My First Year in Montana

Life on a horse and cattle ranch at the end of the cowboy era

The view from our house looking toward the Madison River (where the row of green trees is) and the Bridger Mountains

The cords that so strongly bind my parents, siblings and me to Montana began in 1956 when I was five years old.

My father, a consultant in agricultural economics, was hired to analyze why one of the major old ranches (300,000 acres) in Montana was losing a million dollars a year (in 1956!) and what could be done to turn it around. Dad visited the ranch, analyzed what was happening, and laid out a plan. And then the Chicago businessman who owned the ranch promptly hired him to put the plan into action.

Although I cannot remember the details of our move from Carmichael, California, to Three Forks, Montana, I remember the day we arrived at the ranch. My brother, twin sister and I raced from room to room of the two-story home, excitedly counting five bedrooms, four bathrooms, and three large stone fireplaces.

After discovering where my bedroom would be, I flew through the back door to explore outside. The first thing I noticed was that all of the buildings, including our house and the barns, were painted white. Directly in front of me was a long, two-story building that contained three apartments for ranch families. To the left sat the bunkhouse, home for the single cowboys. To the right—across an expanse of lawn—sat the cookhouse where the men ate their meals. I crossed the lawn and cautiously opened the creaking screen door.

The unmistakable odor of freshly baked sweet rolls immediately drew my attention, as did a warm hello from Nina Leffingwell, the full-time cook. In response to my curiosity, Nina toured me through her small apartment, the kitchen, and the dining room, which boasted a low Formica counter that was long enough to feed ten men at once. Nina said it was time to start preparing dinner, so she handed me a sticky sweet morsel still warm from the oven and shooed me out the door.

Wandering past the bunkhouse, a dark and mysterious place that was off-limits to girls, I discovered a machine shop where men were busy repairing farm equipment. I felt out of place there, so I headed over to the barn next door. Sam Leffingwell, Nina’s husband, was sitting on a low stool as he rhythmically milked a cow attached to a stanchion.

Although he must have been at least fifty by then, Sam’s job title was “choreboy.” He motioned me over to try my hand at milking, but it was much harder than it looked. First I struggled to get any milk to come out of the teats at all. When I finally did, it squirted everywhere but into the bucket!

“It gets easier with practice,” Sam said with a smile.

Done with the milking, he stood up, picked up the bucket full of milk, and began carrying it—carefully—back to the cookhouse. I decided to tag along to see what would happen next. He opened the cookhouse door and turned to the left, where I saw a large metal contraption.

“It’s called a separator,” Sam said.

He poured the milk into the separator bowl and then flicked a switch. In amazement, I watched as the lighter-weight cream collected in the middle and the heavier-weight milk moved outward against the walls. Then skim milk began to pour out of one spout and thick cream poured out of another.

After observing this minor miracle, I left Sam behind and went outside to explore some more. Looking back at our house, I saw that it was surrounded on two sides by a large grove of cottonwood trees. Beyond the trees, barren hills rose to form a flat mesa called the “bench.” An orchard just north of the cookhouse consisted almost entirely of crab apple trees that had been planted (for some unfathomable reason) by earlier occupants.

Beyond the orchard lay alfalfa fields, and beyond those, about two miles from the house, flowed the Madison River. Just a few miles past the ranch, she would join her sisters, the Gallatin and the Jefferson, to form the headwaters of the Missouri River.

Continuing to explore, I was drawn to yet another barn. As I stepped inside, my nose was hit by the acrid smells of hay and horse manure. Once my eyes had adjusted to the dark light, I counted six narrow stalls, each equipped with a hay-filled manger. A bay gelding was munching happily in one of them, his black tail moving rhythmically from side to side in a futile effort to dislodge the flies buzzing around his withers. Well-worn leather saddles, blankets and bridles hung from pegs on the outer wall.

In the last barn, I discovered a large cement structure with the remains of black charred wood on top of it. I later learned that this was a forge where an itinerant farrier and Blackfoot Indian named Bob Hubbard would build a fire that grew so hot it would soften a steel “shoe,” enabling him to hammer it to the exact shape of a horse’s hoof.

Connecting all the barns was a patchwork of corrals. I climbed the wooden slats of the nearest fence and watched as a man worked slowly and patiently with a young colt. A simple halter was attached to the skittish colt’s head. The man stood on the left side of the colt, holding a rope attached to the halter in his left hand. With his right hand, he was slowly putting a saddle blanket on the colt’s back, then taking it off again, making soothing sounds all the while.

I learned later that he would eventually introduce a saddle to the colt in the same way. He would also gradually introduce a real bridle with a bit in the colt’s mouth. Hours of practice with reining would come next. In the end, the gelding would become a beautifully trained horse that would move at the mere touch of a rein and turn on a dime.

(As a result of seeing how a real horse whisperer trains horses, I have always laughed out loud in Westerns when the hero jumps onto a wild horse, already saddled and bridled, and rides it while it bucks and snorts. Then the horse—having learned who is “boss”—suddenly reins and behaves perfectly. Please. It just doesn’t happen this way.)

I soon learned that the horse whisperer’s name was Tex Simpson. I have no idea what his “Christian” name was, he was simply Tex to us. He was probably in his early 60s back then, small, muscular, without an ounce of fat. As I grew older, I learned that he had been born and raised in Texas. As a young man during Prohibition, he got into trouble for making moonshine (whisky), and the lawmen came after him on horseback.

Thanks to his beloved horse, Peacock, Tex was able to outrun his pursuers and didn’t stop until he reached Montana.

“Tex is a real gentleman,” Dad often said, and he set aside a room in the barn where the horses were shod so Tex could have his own living space, separate from the other cowboys in the bunkhouse.

Over the summer, Tex taught my brother, sister and me how to ride a horse. Soon after that, Bonnie (the daughter of one of the ranch hands) and I were riding double on an appaloosa horse named Spice. (Dad had told me never to ride double on a horse, but I unfortunately ignored his admonition.) Something spooked Spice, she reared up, and I was thrown to the ground. In the process, I broke my right wrist, cracked my left wrist, and put my teeth through my bottom lip. (I still have the scars.)

After the casts came off, I was afraid to ride, but Dad made me get back on again. And so the fear passed.

The summer flew by that year and fall came. In September, the cowboys—including my father—saddled up their horses and headed for the summer range, a two-day’s ride away, to round up hundreds of cattle grazing in the mountains and drive them back to the headquarters for the winter. (They repeated the process in reverse in the spring.)

I remember visiting the cowboys’ camp one evening when Mother brought them some hot food. Some of the men were keeping watch over the cattle in the dark while others were talking and laughing around the campfire.

In December, my brother, sister, and some other kids on the ranch headed to a frozen pond near the Madison River to go ice skating. Most of us walked, but Bonnie rode her pony. Which was a good thing, because I fell on the ice and hit my head hard. When I stood up, I could not see, so Bonnie brought me back home on her pony.

My mother immediately called Doc Bertagnolli, and he drove the 4 1/2 miles from Three Forks to check on me. Sure enough, I had gotten a concussion and needed bed rest for a couple of days. The point of this story is not just that I am clumsy (too true!), but that doctors in those days still made house calls.

One morning in January, dressed in a heavy, fleece-lined coat, hat and mittens to ward off the below zero temperatures, I went out with Sam to feed the cattle. I clambered up beside him in a wagon drawn by two huge work horses. When we got to the pasture, he handed the reins to me.

“Just keep them steady,” he said. I did the best I could while he cut open bales of hay and distributed them to the hungry cattle trailing after us.

Over the years, things gradually changed. Trucks replaced the work horses and wagons, families on the ranch decided to buy milk from the grocery store so the milk cows disappeared, and the (now profitable) ranch was broken up and sold to different people. My parents bought the headquarters where we lived and began to raise 500 head of registered Hereford cattle and 150 registered Quarter Horses on our 12,000 acres. The cattle no longer needed to be transported to a summer range, so the cattle drives ended. Fewer cowboys were needed, Sam and Nina moved to their own farm, and Tex eventually retired.

My family truly arrived in Montana at the end of the cowboy era, and I will always be grateful I was able to experience at least a little of it.

Today I am still a Montana girl. Even though I have lived in Europe for almost ten years, and I lived in Portland, Oregon, for thirty years before that, Montana still occupies a huge section of my heart. Montana formed my soul while her mineral-rich waters formed my body.

Because of such water, I have never had a cavity and visits to dentists over the years have been swift and painless. Ironically Montana herself left me with a much larger cavity, one that can only be filled when I cross the border and am greeted again by her incredible skies.

View of our ranch with the Tobacco Root Mountains in the background

Some recommendations

If you would like to learn more about Montana and the people and cultures that have contributed to her history, I recommend the following:

Books

All of the following books were written by A.B. Guthrie Jr.:

The Big Sky: This novel takes place from 1830 to 1843. It focuses on the trappers, traders, guides and explorers who followed the Missouri River from St. Louis, Missouri, to the Rocky Mountains of Montana.

The Way West: This Pulitzer Prize-winning novel tells the story of the pioneering families who headed west in wagon trains along the Oregon Trail in 1846.

These Thousand Hills: This novel focuses on the lives of cattle ranchers in Montana in the 1880s.

Music

My brother, sister and I grew up listening to cowboy songs. Here are a few of my favorites.

Doney Gal sung by Don Edwards

Ghost Riders in the Sky sung by Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash

Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie sung by Michael Martin Murphey

Rawhide sung by Frankie Laine

Wild Montana Skies sung by John Denver (Not a cowboy song, but I love it.)

Movies

The Horse Whisperer

Of all the TV series and movies I’ve seen about the West, this is the most authentic. Robert Redford got it right. And the scenery (filmed not far from our ranch) is gorgeous!

Three Forks

Three Forks, which is about a 30-minute drive from Bozeman, is a great place from which to explore southwestern Montana. Located at the headwaters of the Missiouri River, it was a traditional meeting and trading place for Native Americans for centuries. (A fascinating 2,000-year old buffalo jump is just a short drive up the Madison River Valley.)

Lewis and Clark explored the area on their journey to the Pacific Ocean in 1803-1804, and their guide, Sacajawea, was born nearby. The entrance to Yellowstone Park is a two-hour drive away, and Montana’s second capital—the restored gold rush town of Virginia City and the entertaining Virginia City Players—are just an hour away.

Places to Stay

Sacajawea Hotel Dating from 1910, this beautifully restored hotel is a wonderful place to stay and eat!

Private Home If you are looking for a private home that sleeps up to ten people, I highly recommend this gorgeous place. It is located near the Madison River, just outside of Three Forks, on the way to the buffalo jump.