Joy and Marian - The Moms

 


Oh, the Moms....Joy and Marian....

 Without the Moms, our lives on the Currier Ranch would have been much less colorful, much less secure, much less joyful.  Without the Moms, the nine children born to life on the Ranch would have had very different childhoods and ultimately, adulthoods.  So....an introduction and tribute to each of the two Moms who gave us life!

                                                    Joy Fitzgerald

Since Joy (Ritchie Joy Fitzgerald) was the first to marry into our Ranch family, Carol and I will first share our remembrances of this special Mom followed by some of our memories of Marian.

Joy was born in Farmington, New Mexico, the first child of Maurice B. and Inez Crandall Fitzgerald.  The little family moved to Durango when Joy was very small.  Her father was a teacher and her mother a nurse.  Following several years in Durango, they moved to Grand Junction, Colorado when her dad continued his business school teaching profession.  Joy was a town girl who fell in love with a cowboy.

 Little did this twenty-year old town girl REALLY know that when she married R. Carleton Currier her life would change dramatically.  Life on the Ranch in the mid-1940s was anything but easy, particularly when Joy's mother-in-law was a very dominant matriarch who had tried to foist another girl onto Carleton and was not happy when he made his own choice and married Joy. 

 Life without running water, electricity, or indoor plumbing was TOUGH for gentle town girl.  Joy didn't know how to cook or, or much less, how to start a fire in the wood cook stove.  These were things that had to be learned on the "job" all the while dodging the silent ridicule of her mother-in-law.  Lighting the kerosene lanterns at dusk was also a task to be learned.  The loneliness and isolation in the early years was almost unbearable.  Had it not been for some absolutely lovely relatives, including George and Lydia Currier (Carleton’s uncle and aunt), she might not have survived.

Carleton’s and Joy’s first house was a log cabin with one big room on the ground floor that served as the kitchen and living room.  A ladder led up to an attic bedroom on the second floor.  Joy often remarked that getting up and down that ladder when she was pregnant with her first child was a perilous endeavor in the latter months when trips to the outhouse became more frequent!  Three of Joy and Carleton's children were born while the family lived in the cabin.  An addition was built before the third baby was born that added much more space as well as a stairway to the second floor and an additional bedroom.  This house still stands and brings back many memories. 

Electricity came to the Ranch in about 1949 thanks to the expansion of service by the Grand Valley Rural Electric Association.  Joy said that it took her a week or so to remember that all she had to do was flip a switch to have light rather than lighting the lanterns.

In approximately 1950, the couple built a new house...a big one with running water, indoor plumbing, electricity, a furnace, and a modern stove!  It still stands today and is a favorite vacation spot for Joy and Carleton's children and their families and friends.

 In 1945, Joy welcomed a friend!  Carleton's brother Franklin married Marian Augusta Quist and moved to another log cabin on the Ranch.  What a wonderful gift it was to have another young woman with which to share fun and trials of the Ranch life. 

Marian’s and Franklin’s log house was really two cabins joined together by a covered breezeway in the middle.  One side was the kitchen/living room and the other the bedroom.  There was also an attic above which later served as bedroom space.  This cabin also was without running water, plumbing or electricity.  They, too, built a new big house around 1950 that still stands and is used today.  The old cabins still exist, one converted to a “store” and the other to a hired help cabin.

Marian also grew up in Grand Junction and came from a big family having three sisters and three brothers.  A very happy person, Marian was a boon to Joy's solitary journey as a new and very lonely young wife.  They became close and enjoyed many laughs and also many tears. 

The two Moms shared much in those early years each with little ones to care for...there was a new baby every year for the first five or six years in one house or the other!!  Over the years from 1945 to 1958, Joy and Carleton welcomed five babies into their lives- Marcia, Tom, Dan, Merial and George.  Marian and Franklin brought four children into the world, Carol, Donna, Beth and Allen.  Both Moms were Moms to all nine kids and were always there to console, cheer on, guide, and/or dole out some discipline when needed.  

Carol and I remember a particular discipline incident in which she, Marcia and Tom pulled a very naughty prank on one of the younger kids.  Joy told them all to “STOP where you are!” and that if we ran, whoever ran the farthest would get the hardest spanking.  Marcia stopped and received a smart smack on the bottom.  Tom ran halfway up a hill and got a fairly firm smack on his rear.  Carol ran to the top of the hill and Joy was so winded by the time she got to the top that Carol got the easiest spanking ever!  Oh, the injustice!

Once each family had a car, the Moms had to get used to driving 60 miles to Grand Junction to buy groceries every week or ten days.  That meant loading up all kids who couldn't be left at the Ranch, with reasonable expectation that they would behave, into the car, driving the 60 miles, doing the shopping, and driving the 60 miles back.  Driving that far with four or more kids in the car could be very trying!  Joy was great at making up stories to entertain the restless passengers and Marian could be counted on to sing songs in her beautiful voice.

Both Marian and Joy had a passionate love for music.  Marian was a gifted vocalist who loved opera and Joy, a talented cellist.  Music carried the two of them through many rough times.

Marian was the kind of person who was always willing to lovingly take in "stray" family members...every summer (and sometimes beyond summer) she mothered several nieces and nephews who, for whatever reason, needed a place to be.  Joy, too, was host Mom to several nephews and nieces who needed a new perspective or whose parents couldn't care for them for a bit.  I remember Marian telling me that if a baby or a child is crying, they most likely need a big hug or something to eat.  She was always ready with both!   Both Joy and Marian welcomed, with open arms, a long parade of their children's friends who came to visit the Ranch in the summer.  There was always "room for one more" in either house. 

Marian coped for most of her life with the fact that Franklin, who served in the Marine Corps in the South Pacific in WWII, suffered from PTSD, a condition that was not recognized until more recently.  In retrospect, I think it was, at times, very difficult on Marian and their children.

Joy had her own struggles, suffering from bi-polar syndrome for a good share of her life, yet another unrecognized condition that wasn't diagnosed until she was in her late forties.

Both Marian and Joy were women of faith.  Both this faith and their music were great help in adjusting and surviving the primitive Ranch life.

Joy was a skilled seamstress and created many pretty things on her treadle sewing machine.  Once, when first married, she remarked to her very terse and economical father-in-law, Tom, that she really wished she could have a new dress.  When Tom responded that she should "sew up some of those nice flour sacks", she did and was somewhat disappointed to find that the dress was actually quite pretty!  She was also the go-to Mom for 4-H sewing and cooking clubs.  She was also a voracious reader and took us to the library in Grand Junction where the librarian let us check out a big box of books every couple of weeks.  She instilled in all of us a love for reading.

Marian was a wonderful cook who could make almost anything delicious.  Creating new ways and tasteful ways to cook beef was always a challenge since beef was the main course for breakfast, dinner and supper.  Joy did learn to cook but never really took great pleasure in it.  She was delighted when I, at around nine years of age, began to take over the kitchen.

They had the task of preparing three big meals a day for their husbands and any hired men who were working on the Ranch.  These meals included preparing and hauling a hot mid-day dinner to the men, if they were in the middle of a cattle roundup.  Since GrandadTom, the patriarch, did not like to eat from paper plates, this meant taking china and flatware, a full meal with dessert, AND all the kids to wherever the cattle work was.  Dinner was placed on the tailgate of the pickup truck.  After everyone had eaten, leftovers, dishes, and kids were packed up to drive back home. 

 Joy told me once that she and Marian even shared a slip!  Times were lean, and, if one or the other had to dress up to go to town, the shared slip made a dress look so much nicer!!  They were tasked by their mother-in-law with keeping the outhouse clean, and since it was a two-holer, they realized that the little structure was a great private place to escape Chastine's critical eye and sharp ears.  Many conversations took place in the privy. 

Laundry was also a joint effort in the early years.  Mother-in-law Chastine had a gasoline powered wringer washer which had to be operated outside.  Joy and Marian often did all the wash together under the watchful eye of the mother-in-law.  Unfortunately, in the late fall and early winter, the machine could not be used due to weather and all laundry had to done by hand with a wash board and then hung on the clothesline to freeze dry!  What a thrill it must have been when the Moms actually got to have a more modern washer and later, a dryer.

 Initially, each year in December when the hay for the cattle was exhausted, all household goods, kids, cats, chickens, dogs and everything else had to be packed up for the move to the Grand Junction area to the winter Ranch. The cattle and horses were moved, walking on foot herded by the Currier men, hired help and boys.  Some were left at Molina, the mid-way farm/Ranch for the winter.  The rest were driven, on foot, to the Red Ranch northwest of Grand Junction.  These cattle drives took two to four days.  In the early 1050s, trucking took over the livestock moves. Eventually, both families accumulated two of everything so that the only things that had to be moved were the kids, cats, chickens and dogs. 

Neither learned to be accomplished horse women, though both rode occasionally.  There was too much other work to do.  I know that they both would have enjoyed going out with the men on a cattle drive, but Ranch work in those days was "men's work" and women stayed home and tended the kids and house.

I cannot imagine how hard this early life was, but both Joy and Marian stuck it out. I don't think many twenty year olds of today would or could.  Life became easier as modernizations were afforded.  

 

(top    Joy

bottom    Marian)

 

Joy and Marian were both community minded.  Joy tutored and taught and later became a lay minister for the United Church of Christ.  She also played cello in the Grand Junction Symphony Orchestra.  Marian sang frequently for various events and was very active for years in what was known then as the Retarded Children's Association which supported the Downs Syndrome cause.

 Both are no longer with us and we so wish they were!




 

 

 

 

Ranch Kids Learning to Drive....at age SIX!

The free range kids on the Currier Ranch had to learn to drive vehicles at a very early age in order to help with the work on the Ranch.  We loved this!  Our driving experiences started very early....

I remember that, at approximately six years of age, I went with my dad to feed hay to a large field full of cattle wintering at the Red Ranch north of Grand Junction.  The hay was loaded onto the bed of one of the smaller trucks, and I was put in the driver's seat, kneeling on the seat with my little hands firmly clasping the big round steering wheel.  My dad put the truck into the lowest gear and released the clutch so that the truck began to move forward.  I was instructed to steer the truck straight down the field to the end and then turn the key to off when I was almost at the fence posts at the end.  My dad then climbed onto the truck bed and began forking hay off to the hungry cows that swarmed after the truck.  When the truck reached the end, I dutifully turned the key to off thus stopping the slowly moving truck.  My dad climbed back into the cab beside me, restarted the engine, turned the truck around to go the other direction, and we repeated the drive down to the other end, and so on until all the hay was distributed to the cattle.

Later, when our little legs were long enough to reach the clutch and brake pedals, we were taught how to release both pedals ourselves so that the truck would go forward.  We learned how to step on the brake and clutch at the end of the field to stop the truck, but not shut it down.  The next progression in driving on the Ranch was to be trusted to make the turn at the end and continue to drive the other direction.  All of we older kids learned these lessons and became quite adept at driving at a young age.

The biggest issue the dads had with our learning the brake and clutch synchronizations was that for a few trips down the field, the lurching upon release of the clutch and the sudden stops while learning the brake often resulted in the dad or dads being unceremoniously tossed off the back of the truck generally hollering "Great Scott, Marcia (or Carol or Tom or....)!  Take it easy!"

We learned shifting gears on manual transmission vehicles by the time we were 10 or 12 years old.  We also learned to drive the variety of tractors used on the Ranch.  These were more complicated machines with dual brakes and strange clutches with speed determined by a hand lever on some of the tractors.  I remember that one of us occasionally didn't turn in time and got the tractor stuck in a bog or didn't stop in time and mowed down a gate post, but for the most part, our help was appreciated and necessary, and our mistakes were quickly forgiven, but laughed about over the next family meal.  I think the girls got off easier than the boys when a driving incident caused a time consuming work stoppage.

Later, the older three of us learned to drive the small truck (a 1950's one-ton truck) and the two bigger ones (one circa 1937 to haul cattle and one circa 1955, also to haul cattle and sometimes a large water tank).  Those had their own peculiarities, because they had some kind of split gear system that allowed the truck to have twice as many gear ratios and involved some fancy footwork on the gas peddle and clutch to shift up or down.  My brothers eventually learned to also drive a semi-truck that was used to haul larger numbers of cattle. 

There was generally an older car around the Ranch in which the budding drivers, who were getting close to the age for a real driver's license, could practice driving on the Ranch property.  we learned to parallel park between hay bales and were all skilled with manual shifting.  We loved careening around the mown hay fields and the private Ranch roads.  Gas was very inexpensive then!!

I recall one driving job that I found so embarrassing that I wished for a disguise so no one that I knew might recognize me.  In the early winter, as previously described, the cattle, horses, cats, dogs, chickens et al were moved to the lower ranches until spring.  I was tasked with driving a pickup truck, loaded with crates of chickens and burlap bags of farm cats, from the high Ranch to the Red Ranch north of Grand Junction.  All was well until I reached Grand Junction town proper, where at every stop light the chickens would all squawk at top volume and the cats would howl in indignant disgust at their situation!  I begged never to have that task again!!  Now I see it from the distance of time as hilariously funny and rather inconsequential in the scheme of my life!

One of my brothers had a horrifying experience while driving a truck load of big bulls from one ranch to another.  He was driving down the peninsula road to Collbran from the Ranch and was headed down the steep grade into the town of Collbran when his brakes went out.  The sharp turn at the bottom of the grade made it impossible to do anything but go straight.  Straight, though, meant careening over an embankment and trying to avoid the general store at the other side of a parking lot.  The truck rolled, the bulls flew out, the store was missed, and the brother was mostly unscathed.  All of the bulls lived, however, one was never quite right in the head after that and was eventually sold for meat.  Quite a scare for everyone!

Our ability to drive probably saved the Ranch from having to hire an additional man and certainly gave us confidence and skill far in advance of our town friends.

The Ranch Kids Go to School, sometimes with a horse!!

Going to school for the kids living on a ranch that's sixteen miles, over fairly rough roads, from the nearest town school posed some interesting problems and creative solutions.  The county roads leading to the outside gate (1 1/2 miles from the houses) of the Currier Ranch were, when Carol and I were children, minimally graveled roads.  During poor weather and during heavy snows, sending a school bus to pick us up was not something the school district felt confident in doing.   Solution:  They offered to send a teacher instead!!!

My grandmother, with some foresight when this was under discussion, decided to build a school house for the grandchildren.  When completed, it was a two story log building with the school room on the first floor and an apartment for a teacher on the second floor.  Since the teacher couldn't be expected to travel the roads anymore than the school bus could, there had to be a place for her (they were almost always "hers" in those days!) to live during the school term.

The entry to the school was on the West side with an area just inside the door for boots and as well as a long narrow coat room just beyond the entrance area.  The actual school room was a large room with good lighting, many windows and  hardwood floors.  At one end, was an actual raised performing stage with dressing rooms on either side.  An upright piano was placed to the left of the stage area for music class and for accompaniment to music and dramatic programs.  Grandma thought of everything, including a large, raised sand box for creative water and sand play!

The furnished apartment upstairs featured a large living room/bedroom, a roomy eat-in kitchen and a private room with a bathtub.  The sink and toilet were at the top of the stairs and this facility was used both by the teacher and the children.

At the beginning of September after Labor Day, each morning at 9 a.m., the kids who were school age (5 and up) walked to the school (a distance of about two city blocks) and spent the morning learning.  At noon, we all walked home for lunch and then back for the afternoon session which ended at 3:30 p.m.  Sometimes someone would bring a kid horse to school, usually Mule or Brownie, that would be tied up to the back stairway rail until recess when turns were taken enjoying the fun until recess was over.

One-room schools, such as our school, had a great atmosphere for learning, since the younger children were helped by the older children thus allowing the teacher to teach effectively to all.  I recall that the maximum number of students was eight spanning grades from 1st to 8th.

We attended this ranch school from September to mid-December when, due to the deepening winter and the fact that most of the hay for the cattle was used up, we all moved with the cattle to the Grand Junction area for the remainder of the school year and attended local schools, first in the Appleton area for elementary school, and then on to Junior High and High Schools either in Fruita or Grand Junction.  The teachers in these valley schools were very helpful in providing school materials that would allow us to flow right into the classes when we arrived in December.  Surprisingly, it all worked very well.  Today, I'm sure, that lack of flexibility and narrow room for creative solutions would negate this from actually being possible!!

The teachers at the Ranch school usually stayed about two seasons, and then we would get a new teacher.  I remember that we had several that were local people who were familiar with the area and several were from elsewhere, perhaps retired from full time teaching, who were looking for something interesting and short termed.  They were all welcomed into the Ranch "family" during their tenure there.  I think most of us kids remember them fondly for the most part.  I hope that they remember us fondly "for the most part...."

Each December, we put on a Christmas program and invited many friends from the community around Collbran including the superintendent of the school district.  This was a great event with twenty or so guests who were treated to music, singing, recitations and plays.  Of course, there were quite a few snafus with things like recitations going awry (Scrooges "Bah Humbug" speach or Santa getting stuck coming "down" the chimney into the fireplace (everyone had to hold their laughter while he and his bag were extricated), but a wonderfully joyous time was had by all.  Following the Christmas program, the Moms put out a glorious spread of food, sometimes including a roasted pig or a giant turkey and all the accompanying sides and desserts.  It was a special occasion that the guests looked forward to each year.

The school operated as described through my 8th grade year and Carol's 7th grade year.  At this juncture, the school district decided that the roads were improved enough that sending a bus was more economical than paying a teacher.  Most of the older kids then opted in September to go directly to their respective schools in Grand Junction/Fruita with the Moms or various grandparents staying down in the valley to look after them during the school week.  By the time a couple of us were in high school and of driving age, we often (Oh! Horror!) stayed in our valley home Monday through Friday looking after ourselves and siblings during the week and returning to the high Ranch on Friday after school for the weekend.  I recall leaving the Ranch at 6 a.m. or so, driving the 60 miles to the valley to get us older kids to school on time on Monday morning.  It was good experience in learning to drive on very snowy roads in the latter part of the fall.  In those days, no social service snooper was tasked with rooting out free range kids "living alone".  We were FINE...we had learned to be resilient, competent, and responsible and knew who to call in an emergency.  Try that today and someone would end up in jail with the kids shuffled off to foster care!!  That would be the true HORROR.

Our education in that little school was excellent....what an opportunity to grow and learn in an atmosphere that isn't found anymore.  My Dad often said that the death of the small neighborhood schools in the rural areas, as schools were consolidated into larger ones in town, caused death of the close knit communities that once existed, centered around the school, helping each other and socializing. I think he was very right.

As I have said before, we Currier kids grew up in a beautiful, magical place and had a childhood like no other.  How lucky we were!

Fishing in Willow Creek and Cow Creek

One of the fondest memories that I have of summers on the Ranch was that of my Dad, (Uncle Carleton to the cousins), rounding up all willing and interested kids on a warm summer day, most likely in late July or August, for an afternoon of trout fishing.  He was a good fisherman himself and enjoyed sharing the pleasure with the Ranch kids.
 

Carol reminisces "Of course, just going for a drive or doing anything with Uncle Carleton was always fun and great to hang out with!"

 

I loved it too, even though I was not as adventurous as Carol and Tom, who were up to many wild and crazy shenanigans throughout our childhood.

On a warm afternoon when cattleman duties didn't demand his presence, he would put out the word that he was going fishing and anyone who wanted to go should "go dig up some worms and put them in a can" and "grab your fishing pole or cut a willow pole" of his/her choice.   The worms were easy to find and we knew to look under old cow pies where they worked away doing their worm jobs.  The willows were plentiful growing along Cheney Creek (pronounced "cheeny').   Dad also instructed every time not to wear anything white or light colored.  Green, brown, or blue colors were the best, since the light colors would scare the fish.

Dad would load all comers into his pickup truck, most of us riding in the back, with the little ones in the front with him.  We would head for Willow Creek (or occasionally Cow Creek) riding and chattering with great joy and anticipation of upcoming adventure, our hair blowing and our rumps bouncing in the pickup bed.  The wise kids grabbed a seat on the spare tire if they could...much easier on the behind!!

Dad always brought a big roll of sturdy, greenish fishing line to put on the willow poles and had extra hooks for anyone who didn't have one or lost one.  We all had to learn to bait our own hooks with the worms and everyone got good at it, quickly losing any squeamishness about threading the fat, wiggling, resisting worms onto the hooks. 

After we got to the chosen section of Willow Creek, usually one with plenty of cold, gently flowing water and several beaver ponds, the bigger kids spread out to find the spot each determined was the best one.  These spots usually were deep areas next to the bank where the trout loved to lazily swim about or in beaver ponds that always held lots of fish.

The younger kids stayed with Dad, and he would get a fish on the line and then quickly hand the pole to the excited little one who then "caught a fish" and helped pull it in all shiny and wet and flipping about to the shrieking delight of the little fisherman. 

The bigger kids, Carol, Tom, Dan, Beth and I (and any cousins or visitors), fished on our own and thrilled just as the little kids did when a tug on the line indicated that a fish was nibbling the worm.  Then there would be a solid jerk, setting the hook in the fish's  mouth, to be pulled in glistening, fighting, flopping.  The hapless fish was then conked on the head to kill it and strung on a willow fork through the gills and mouth.  The willow fork stringer could be put in the cold water of the creek to keep the fish fresh.

When it was time to go, after everyone had filled their limits (I remember that kids under 12 or maybe 14 years of age didn't need a license and could catch five fish while those with a  license could catch ten fish), Dad would call us to come back to the truck or honk the horn to signal us.  We usually filled our limits, and all the trout were put in five gallon buckets of cold creek water for the ride home.  The kids in the back of the pickup were responsible for keep the buckets upright on the bumpy ride home.

Once we got home, the fish were divvied up between our house and Carol's house.  Then anyone who fished had to help clean the fish.  There was no wimping out on that chore, and we all learned how to gut and clean a trout handily.   I can still do it.

The trout were pan sized, from 8-12 inches long and were promptly dredged in corn meal and fried for dinner (called "supper" in the ranching West).  The fish were fried with the heads and tails on which helps when the diner removes the bones before eating.  We learned to lift the whole bone structure out by peeling the meat off while holding the head. 

There is nothing better than the taste of a freshly caught trout, quickly fried and carried to the table to be devoured with gusto.   Bread was always served with the fish to carry down the errant little fish bone that might get caught in the diner's throat.  No market-bought trout or trout ordered in a restaurant can compare to those fresh mountain beauties.  (Note:  The fish were mostly brook trout or cut-throat trout with an occasional rainbow trout.)  Delicious!!!

The Frosty Fanny Nudist Camp.....Oh My!!!!

One late September day, my brother Tom and cousin David, having nothing urgent to accomplish, started brainstorming about how funny they thought nudist camps must be......WHEN a bolt of inspirational lightening struck and the two decided to create a fictitious nudist camp and call it the "Frosty Fanny Nudist Camp" to be "opened" on Bald Mountain which lies above and West North West of our ranch.

And, the two of them didn't do it halfway....they had business cards printed with one listed as "Sports Director" and the other as "Chief Nature Boy."  Business Stationary was created with the pertinent staff information as well as a silhouette of a shapely young woman balancing a beach ball.  The prototype was sent to the printer and, voila, the Frosty Fanny Nudist Camp was officially 'born.'  The business cards and stationary were left conspicuously all over Western Colorado wherever one or the other of the pranksters happened to be.

They needed more publicity and found a great flat-faced boulder in Plateau Canyon that was perfect for painting a promotional sign reading "Frosty Fanny Nudist Camp" and the number of miles to..yes...our family ranch gate!!  Of course, the business cards and stationary had to have a phone number for potential "nudist campers" to call, and the two geniuses used my Dad's phone number at the ranch for that bit of information!!!  He didn't know about it until he began receiving odd calls for reservations to a nudist camp.

The saga unfolded with fly-overs by various law enforcement agencies to FIND THAT NUDIST CAMP as well as a visit by the local sheriff to discover just what was going on up on the Currier Ranch!  The Grand Junction newspaper, The Daily Sentinel, had an article (I believe on September 24 or 25, 1964) with a photo of the big rock "bill board," and a reporter traveled to the Ranch to tease out more details.  They interviewed my Dad, whose only comment was "I don't know anything about any nudist camp, but I do know that people around here who haven't smiled in years, are smiling now!"

The Frosty Fanny was "famous" for a very long time and anyone who lived in Plateau Valley and Collbran, Colorado during those years, still remembers and has another reminiscent chuckle.

I do have a copy of the newspaper article, stationary and one of the business cards, however, they have gone into the twilight zone of attic/basement storage and yet to be unearthed.  Pics will be posted when I finally find them....

Two teenage boys with spare time can come up with the strangest projects, indeed!!

Free Range Kids and Their Shenanigans!

I suppose that if you put two or more kids in a wide open, somewhat remote, mostly sunny, safe place and let them roam and experience freely, a great deal of creative activity would undoubtedly take place.  This 'chapter' briefly describes some of the "interesting" things that helped us while away the summer days and grow up strong and healthy and often a bit wiser! 

 

Chickens - pets and victims!

We found the ranch chickens to be quite interesting from trying to figure out how smart they were (not very) to enjoying the tiny little chicks that the hens managed to produce by hiding their eggs so we couldn't find them, and thereby allowing them to hatch.

As small children, we spent lots of time trying to catch chickens and were never very successful.  Mother hens were defensive and mean, younger birds were fast and clever, and roosters often looked too fierce to mess with.  We did find that if one tied a piece of corn onto the end of a long string, a chicken would peck it up and swallow it, allowing us to lead it around for a while until the corn came back up if pulled too hard.  We also found that chickens would eat anything with grain in it and encouraged a couple of hapless birds to eat some kid-concocted, very fermented grain brew which made the unfortunate chickens rather drunk!  One actually passed out from imbibing too much.  We were sure that we had killed it, but it finally came around!

We knew that chickens were food, both from the hens' eggs and from the younger birds who became fried or roasted chicken.  We grew up watching the dads gather a few birds and chop off their heads with a hatchet, staring wide-eyed as the headless birds ran about for a bit before keeling over.  My brother, Tom, found a dead chicken in the chicken yard, and, thinking that he was going to help Mom out, carried it into the kitchen and plopped it down on the counter with an announcement "Mom, I brought you a chicken for dinner!"  The chicken was way past anything close to dinner except for a coyote or such and was speedily taken away, much to Tom's disappointment.

Magpies

Magpie birds are pests on a ranch.  They are great nuisances and, therefore, are very often dispatched.  We had a couple of magpie traps on the ranch which were large cages, about 5 feet square and about 6-7 feet high.  The chicken wire mesh that covered the entire cage, including the top, was accessed through a door in one side.  The top had a round hole with inverted wires pointing down into the cage.  Corn was placed on the floor and magpies would enter easily through the hole in the top.  They could not, however, get out, since they had to fly up to get out, and the inverted wired pointing down prohibited them from flying out.  Most of these captives were "dispatched" by one of the cowboys or our dads. 

My imaginative brothers, discovered that some fun could be had by entering the cage and capturing a magpie.  The "lucky" bird was attached to the fishing line on a rod and reel and allowed to fly up and away.....until it reached the end of the line with a sudden stop, and was then reeled back in for another flight.  If the bird was lucky, it eventually escaped, probably to fly back into the magpie trap and meet its end.  Pretty awful looking back, but hilarious then.

Halloween Masks - Oh My!

Living in a remote place didn't offer much in the way of trick or treating for the kids living on the ranch.  We did have fun with the holiday though and made stops at all the family houses and those of the hired men and their families. 

Carol and I were introduced to Halloween when were probably four and five, when my dad brought home two witch masks for us.  We had never had a mask before, and had only heard about witches in scary stories.  We scurried off to the bedroom to look them over.  We put them on and looked in the mirror and were terrified by what we thought were monsters staring back at us and ran out of the room wailing in fright!  It took quite a bit of explanation and comforting for us to finally start to enjoy the scary masks.

Someone, usually Carol's Mom, had delicious apple cider to drink and Granddad Currier let us have a candy from his candy cupboard.  One of the hired men gave us some really good cider...looking back, I'm pretty sure it was hard cider since it had quite a fizzy tang!!

Bogs are not for horses!

There were several boggy areas on the ranch where tall grass grew, but which were not generally traversable on foot, on a tractor, or on a horse.  We were all educated as to where these were and instructed to stay out of them.  But, one day, Carol and her cousin Dinny decided to ride one of the horses through a bog instead of around it so that they could get to the other side faster.  It wasn't a fortuitous plan and the horse got bogged down up to his belly in the swamp.  They could not get him out no matter how hard they tried and had to walk home and sheepishly beg one of the dads for help!  It required a large tractor and rope and chain to haul the poor horse out.  Fortunately, he wasn't injured and neither were Carol and Dinny, though they did get some severe lectures for that one.

Cowboys and Indians

One of our favorite games was a horseback game in which various factions warred with each other in wild games of cowboys and Indians or cowboys and rustlers and the like.  One particular day, as we finished a great battle, one of the losers had to be brought in as a "dead man."  I think it was Dinny (Carol's cousin) who was strapped across the back of one of the horses with her hands and feet tied together via a rope under the horses belly.  All was well (though Dinny suffered some serious belly bouncing) until the ropes loosened just a tad, and she slipped down and around so that she was hanging under the horse's belly with her hands and feet up top!  She looked so funny dangling under the horse with the horse hopping about, that we all were laughing so hard that it took some time to get her detached.  All walked away in good shape fortunately!!  No one volunteered to be the "dead man" after that!

Hornets...stinging devils....

Hornets up on the Ranch make huge, grey, papery nests, shaped rather like an upside down pear, and often 12 inches in diameter and over a foot long attached to tree or brush branches.  One day, we learned the hard way not to smack a huge hornets' nest with sticks to get the hornets to come out!  Why we thought that this was a good idea, I don't know, but all of us involved ran for our lives with a stream of big black hornets chasing us and stinging as we ran!

Fishing for suckers and creek swimming- pure JOY,,,

There was a great, deepish hole in Buzzard Creek about a mile and a half from our houses.  In the summer, some of us older kids would walk to this spot which was down below several terraces of hayfields on a property called the Fitzpatrick Place (purchased by our grandfather from someone named Fitzpatrick, I suppose).  We would walk there with willow fishing poles armed with treble hooks and worms for bait to catch the big sucker fish that swam in the deep hole in the creek.  Suckers are not good to eat, very bony and not very flavorful.  After bringing home a big sack of them once, our moms politely told us to not bother to bring them again! 

After we tired of catching suckers and playing with them, getting them to kiss each other with their big sucker lips, we would jump into the fishing pool turning it into a swimming hole and having a great time splashing about until it was time to walk home again.  Our moms must have thanked the stars above for that hole in the creek, since it meant we would be gone for hours at a time!!  We were free range indeed and explored wherever, but always looked out for one another.

Snipe Hunts...for visiting kids (who were generally city kids)

If you don't know what a snipe hunt is, let me outline it for you.  The hunt requires one or two unsuspecting visitors, a number of Ranch kids, and a big burlap bag.  The hunt always took place at dusk in the summertime when night didn't fall for several hours after dusk.

The visitor was regaled with stories of hunting snipe, a very tricky bird that lived in large groups.  The hapless city kid was told to stand at one end of either a big field or a pasture holding the big burlap bag (gunny sack)  open and near the ground calling "Snipe, Snipe, Snipe."  He was told that the other kids would circle far around and chase the snipes toward him, and that if he/she waited long enough, a bagful of snipes was to be had.  Of course, there were no snipes, and after much yelling a whacking of sticks to demonstrate audible snipe herding, the Ranch kids went home and left the snipe bag holder to plaintively keep calling for snipes.  Eventually, he/she generally figured out that he/she had been had and came back to the houses with a sheepish look on the face.

Bale Houses....castles in the country!

During haying time, when cuttings of hay had been baled and were lying in neat rows in the fields, waiting to be picked up and stacked, we kids would harness up the afore mentioned Mule (horse), hitch a small slip (a wood sled that slides along the ground) to his harness and gather as many bales as we could taking them to a central location.  (Our Dads were happy with this occupation since it made picking up the bales easier, because many were in one place.)  With these many bales, we would construct bale houses with long tunnels for access and several stories high.  These were great fun and all the kids played for hours in them until the time came for them to be picked up and put in the haystack.  Unfortunately, mice loved to hide under bales and we sometimes found them scurrying around in our castles.  One time, cousin Beth rolled a bale over uncovering several mice, one of which promptly ran up the inside of her pants leg.  You've never seen jeans come off so fast or heard so much screaming!  Everyone else got a great laugh out of that one!

Nightime Games

One of the games that we played at night was a scary one.  One person was "it" and had to hide his eyes for about 10 minutes while the other kids ran up the road into one of the pastures and hid along the way.  The goal was for the kid who was "it" to walk up the road while the others periodically  jumped out from bushes or down from trees emitting terrifying screams, howls and other noises.  The "it" kid was deemed a winner if he didn't scream or run away in fright!

Building "cabins"

We went through several  episodes of deciding to build little log houses in the woods.  We would cut down trees, remove the branches, cut the logs to the right length and build little one room "cabins."  It was a learning project and the cabins sufficed for summer play, but wouldn't have been very weather worthy in the winter!!


These are just a few of the things that the imaginative kids on the Currier Ranch enjoyed.  We truly had a wonderful childhood with not much to be afraid of and lots to do.  We were blessed with a place and parents who were not afraid to let us explore and learn.  Our parents were not fearful that we would get injured or be eaten by a mountain lion or a bear (there were mountain lions and bears on the ranch)........  All of us grew up with no broken bones and no life-threatening situations.  Consequently, we achieved adulthood as confident people, the lessons of the Ranch serving us still.

Watch for a blog about the Frosty Fanny Nudist Camp, soon to appear!

Grandma Currier

Grandma Currier (Chastine Elizabeth Harris Currier) (1897-1986)

Our paternal grandma, Grandma Currier, wife of our paternal grandfather, Tom Currier, was Tom's partner in homesteading the Tom Currier ranch now known as the X Bar X ( X-X).  I'm not certain where her first name "Chastine" came from.  It may have been a combination of Charles and Stein as her family had a friend by that name.

She grew up in Grand Junction, Colorado and attended school there. The story goes that, as a young woman living in Grand Junction, she spotted Tom Currier as he rode into town on a good looking horse.  As the tall handsome cowboy tied his horse up near the water trough, she was said to have exclaimed "I'm going to marry that man!"  And she did.  I'm not sure what their courtship involved, but I suppose that they were married in the First Baptist Church in Grand Junction.

Grandma, a town girl, then began the arduous task of learning to live in the remote mountain valley East of Collbran, Colorado in a tent to help "prove" the homestead.  It is my understanding that both Carol's Dad, Franklin, and my Dad, Carleton, were babies when they lived in a tent in the summer.  Shortly, their first homestead cabin was built from logs harvested on the property.  It was a two room cabin with one square window in each of the four sides.  Of course, there was no running water or plumbing in the cabin.  An outhouse (also know as a "privy") was the norm and, initially, water was carried to the cabin from a spring.  (All of the water for the current five houses still comes from mountain springs, though through various pipelines with water pressure delivered via gravity flow.)  Heating and cooking were done with a big iron wood cookstove and lighting was provided by candles and/kerosene lanterns.

I'm not sure how long the little family lived in the cabin, but it stood, for many years after, quite near the house my parents built in 1950.  It was inhabited over the years by a variety of hired men and finally gave way to old age and decay in the 1990s and was torn down and the pieces hauled away.

From pictures that I have seen, the life was hard and Grandma often looked as if she was a bit worn out by what she had jumped into marrying a homestead rancher.  She may have also suffered from some hormonal imbalances, since she had a hysterectomy in the late 1920's, which in those days, was a pretty unpleasant surgery.  In addition to the rigors or surgery and recovery, there would have been no knowledge of hormone replacement and, most likely, menopause set in with a vengeance adding to her general misery.

She was, notwithstanding, a hard working pioneer woman who learned quickly how to ride a horse, herd cattle, grow a large garden, wash clothes and babies in a tin tub and cook for a variety of working men.



One saving grace, I'm sure, was the fact that when feed for the cattle ran low in the winter at the mountain ranch, the cattle were  moved to lower elevations until the next spring.  This meant that the family lived in Grand Junction for the winter and rejoined "civilized" society which Grandma loved.

She was a managerial woman who wanted things done her way and could be very direct and tended to run "rough shod" over anyone who had different ideas.  Our moms were often the subject of her heavy handedness and found comfort and humor in having each other to turn to in the early years of their marriages.  Our Granddad, Tom, was know to be the butt of her occasional tirades and frequently exclaimed in frustration "Great Scot, Chass!"

All of us grandchildren have many memories of Grandma Currier, most of them good, and some not so much.....  She had RULES and ideas and woe be the child that bucked those!  Some of the memories follow.

 

Smashing the "twin berries"
 

One day Carol and I decided to squish some black colored berries (called twin berries), that grew in profusion in back of Grandma's house, onto the screen door of her house.  She had ears that could hear a pin drop and we were caught in the act!  She ran out scolded us and 'shook' us both.  Here I have to relate the dreaded Grandma Currier punishment, which was to grab the errant child by the shoulders and shake him/her violently.   Of course, today, that would be unthinkable, but we all lived through the experience of various shakings.  Perhaps some of the oddities in a couple of our siblings are due to these shakings????    We thenhad to clean all evidence of our berry squishing off that back screen door with soap, water and brushes.

Play and games...

Even with the fright of occasional shakings, we all loved going to Grandma Currier's house.  She had many games to play, a huge box of old crayons and plenty of things to color, and decks of playing cards.  Other than the time during which she took her afternoon nap (woe be the child that woke her from her nap!) or just before noon when she was cooking lunch (called "dinner" in the old West), she was happy to have her house full of grandchildren.  She always had Chiclet gum and we usually could score a piece.

Grandma's toys were such fun....Lincoln logs, wind-up type toys, a cigarette smoking dog, a Howdy Doody puppet, and a wooden box that was designed so that you put in small wooden pieces into the top and hammered them into the box compartment followed by a few more wooden pellet looking pieces and they would come out of the bottom.  Then there were her many wooden puzzles that we enjoyed playing with and putting back together.  I still have a number of these puzzles.
 

Grandma's RULES were that we always had to put all the toys back into the toy cupboard and put the puzzles away.  One time, we were very naughty little girls and dumped all the puzzle pieces of ALL the many puzzles into a big pile...we couldn't figure out how to put them all back together correctly, and we ran out of her house as fast as we could.  I believe Grandma demanded that our mothers come over and help us put them together again! Don't think we ever did that again... We were in double trouble with Grandma and our mothers!

We enjoyed good times playing Chinese checkers, dominos & regular checkers...maybe even Monopoly  and some card games like Go Fish or Old Maid.  We all played the games by the rules, no cheating allowed. We grandchildren have many warm memories of playing these games.

Card playing was one of Grandma's favorite pastimes with us and she taught us all a variety of games.  We were all proficient at Pinochle and Cribbage  and some learned Canasta as well.  Grandma never LET anyone win.  She would teach the art of the game and help with decisions, but until you were good enough, you didn't beat Grandma at cards!  My younger sister, Merial, once played Canasta with another cousin's grandmother and great-aunt who were rabid Canasta players.  They were so upset when she beat them that they accused her of being a little cheater and told her she could never come to their house again.  They wouldn't accept the fact that Merial had learned at the hand of a 'master' !!


The allowance...

Grandma also had an 'allowance' program for all the grandchildren.  I believe that it was as follows:

Ages 2-8              5 cents per week
Ages 8-12          10 cents per week
Ages 12 and up  25 cents per week

We would religiously show up once a week to collect our allowance and if we were away, she mailed a check every so often.  I was still receiving a $13 dollar check each year even after I graduated from college!!

The wristwatch...

The majority of the grandchildren also were given a wristwatch for his/her 12th birthday.  Each child was allowed to choose the watch that he/she wanted from the Spiegel catalog.  I still have mine....a Waltham Swiss made watch which still runs!!

The trip...

Another perk of reaching 12 years of age was that a grandchild then was eligible to go on a trip with Grandma.  These were usually driving trips to somewhere in the United States, often lasting two-three weeks.  Carol traveled to California and into Mexico.  My brother Dan traveled up the coast of California to Portland and Seattle for the 1962 Worlds Fair.  I joined them in Portland and got to bring a friend.  We traveled in a camper and had a fine time.  Another blog will relate that adventure!  My brother Tom traveled with her through the South and up the East Coast. 

On Tom's trip, Grandma had decided to economize, and she bought a station wagon.  Her plan was to sleep in the car some of the time with Tom on the front seat and Grandma and her sister, Aunt Merial, on a pad in the back.  She cut newspaper sheets to cover the windows at night.  I'm not sure that it was as much fun as she planned, though Tom had a fine time.  One night he caught a jar full of fireflies and let them loose in the car where they flickered all night much to the distress of the ladies in the back.

One another occasion, Grandma wanted to get across a railroad track to a road on the other side, notwithstanding the fact that there was no road crossing where she wanted to cross.  She crossed anyway and got the station wagon high centered on the tracks.  Apparently, Grandma walked down to a bar on the road and asked the men within to come lift her car off the tracks.  They did (no one refused Grandma) and the trio of travelers was again on their way.

Sadly, I think the younger grandchildren missed out on these trips.

Grandma's shower....

Grandma also had a shower in her house which we grandchildren found delightful.  It was better than taking a bath in a good old tin tub which was the method of bathing until our houses had bathtubs when we got indoor plumbing.  Her shower was a small one, but perfectly adequate, and we loved it.  One day when Carol and I were taking our shower together, (we must have been 4 and 5 years old) my brother, Tom, decided to join us... He was fully dressed, and it must have been cold outside, because he even wore his jacket, boots and hat into the shower.  Carol can to this day, picture him fully clothed just standing in the corner of grandma's shower, to Grandma's irritation!

More naughty girls....

Carol related one more hilarious happening.... one day Carol's mom had gone to town, and she and her cousin Dorinda were outside playing with Carol's sister, Donna, and having fun, when they began to tease Donna a little bit.... (side note Donna had Down's Syndrome and Grandma Currier was very protective of her, which Donna knew all too well!).  When Donna had enough of the teasing, she began to scream like 'bloody murder' was going to happen'!  Grandma Currier came rushing out of her house to protect Donna  (who, by the way, was never hurt), but she had had enough and  knew one sure way to get it stopped...Grandma Currier to the rescue!

Boy were they in trouble! Carol and Dorinda split and ran into Carol's house with Grandma in hot pursuit intent on punishment....perhaps the much dreaded shaking!  (Carol's house was three stories, built in 1952 with only the first floor finished at the time. Upstairs had open wooden 2x4s delineating the future rooms).  The big girls ran upstairs with Grandma close behind.  The stairwell was in the middle which then made it possible to run in a circle around the second floor of the house.  The naughty girls ran in circles a couple of times and then zipped down the stairs, out the back door where they hid under the house in the large crawl space.  For several minutes they could still hear Grandma running around and around upstairs shouting "Carol!  Dorinda! Come here!"  Of course, the girls couldn't control their giggles and laughed until their sides were hurting.  Grandma didn't hear them and did not find them so no 'shaking' happened that day.

Family gatherings...

Over the years, as we grew up, we still usually spent Christmas Eve with Grandma and Granddad Currier and annually Grandma held a Birthday Party to celebrate ALL the birthdays of her two sons, their wives and all the grandchildren.  This was generally in the summer and was always fried chicken (from KFC) and all the fixings.  After everyone had families of their own, the big family dinners happened on fewer and fewer occasions, but the memories are with us always.