Wild Horse Roundup

By Curtis Schrimp

September 3, 2004

Noella Johnson went to Denver Wednesday to shop for a hand held computer for Andrea for school. She found one that fits in the palm of the hand for $200. Things have changed, instead of paper and pencil now you punch numbers.

The club ladies Suzie Paintin, Judy Hammer and Yvonne Schallenberger put another quilt in the frame trees and started quilting. Busy fingers. On Kit Carson Day someone will win a pretty one.

I seen a news item in the Hugo paper that took me back a few years -- about 70 or so. I was working for Charley Fox, a rancher, about two miles east of Wild Horse. Another fellow and I was delivering 200 head of heifers over to Lincoln County, a lot of miles, southwest of Wild Horse. In those days you didn’t load them in a trailer, you rode a horse. We stayed all night at the DeBrier Peacock Farm. When we got up the road the next morning the fellow we was supposed to meet was sitting on his horse visiting with Homer Ellis. Mabel Ellis-Williams used to come to the dances and boy could she dance.

We had a big branding bee Saturday. We had two late calves and Bob and Clay McNeely came and done most of the work. Isn’t it nice when help is only a phone call away. Them two were late, but we have one later yet that we will save for Lee Ann and girls October 1. These calves remind me of a fellow I know in Lamar that says I’ll take a calf or rain anytime.

We talked to Lee Ann today and she said the girls done all the milking without any help.

I was reading a paper from Burlington with news of 1931 and one article about the Towner bus tragedy. It made me think back of when I was working for Mrs. Schallenbeger. Her two daughters, Alda Gillespie and Olive Schallenberger Carr were at home and me a 16 year old. That blizzard hit and that morning we had to go to the barn to see about the milk cows we left shut in the stanchions. We couldn’t see 2 feet in front of us. We took a hold of hands and down the hill to the barn. When we got inside we could see the cows almost standing on their head. Their back feet had tramped the snow. We finally got them lose or they would have choked. Bledsoe’s lost a lot of cattle nearby and Darrel’s dad got the job skinning them. We all worked for part of the money. We salted the hides and they brought $1.25.