Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

Who of us could?

 by Julie Carter

There is a new crop of 18-year-olds about to be loosed on a world full of technology and endless possibilities. It seems important to remember that the abundance of choices and opportunities weren't always there.

The youngest of 10 children, her short life had been full of hard work and Old World discipline. Her mother died when she was 8 and in the summer of her 18th year, her father died. It was 1930.

Her siblings had already married, joined the military and found jobs. She was the last one in the nest and the nest was about to be sold, leaving her homeless.

Down the road a few miles was a childhood friend who was also looking for a home. His widowed father had taken a young wife and was starting a new family. He and his brothers felt in the way and decided to strike out on their own.

It was not at all a romantic start to life, but the two homeless young friends married that December because of circumstances, not love. 

Their first home was a one-room cabin in the foothills near a freshwater spring. She filled the cracks with rags and tacked tar paper to the walls to keep out the winter winds. He had a job with a sawmill but it was too far away for a daily walk to work, so he left on Mondays and returned home on Saturday nights. 

The isolation and loneliness was overwhelming for the young bride.

Her only company was a big collie dog and a very cranky milk cow. She spent her days sewing, mending, cooking and doing laundry.

The basics of living took all day, especially in the winter when wood needed chopped and laundry required water to be bucketed from the spring. After a washboard scrubbing, it was strung on lines throughout the cabin to dry. 

A few chickens provided an occasional egg or two and the couple was gifted with half of a deer that she canned or fried and preserved in a crock of lard. 

The cow provided them with fresh milk, cream and butter and copious amounts of cottage cheese that she made.

In the spring, she planted a garden with great anticipation of fresh vegetables. She spent long days watering, hoeing and hoeing some more. The green sprouts broke through the fertile ground and became lush with promise.

In a cruel twist of fate from Mother Nature, she awoke on a July morning to find row after row of frozen, blackened plants. Not knowing what else to do, she fell to the ground and cried.

When her anger and disappointment were spent, she prayed, picked up her hoe and began again. She never forgot the day her prayers were answered and she saw the first green stems poking through the ground in the garden she'd coaxed back to life.

It was the height of the depression -- the dirty '30s. The family ranch was struggling with cattle selling for $17 a head, if you could find someone to buy them. It was not enough to support two families so the young couple continued to fend for themselves.

He continued to find sawmill work and even found a mill closer to home. He walked four miles to and from work every day, working 10 hours a day for the princely sum of 15 cents an hour. Being frugal was not a choice.

The first baby was born a month premature and survived in an incubator fashioned from a shoe box set on the open oven door of the wood cook stove. Eleven months later another son arrived. Their income was supplemented with the sale of furs collected from a trap line. 

After saving for a long time, they were able to by a Model T Roadster for $25. Their social life consisted of playing cards and checkers if someone happened by and stayed awhile. Material things didn't matter, family and survival did.

This couple is my grandparents -- married 50 years, most of them hard times, remembered with sweet memories. "We raised our kids on beans, love and poached venison," my grandmother would say. 

How many today could do the same?

Julie can be reached for comment at jcarter@tularosa.net.