winter when weather turned raw.
They set two rows of poles and strung wire down each row,
Then they packed the loose straw in-between.
That's the way they constructed each one of the sides
That first summer when Dad turned thirteen.
For a roof they laid framework across the four sides,
And they topped it with straw and hog wire.
They sloped it southwest so the snow would melt off,
And they tried not to worry 'bout fire.
The advantage of having a barn made of straw
On the plains where fierce blizzards blew in,
Was that livestock could nibble the walls in a storm
When they finished their food in the bin.
© 2003, Jane Morton, from Cowboy Poetry: Turning to Face the Wind
This poem may not be reprinted or reposted without the author's written permission.
The following photo of a similar barn is from the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog at the Library of Congress:
Jane Morton continues her own story...
During the '40s the debt was paid off, and the family went into the cattle business. As the financial situation improved we bought more land. By the late sixties we had acquired 14,000 acres, the herd had grown to 800 head of Herefords, and the "farm" had become a ranch.
When I married, my husband and I, besides being educators, were involved in the ranch and ranch activities including branding, round-ups, and cattle sales. Dad had one man on the payroll and farmed out some of the big jobs, such as cutting corn for silage. Otherwise the family did it all.
After attending my first cowboy poetry gathering in Colorado Springs, I began to write and recite poems about our family and the ranch. Now retired, my husband and I live near Colorado Springs on the edge of the Black Forest part of the year and in Mesa, Arizona the other part. We participate in cowboy poetry gatherings throughout the western United States.
Cowboy Poetry: Turning to Face the Wind
winner of the Will Rogers Medallion AwardRead Jane Morton's poetry here at the BAR-D.
Great-Great Grandpa Gambled—With a Ranch and a Daughter
My great-great grandfather, Gilbert Avery, was born in New York state and married Janie Vaughn in the mid-1860's. They had two daughters, Anna Augusta Avery (Doane)—my great grandmother—and Nellie Avery (Doane). Unfortunately, Janie Vaughn Avery died of tuberculosis when Anna was about five years old in 1872. Gilbert remarried to a strapping young lady, Sarah Jeanette Wilson (better known as Nettie) the following year and they became the parents of 10 more boys and girls.
In 1885 they moved west to Milford, Wyoming (6 miles north of Lander, Wyoming) and took up a place there. Here their large family carried on for several years. Anna, his oldest daughter, married Frank Doane at Eldred, Pennsylvania in 1886 and they came west to Milford in 1888 with their two oldest childen, Luella (Van Patten) and Gilbert. In 1890, Nellie, who had married Frank's brother, Elmer Doane, came west with Elmer and their son Charlie. Sadly, within a month or so, Nellie, too, died of tuberculosis.
Nettie Wilson Avery and her first six childrenJeanette Wilson Avery's brother, Ase Wilson, took baby Charlie in and raised him. (Charlie ran away to be a hobo when he was 18 and was killed by a train in Colorado.) Ase Wilson had run away to the Civil War at age 15 and lied about his age; he served as a drummer boy and a soldier in the War. He came west and helped start Milford (then known as North Fork) and started the first flour mill in the area at Milford in 1878. Jeanette and Ase's mother, Julia Sherman Wilson, was a second cousin of famed Civil War General, William Tecumseh Sherman. Julia and Ase are buried at the North Fork Cemetery at Milford (which is now a ghost town.).
In the late 1890's Gilbert and Jeanette moved their family to the new town of Meeteetse (in northwest Wyoming) on the way to Cody, Wyoming (which was then known as Stinkingwater, before the proper ladies of the community thought it should be renamed!). The Avery's were a large family and contained several characters. Gilbert, himself, liked to gamble and the family story goes that he gambled off his daughter, Jenny, to one Archie McCoy who was said to have been a member of Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch gang. The photo below is the pretty red-haired Jenny, who was quite a bit taller than Archie. They were married a few years, had some children, and later divorced. I have not been entirely able to pin down if the story is true, however, a cousin did mention that Gilbert did gamble off the family ranch once and his wife, known to most of the family as Nettie, kicked him out for quite a while! Gilbert died around 1918, but Nettie lived on to age 96 and passed away at Meeteetse in 1946. She was a tall woman who was fondly thought of by her step-daughter, Anna Avery Doane (Anna's daughter, Mary Jeanette Doane Hornecker, my grandmother, was named for her).
Archie and Jenny McCoyNettie Wilson Avery worked for many years at the well known Wyoming ranch, the Pitchfork Ranch on the Greybull River, once owned by millionaire, Otto Franc. Franc had made his money after he and his brothers came to New York from Germany and imported bananas. He came to Wyoming in the 1870's and started his ranch. He was behind Butch Cassidy being convicted of stealing a $5 horse in 1892 and Butch being sent to the Wyoming Pen at Laramie for a couple years. Franc later died mysteriously at his ranch (some thought Butch may have been behind his being shot in his yard).
Once Nettie told her son, Floyd Wellington Avery (better known as "Fudd") to go out and get a load of wood for the cookstove and not to come back until he did! This was about the time of the Yukon Gold Rush in 1898, and Fudd had a hankering to head north to make his fortune. Fudd traveled for some time and met up with Jack London, the famous author of the Yukon, who was said to have written a story, "Sundown Slim" about Fudd. This may or may not have been true—I haven't been able to track down the story as yet. At any rate, Fudd married a lady who never thought too highly of him, left her and continued his ramblings for 20-odd years. One day, 20 years after heading out, he came back home to the Avery ranch, grabbed an armload of wood and walked in the door, hollering out to Nettie, "Hey, Ma, here's your wood!" I have not heard exactly what she had to say in reply!
Allie Avery Leseberg, Delma Avery Scovel, Floyd "Fud" Avery, Maude Avery Doores,
Louis Shultheis (Sr.) and Gilbert "Bert" Avery. c. 1950Another daughter, Alice or "Allie," married a Leseberg while the Avery's were still near Lander and they settled on the North Fork of the Popo Agie River. They had a large family, most of whom later settled near Dubois, Wyoming, 75 miles north (Dubois also had a different name to begin with—it was known in the early days as "Neversweat" because the locals preferred to rustle cattle and horses rather than ranch! Butch Cassidy and a partner, Al Haines, had a ranch on Horse Creek just north of Dubois).
Yet another daughter, Delma Avery Scovel, settled out in Idaho in later years. Her grandson (or perhaps great-grandson) is Mike Scovel, a well known western artist who does many paintings for Leanin' Tree Cards.
Anna Augusta Avery Doane passed away in the spring of 1924 at Lander at age 55 and her husband died in 1933. They had 11 children and raised most to adulthood. Their ranch was located a few miles south of Lander just over Lander Hill and was later owned for many years by their son Maurice Avery Doane. (It was one of the oldest ranches still in family ownership in Fremont County during the county's centennial in 1984.) My grandmother, Mary Doane married John Hornecker on June 8, 1919 and they ranched for most of their lives on Squaw Creek near Lander, raising 8 chidlren.
There are still Avery's around Lander, but not many left at Meeteetse (Meeteetse is an Indian name and the meaning may mean "meeting place"). Meeteetse is a lively small ranching community and the cemetery there houses most of the Avery clan, including great-great grandpa Gilbert, the gambler. He left an interesting legacy behind and a few notable tales!(The photos of Nettie Wilson Avery and her children when they were young, and then in later years. when they were grown, are courtesy of my cousin and Nettie and Gilbert's grandson, Louis Schultheiss of LaGrange, Illinois. Louis is our family historian, who feels the old tune from the 1950's, "I'm My Own Grandpa," could well apply to the Avery clan!)
© 2008, Jean Mathisen Haugen
This story is also included in our Picture the West feature.
In 2004, Jean wrote, "I'm a native of Lander and Wyoming--my family has been here in the Lander Valley since 1869 and eight generations have been on ranches here. I have been writing poetry (much of it cowboy poetry) since I was 8 years old and have published 6 books of poetry, along with poems appearing in about 25 chapbooks. I also had poetry appear pretty steadily in the Wyoming Rural Electric News for 20 years. I have participated in Gatherings in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. I retired from the State of Wyoming DOT in October, 2003 and am now busily pursuing my writing."
Read more about Jean Mathisen Haugen's family and some of her poetry here.
Saga of the Old ND Brand Continues for 123 Years
The ND brand, a clearly read horse and cattle brand has been in the Mathisen ranching family (my family) for ninety years. It is even older than that. A French Canadian, John Pelong, who came to America early enough to fight in the War of 1848 with Mexico, first took up the brand on August 14, 1884 in Fremont County, Wyoming Territory.
Pelong had come to the South Pass area with the gold rush and was nearly killed by Indians trying to steal horses in 1868. His partner, Oliver Lamoreaux was killed. John made it back safely to South Pass City by night. He took up some land on what is now North Second Street road near Lander in the 1870's and settled there. Later he traded land with "Dutch Ed" Stelzner. Pelong's land was called Deer Park on Twin Creek (about 20 miles south of Lander in west central Wyoming) and ran horses there.
One reason he moved so far from town was because he had a drinking problem. Periodically he would go on binges and let his half-broke mustangs pull his wagon to the Johnny Reed Stage Station six miles south of Lander (now the Ruby Ranch) and go on a drunk there. Then they would pile him in the wagon and head him out for town. The horses would pull up in front of Vaughn's Livery near Second and Main in Lander (the building is still standing). The livery owner would take care of the horses and Pelong would stumble over to St. John's Saloon and proceed to get "swashed" once again; then they would load him up, hitch up the horses and they would automatically haul him home to Deer Park.
John Pelong died in 1907. The brand was sold to a Portuguese sailor, Joaquin Antone who had a ranch near the Rawlins Junction on Highway 28 south of Lander. How or why a Portuguese sailor ever landed on ground near Lander no one knows!
In 1916, it is recorded that Antone's widow, Sarah, sold the brand to my great uncle, Andrew Keyford Mathisen. The Mathisen's came to Wyoming from Kamas, Utah in 1902 and settled at Dead Man's Gulch five miles south of Lander. There were nine children in the family, eight boys and one girl. One of the older sons was Walter "Walt" Mathisen. Walt worked with his brothers, Chester and Sam and helped their father rein 20-horse freight wagons up to the Geissler Store at Atlantic City and also haul freight from the rail heads at Rawlins and Casper (each about 120 to 150 miles from Lander). In 1922 Walt married a young school teacher from Wayne, Nebraska, Pearl Ross. Keyford killed himself in July, 1922 and Walt took over the ND brand and had it in continual use from 1925 until 1975 when he died. It was transferred to my father, Bob Mathisen and myself.
During those 50-odd years, Walt leased the old Schlicting Ranch (now the Malmberg Ranch) for several years and also homesteaded just below John Pelong's original hangout, Deer Park. Along with three sons, Bob, Bill and Bub and wife, Pearl, Walt also had two younger brothers, Gillis and Red who lived wit them. For a time they lived in the old Schlicting house (which had been hauled down from Fort Stambaugh near Atlantic City, when the fort was closed down in 1880). Later they lived in a 16x20 homestead cabin reconstructed from other logs from Fort Stambaugh. They also helped catch wild horses during the days of the CC Ranch outfit from Montana during the Great Depression. Pearl taught the boys school at the Schlicting house and later an old school dating from 1905 was moved near their homestead and the boys attended school there. They ran cattle as far as Atlantic City and the boys worked in the fields putting up hay and helping with the "Community" herd of cattle run by all the ranchers jointly.
The old original Schlicting ranch—the dugout was the original house built there and used by the Schlicting family; the house in the background was the house my grandparents and dad and uncles lived in.Walt and Pearl and the boys moved to the old States Ranch on Willow Creek in the winter of 1937. Later they moved into Lander and Walt worked as a horse trader and also wintered dude horses from Jackson Hole for many years. He drove the horses over Union Pass, down past Dubois, Crowheart and onto wintering grounds he leased on the Wind River Reservation and then would drive them back to Jackson Hole in the spring.
My dad, Bob Mathisen and his brothers Bill and Darryl "Bub" Mathisen at the States Ranch in January, 1937After Walt's death the brand was not used except by me on my art work and poetry. Bob, my dad, was a cowboy in his younger years and was foreman of the Williams Ranch in Sinks Canyon near Lander for a time. He worked 27 years as a Wyoming Highway Patrolman and 8 years as Captain the the Fremont County Sheriff's office under Sheriff Tim McKinney. Bob passed away in April 2002 at the age of 77. I continued to own the brand and married Ron Haugen in July, 2003.
In March of 2007 I sold the old ND brand at auction and did not know until recently who bought it. Ironically, Tara McKinney Berg and her husband (she is the daughter of Tim McKinney, my Dad's old boss) bought the ND. They live on the McKinney Ranch on Twin Creek not many miles from where John Pelong originated the brand in 1884 and where my father and grandfather lived on the Schlicting ranch. Tara says they plan to use it on cattle (my grandfather had used it on both horses and cattle)--so the old brand has finally cycled back to its home country and will be back in use.
© 2007, Jean Mathisen Haugen
Read more about Jean Mathisen Haugen's family and some of her poetry here.
What's New | Poems | Search
The BAR-D Roundup | Cowboy Poetry Week
Subscribe | Newsletter | Contact Us
Authors retain copyright to
their work; obtain an author's
permission before using a poem in any form.
CowboyPoetry.com is a project of the Center for Western and Cowboy Poetry, Inc., a Federal and California tax-exempt non-profit 501 (c) (3) organization.
