Sally Gerard

We’ve been preparing to celebrate our farm’s centennial since my husband put in the application for state recognition back in January. Once we received notification that the application had been approved, we set out to plan an event at our farm to celebrate with family and friends.

Last Friday, four siblings and a some of their family members traveled to the Colorado State Fair in Pueblo to receive the official Centennial Farms certificate and sign. Twenty-three farms in Colorado were being recognized that day and it was wonderful to hear the stories and to share in the emotions of hard-won battles with the environment and the families who stayed-the-course with long hours of work and a lot of creativity and love.

Stories of couples meeting at a box dinner, wooing and marrying to raise their family on the homestead; of surviving the dust bowl when many left in the dark of night unable to take it anymore; and of two sisters with a-joining claims who built their home on the property boundary and each slept at opposite ends of the house so they could satisfy the ‘must reside on the claim’ requirement to file for the deed to the land.

And a piece of our own story:

Henry Gates of Meekton, Colorado applied for a homestead entry on the southwest quarter of section 21: township 2-south, range 51-west on May 8, 1914. He lived in a dugout until he could make improvements and he received the deed to the land on June 6, 1919. In the early years, hogs, chickens, horses, cattle, wheat and oats were raised. After more land was added, both purchased and leased, the main crops focused on wheat and forage sorghum. The livestock portion of the farm consists of a cow-calf operation, and purchasing replacement quality, black/white faced heifer calves to breed and sell.

We gathered on this land, where Robert and I live, to take family pictures and share a meal together, laughing and telling stories. After our own communion, we welcomed more family and many friends who shared this special day with us. It was a joy to see people who’d grown up around here reconnecting and recognizing each other, and remembering the old times and the joy and love. I continue to be amazed at the resourcefulness and the willingness to help a neighbor in need, and the simple pleasure in conversation. We were all blessed to be a part of this.

My ‘Man From Snowy River’ duster holds so many memories. First, standing in the western store in Sydney, Australia and trying on all the ‘Man From Snowy River’ hats! It smelled so good in there, all leather and oilskin.

My duster holds the personality of so many horses. It was rolled up and tied behind: Roany, Smokey, Indian, and so many horses. It saw me  through bunches of mountain rain storms with my hat dripping rivulets, sheltering my horse and me from the cold wind.

In its pockets were twizzlers and cinnamon candy for the trail. It doubled as a pillow at night in my tent. That duster could tell stories of long beautiful days on mountain trails, of cold so harsh it was difficult to stop the trembling muscles, of deep conversations with wranglers and campers, of long walks with injured horses , of countless bales of hay hauled out to feed and wheelbarrows filled and emptied, of early mornings and starlit nights and campfires with singing and guitar and s’mores.

It could talk about hanging on the back of the door in the tack room under the picture of Harrison Ford on the horse shoe rack, or being tossed in the back of the 4-runner on the way up to Boutwell. It holds stores of coming into the cabin dripping cold mountain rain on the floor while hot coffee brewed or hot cocoa was mixed or of hanging on a Ponderosa Pine branch to dry out with various flannel shirts and hoodies. It was a good duster.

I never knew my mother, but I know some things about her. I know she liked to stay in touch because she often wrote long letters to her sisters and her friends. I know she was very smart as she was admitted to Creighton when that was a rarity for women. I know she was committed to her faith and family, giving up her college to marry and raise her family.

I know she must have loved my father and her children deeply because she is missed still. I also know she died young because medicine was not what it is now and time got away while she sickened. But I also know my father was with her and that his heart was broken by her death. I was only about twenty months old.

I know that there must be parts of me that come from her, at least it makes me feel closer to her thinking that. Her sisters and brother, my two aunts and uncle, kept her alive for us. They have the letters and pictures she sent and the stories they remember and our lives are the richer, having them.