Sunday, December 21, 2014

The Christmas Tally

Counting blessings
The Christmas Tally
From our camp to yours
By Stephen L. Wilmeth


             Blessings for us have come in five packages.
            Their names are Mayci, Raegan, Emma, Indie, and Aden. They are Wilmeth grandchildren who all visibly carry their Noni’s genes. They are all blue eyed.
            On Thanksgiving, we gathered in Mesilla to celebrate. The celebration was coupled with an hour spent taking pictures for Christmas cards. We pulled the carriage out and “harnessed” the kids to it. All of them have become so proficient in posing the task was easy. We selected a couple of pictures, and, there we are … two aging grandparents and, of course, our beautiful, blued eyed grandchildren.
            Along with their parents, they will return to celebrate Our Savior’s birth, gathered in our home with the fire burning, and the trees lit. I will wince at the excess, but I will be overruled.
            “It’s special,” will be the stern remark.
             1904
            As a special Christmas gift for 1904, Tom Shelley’s wife, Hattie, wrote to family members asking them to send letters addressed to her mother and father-in-law, Emily Jane and Peter Shelley. From across Texas and New Mexico, Hattie received the hand written messages and put them in a little heart book.
On the inside page, she wrote:
December 25, 1904
To Our Mother and Father
from Tom and Hattie
Wishing you a Merry Christmas
and a Happy New Year
            Many of the feminine responses were couched in poetry. The stylized verse was strongly indicative of the times. Emily Jane’s sister and niece from Mayhill each wrote brief poems.
Dear Brother and Sister,                               My Dear Uncle and Aunt,
            Many a mile apart                                      The golden sun is setting
            Our homes have proved to be                    Across the barren plain
            But in the recess of your hearts                 When you read these lines my dear ones
            Keep one kind thought for me.                  May you think of me again.
                        Your loving sister,                                     Your loving niece,
                                 Nannie Joy                                                 Ella Joy
            From Elk, New Mexico, Edna Dockray continued the verse with:
            You may break and scatter
            The rock if you will
            But the Scent of the Rose
hang around it still.
            Final excerpts from Wilson Parmer’s letter suggested the trials and tribulations of a life of hard work and the difficulty of frontier existence.
“ … During this period of nearing a half a centre (sp) of life we have its gloom and its trubles (sp) and yet we are un able to penitrate (sp) what may lye (sp) before you. Yet while our harts (sp) may continue their work and lives be that of the best record lef (sp) behind,” he wrote.
            An ending quote from the stack of Christmas messages sent for the Christmas gift  request summed up the miles of distance and the directions that life took them all … When this you see remember me … tho many a mile apart we be.
            I’ve heard no verbal account of what took place when Peter and Emily Jane were presented with the little heart book, but I would suspect the treasure of all those heartfelt notes prompted excitement.
            I can imagine, though, what it would have been like when they all sat down to eat the Christmas meal. The warmth of the house would have come from heat from a wood fire (both cooking and heating). The food would have been prepared exclusively from their hands, and what gifts there were would have been meager.
            The letters from family would have been a lingering highlight, but … the joy of watching their gathered children and grandchildren would have been the most special gift of all.
            The tally
            In the Shelley book, the reference to that 1904 Christmas was immediately preceded by pages of shipping records. For years, I skimmed through those pages categorizing them as business records from the Cliff Mercantile of which Peter was the owner. There was little initial interest. When studied, though, the emergence of a broader history was revealed. Through the Mercantile, Peter bought and sold cattle for the greater community. The records showed those transactions in detail. Inspection fees were set forth as were commission fees (commission ran from 1.1 to 1.25%). If the seller had received any advance, an entry entitled “forfeit” was calculated and the final check was reduced accordingly.
A record of brands was also added. Familiar brands come to life on those pages. The 916s, the LCs, the PIT, the HWs, the 7V bar, the 303, the Cross Triangle, the quarter circle XLs, the Flying Y and on and on the history is revealed.
The Mercantile tally book reflected the fortunes of the community. Prior to 1921, the records were entered by hand. Thereafter, they were typed showing spring and fall shipping summaries.
Individual names appear and then disappear only to reappear. John and Will Henry, Ben Avery, Ely Clark, Fayette and Blue Rice, Tom and Will Shelley, Sallie Woodrow, Maggie Franks, Sloan Hightower, Sid George, Henry Woodrow, Joe Hooker, Pitts and Porter, Fleming Cattle Company, Homer Reese, Hugh McKeen, and the names continued. The Doyles, the Eakins, the Turmans, the Aults, the Fosters, the Turners, the Averys, the Wallaces, the Cloudts, and the Dinwiddies appeared as a fascinating reminder of the history of upper Gila River families unfolded.
Absent names suggest that not everybody sold cattle through the Mercantile, but chances are better than even they bought groceries there. The alternatives were slim.
In the spring of 1923, the prices for weaner steers ran $17, $22.75 for long yearlings, and $28.50 for two year olds. Mature, three year old cattle brought $33.50. Nothing was offered nor was any transaction recorded for pairs, heifers, cows, or bulls.
Those records were supremely important. They represented the summary of yearly income for those frontier families who existed solely by their own wits. What wasn’t noted, but existed in every home in that community was a similar tally book that each rancher kept. Many were leather bound, and, if they still exist, they have become heirlooms.
Christmas Tallies
I have two tally books. Both are leather bound. One was a Christmas gift. The other I made. The one I use regularly keeps my diary. At the end of each year, that diary comes out to be stored while a new one is inserted.
Earlier this year, I made one for my dad for Father’s Day. Another was presented to David Wilson for the gift he gave me in the form of a treasured Trost book. As a result, the gift of a rancher’s tally book has become a calling card of sorts.
It is in the spirit of the practice founded in the last quarter of the 19th Century by their great-great-great-great grandfather, Peter Shelley, my grandkids will each get their own “Christmas tally”. It will likely mean little in the current competition with toy stock trailers, electronic gadgetry, or the latest fashions, but maybe that will change with time.
 It is no secret I fret for the next generation steward of this range. The odds against young ranchers of the future will only increase. Costs of entry are unmanageable based on cattle returns, and, as federal lands ranchers, the scope of any long term planning is limited or nonexistent. The special managers that emerge and survive will necessarily have to be better than any of their predecessors.
They must adapt and change. They must strive for parallel enterprises to enhance their security, and they must deal with a juggernaut of negative societal assaults.
There is also hope that customs and culture are honored and perpetuated. Horse tracks as opposed to ATV tracks, cattle that fit individual ranges, rest and rotation, abundant drought water supplies, infrastructure investments, homes on the ranches, and the constant shadow cast on that land by that “manager too poor to pay for his sport” should be the goals.
There are few examples as simple or propitious to the success of ranching heritage as the tally book. It was protected. It was held close to the vest. It was seldom visible, but it was all important. Perhaps one of the five I present on Christmas day will take hold and grow a rancher.
Indeed … a true gift would be realized.

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “Merry Christmas … May the simplicity of a 1904 Christmas remind us of the most important things.”

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