The Mantle Ranch

Queeda Mantle

Description

Queeda Mantle was born on a March day in 1933. In anticipation of her birth, her parents started by horseback out of the remote Yampa Canyon in Northwest Colorado. They were headed for Vernal, Utah, where the Mantles had friends with whom they could stay until the baby arrived. When they were 10 miles into the trip, Mrs. Mantle realized that her baby was on the way. Having no choice, they stopped at the ranch house of neighbors and the baby soon arrived. After a few days rest, the parents, now with a baby girl, returned to the ranch. Queeda's parents were devoted to education. They built a school house and hired a teacher so that Queeda and her brothers got their first years of school. All of the children continued their education at schools in Colorado and Utah with Queeda graduating from the University of Colorado, Boulder, in 1954.In recent years, Queeda reviewed her mother's extensive notes and photo collection. Using these, she has given the reader a view of life in the Yampa Canyon, a life that was harsh, yet pleasant, isolated, yet with visits from friends and relatives, and educational in the broadest sense.

Sujets

• Biography
• Yampa, Colorado
• Autobiography
• Élevage extensif
• Colorado

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 30 juin 2005
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780871089809
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

A Family s Joys and Sorrows in the Beautiful, Remote Yampa River Canyon
THE
Mantle
Ranch
Queeda Mantle Walker
PRUETT
T HE P RUETT S ERIES
2005 by Queeda Mantle Walker
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews and articles.
First Edition
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Walker, Queeda Mantle, 1933
The Mantle Ranch : a family s joys and sorrows in the beautiful, remote Yampa River Canyon / Queeda Mantle Walker. -- 2nd ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-87108-350-0 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-0-87108-980-9 (e-book)
1. Mantle, Evelyn Fuller, 1907-1978. 2. Walker, Queeda Mantle, 1933- 3. Women ranchers--Colorado--Yampa River Valley--Biography. 4. Ranchers--Colorado--Yampa River Valley--Biography. 5. Ranch life--Colorado--Yampa River Valley. 6. Yampa River Valley (Colo.)--Biography. I. Title.
CT275.M4573W36 2011
978.8 12033092--dc23
[B]
2011019433
WestWinds Press
An imprint of

P.O. Box 56118
Portland, OR 97238-6118
[phone]
www.graphicartsbooks.com
COVER PHOTO: From Burro Park overlook of Castle Park. Upper and lower Red Rock Benches beyond, with Blue Mountain above all.
Book Cover Design: Bob Schram/Bookends
Dedication
To My Mother,

Evelyn Fuller Mantle
Acknowledgments
For me, this journey through the lives of my parents, my siblings, and myself, has been one of discovery of family love and the importance of devoted friends. I particularly want to say that my mother, Evelyn Mantle is my hero and example of strength of character and of accomplishment. She was steadfast through the greatest of trials. This book is about her most of all.
My present family has listened for nine long years to me talk of this book. I appreciate their patience and interest. My brother Lonnie wrote some episodes for me, told me stories, sorted and indexed our collection of old pictures and sent me beautiful color photos of his.
I particularly want to thank Dr. Richard Geesaman for his friendship and help. He read, proofed, encouraged me, pushed and shoved me into finishing. Without him I would never have got the job done. He even brought my publisher, Fred Pruett, to my house and introduced us.
My dear friend Doris Karren Burton has printed some of my stories in her publication The Outlaw Trail Journal which she edits for the Uintah County Library History Center in Vernal, Utah. She has given me permission to tell these stories again in this book. She also encouraged me endlessly. Thanks, also, to Katherine Shank Rinker for the photos she contributed.
Sam Haslem and Eula Chew Wise and Doris Karren Burton generously shared their family pictures with me and I am grateful. We shared so much fun as kids! God blessed us with our wonderful parents.
Q UEEDA M ANTLE W ALKER
Boulder, Colorado,
November 2004
Preface
I lived on the Mantle Ranch from the time of my birth in 1933, until 1954 when I graduated from the University of Colorado. This is a family story; a story of my parents, my siblings, and me, living the kind of life that most people today can scarcely imagine. At times our life was filled with incredible hardships, but it was not without its own brand of special joy and fulfillment. It was a wonderful place to grow up and remains my favorite place on earth with a special trove of memories.
But in a larger sense this is the story of my mother, Evelyn Fuller Mantle, a loving, caring hard working woman, who never complained, though she would often have been justified in doing so. Mother recognized early on that she was going to have to take care of most of the things around the ranch that needed doing and if she lacked the skills and knowledge at the outset, she trained herself and in the process became one of the most accomplished people I have ever known.
Although a very private person, Mother revealed much of her life to me over the years. She and her first cousin, Eva, who lived in New York, corresponded regularly. They had been like sisters before Evelyn s family moved west. After mother s death in 1978, Eva made a special trip to visit me in Colorado. She presented me with several boxes of letters written to her from Mother, which she had lovingly saved all those years. She gave them to me with the understanding that I was to write a story of mother s life. These tender letters, together with stories Mother shared with me, form the foundation of this book.
My father, Charley Mantle was a true character and of course plays an indispensable part in this story, too. Often as hard and ruthless as the land that shaped him, he could also be loving in his own special way. A born mimic and story-teller, he spoke in a carefree, colorful way, pulling no punches. Accordingly, to present him as he really was, I have taken the liberty of imagining what he might have said in particular situations.
Contents
Introduction
ONE: Charley and Evelyn
TWO: Life on Blue Mountain
THREE: First Canyon Trip

FOUR: Busby, 1924-1925
FIVE: The Fullers Visit Charley
SIX: Rial s Ranch
SEVEN: Courting and Proposal
EIGHT: Getting Home
NINE: New Home
TEN: Newlyweds
ELEVEN: Wild Horse Camp

TWELVE: First Winter, 1926-27
THIRTEEN: Trapped and Pregnant, 1927
FOURTEEN: Potch, 1927-28
FIFTEEN: New Parents, 1928
SIXTEEN: Sur vival, 1928-29
SEVENTEEN: Pat, 1929-30
EIGHTEEN: Moving to New Mexico, 1930-32

NINETEEN: Disaster, 1933
TWENTY: Drought and Hope
TWENTY-ONE: Lonnie, 1935
TWENTY-TWO: Hells Canyon Rages, 1936
TWENTY-THREE: Orchard, 1936-37
TWENTY-FOUR: Tim, 1938-39
TWENTY-FIVE: Perry Mansfield, 1939-40
TWENTY-SIX: Archaeologists, 1939-40
TWENTY-SEVEN: New House, 1941

TWENTY-EIGHT: The Road is Finally Finished, 1941
TWENTY-NINE: Pat Gets Sleeping Sickness, 1941
THIRTY: War, 1943-44
THIRTY-ONE: Eva Comes West, 1944
THIRTY-TWO: Trauma, 1944-46
THIRTY-THREE: Bench School, 1946-47
THIRTY-FOUR: Surger y, 1947-48

THIRTY-FIVE: Grasshoppers and Snow, 1948-49
THIRTY-SIX: Joes Dies, 1949-50
THIRTY-SEVEN: Last School, 1950-51
THIRTY-EIGHT: Mexico, 1951-52
THIRTY-NINE: Tourists, 1952-53
FORTY: Change, 1954-55
FORTY-ONE: Alone, 1955-56
FORTY-TWO: We Did It, 1957-60
KEY TO MAP

1. Castle Park

2. Castle Rock

3. Mantle Homestead cabin

4. New House, the heart of Mantle Ranch

5. Crows Nest Cliff

6. Laddie Park where Evelyn and children climbed out to first Bench School

7. Mantle Cave

8. Joe s Grave-foot trail to get to the ladder when Hells Canyon flooded

9. Hells Canyon-lower section

10. Red Rock Canyon

11. Red Rock Ranch, Tom Blevins cabin

12. Second airport

13. Second Bench School-at Red Rock

14. Chew Ranch at Pool Creek

15. Wind Cave in Pool Creek Canyon

16. Steamboat Rock

17. Yampa River flows into the Green River at Steamboat Rock

18. Sand Canyon-horse trail and road out west side of canyons

19. Winter horse trail starts over treacherous Blue Mountain

20. Pearl Park

21. Roundtop

22. Martha s Peak

23. Upper Hells Canyon Gorge-where crickets entered

24. Mantle Summer Cow Camp

25. Horse trail between Martha s Peak and Hells Canyon Gorge

26. Rat Spring

27. Serviceberry Gap

28. Water tank at Serviceberry Gap where the pipeline ended

29. Quaker Spring where the pipeline began

30. Hardings Hole

31. Mouth of Johnson Canyon where it empties into the Yampa at Bull Canyon

32. Johnson Draw where Mantle Ranch Road ended until 1938 when it reached the rim of Hells Canyon

33. Mantle Ranch Road finished into Hells Canyon in 1941, now cars could drive out without the help of Henry Horse

34. Red Rock Bench Road from the west was finished into Hells Canyon in 1944

35. Schoonover Pasture and dehorning corrals

36. Youghall

37. East Mantle Ranch Road switch backs at Thanksgiving where the road climbs to the top of Blue Mountain, then east on to Elk Springs

38. Cattle drives traveled on east through East Cactus to Deer Lodge

39. Outlaw Park

40. Warm Springs

41. Location of trailer for the first Bench School
Introduction
It was August 12, 1926, in Vernal, Utah. I do! she said. I ve done it - it is over, she thought. The couple embraced but did not kiss in front of the two witnesses and the justice of the peace. They turned and walked out into the hot summer day. The horses that had brought them here were waiting patiently outside at the hitching rack. Mounting, the couple rode off toward the east and their new life together.
This is the story of the life of these two young people. The place where they lived is in the very northwest corner of Colorado where Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming join. The Green River coming out of Wyoming from the north, and the Yampa River coming from the east out of the mountains of Colorado, join here in a maze of magnificent, deeply eroded, canyons. Their home was to be situated along the Yampa (or Bear) River, in one of the nation s most isolated places, ten miles east of the confluence of the Green and Yampa Rivers. It remains today, rugged, intimidating country, little touched by any human influence.
The present day towns of Craig, Colorado, and Vernal, Utah, joined by Highway U.S. 40 form t