Page 11 - Sanger Herald 1-18-18 E-edition

Lifestyles
SANGER HERALD • 3B • THURSDAY, JANUARY 18, 2018
Back in the saddle on cattle drives
Sanger
Editor’s note: Associated Press style dictates reporters use the surname on second reference unless the subject is a child or if there is an abundance of people with the same name. In the case of Marilyn Dale, she thought it sounded better to use her first name. So that’s what I did.
By Mike Nemeth
Sanger Herald
Marilyn Dale started riding a horse when she was 4. She started packing a pistol about 13.
That’s just what a member of the Clyde W. Johnson clan did. They were cattle ranchers, a family that drove upwards of 900 head into the sky- scraping Sierra late every spring. The family and hands they hired spent the summer tending the herd in the cooler mountain meadows surrounding their seasonal camp in Crown Valley just about 8,000 feet in elevation.
Marilyn, 84, now lives just east of Sanger on Annadale Avenue. Her property bordered that of Wilbur Plaugher, who died Jan. 2 and told her over the years that it was her family who helped convince him to become a cowboy. Plaugher was a bullfighter, steer wrestler and motion picture actor who was inducted into the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum Rodeo Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City in 2007.
“Hewasakidinthe mountains and would hear the whips cracking, the cowboys shouting and the cattle bawling,” Marilyn said. “He said he would stand by in a trance when they walked by.”
That was the power of a cattle drive.
Clyde Johnson and his brother Ray bought the original 360-acre parcel that made up the high- country Crown Valley ranch in 1916 along with permits for 6 by 7 miles of unfenced Forest Service land and another 1,300 acres on Rodger’s Ridge. Clyde had been working at a store in Easton collecting cattle on the side early in his career when he decided to drop out of the mercantile business permanently, dragging his family into Burroughs Valley and elsewhere while building up his ranch business.
Crown Valley lies between Castle Peak
10 New Year’s Resolutions from the Wisest Man Who Ever Lived — Part 4
In these articles we determined that New Year’s resolutions basically fall into three categories.
They deal with: 1. Things to make us look better and live longer. 2. Things to make us have more. 3. Things that will help us to get along with everyone. I call them perpetuity, prosperity and peace. I believe we can find an answer in God’s word for any question or situation of
Mike Nemeth / Sanger Herald
Behind Marilyn Dale are the mountains she once climbed on horseback, driving cattle into the highlands for summer pasture. Below is the saddle she got at 13.
early September 1950, Marilyn brought friends Joan and Pat Thomas, Jean Gruenwald and Dorothy Wolfe. Marilyn rode Midget, Joan rode Bones, Pat rode Tiger, Jean rode Jinx and Dorothy rode Melba. They brought four pack horses and Marilyn’s dog Tiny.
They left early the second morning — 4 a.m. and under a full moon. The team crossed the Kings River and started up the trail, reaching Bear Wallow as dawn broke.
“At the junction of Bear Wallow and Rodgers Ridge trails, Pat’s horse went off trail, end over end, 100 feet and landed in a tree top,” Marilyn wrote.
Pat and Tiger escaped OK but badly bruised. “I thought for sure we’d have a dead horse and a girl with broken bones,” Marilyn wrote. Then “at Cow Meadow, Bones stepped on Tiny and Bones ran to Crown Valley. Jo and I had to ride the last three miles to Crown Valley double on Midget.”
The worst part? They had to ride past Dutch, Dick and Bill at the Forest Service Guard Station. Marilyn said that to this day she wonders how Pat survived the fall.
The girls stayed at the camp but then got volunteered to fight a series of fires. And it rained. And they got no sleep.
“We slid into the canyons and scrambled out. Dot got bucked into a yellow jacket nest, and Pat was scared stiff. Jinx about ran out from under Jean.”
On the way back home, they passed the Guard Station and discovered a bear had torn off part of the roof and ripped through all the food inside. “Pat crawled through the hole in the roof and phoned Berga, the Dinkey operator, about it. All the stock ran off except Midget. Jo caught Tiger and Sam, and when she got on Tiger, he threw her. Bird laid down and rolled on Dot when she was trying to straighten the pack.”
But later, even after they were home and their injuries had healed, they were ready to go again.
Gilda Miller, who now lives in northern Idaho, said she remembers the Johnsons. “For any of the cattle ranchers, that’s the name to go to,” she said.
See Valley, Page 4B
home of the righteous. He mocks proud mockers but gives grace to the humble. The wise inherit honor, but fools he holds up to shame.”
HERE IS THE CHALLENGE: Let us resolve today to pay close attention and adherence to these principles and see what God will do in our lives.
Pastor Sam Estes is city advance director and facilitates the Sanger Community Task Force that meets the first and third Tuesdays every month. He can be reached at pastorsam51@gmail.com.
and Spanish Mountain, a little south and east of Wishon Reservoir, which is somewhat behind Shaver Lake.
With loans from his uncle Kirby Smith, Clyde continued to expand his holdings. By 1966, when the family partnership folded, it owned 17,500 deeded acres “free and clear,” Marilyn said.
Marilyn, a lifelong Sanger resident, is Clyde’s granddaughter. His son George was her father. George had three brothers and two sisters. Marilyn transcribed the family history in a series of dispatches she compiled for family members and whoever else was interested. She wrote about a time when those on horseback navigating mountain passes and forested high-elevation wilderness ruled the day.
“When I go to church, people asked, ‘Did you really ride?’” Marilyn said.
She did. And she was good. She also roped cattle, although not quite like George could.
In a matter-of-fact tone, Marilyn recounted an instance on the trail — one that required she use her gun.
She rode her uncle’s horse, Marion. Marilyn led the cowboys that drive.
“A snake was in the middle of the trail,” she
life if we would just look. So, what is there in God’s word about New Year’s resolutions? Well, they are not called New Year’s resolutions. But I don’t think you could do better than Proverbs Chapter 3. Read the following excerpts and see the benefits of adopting this set of New Year’s resolutions set forth
here in this third chapter. “My son, do not forget my teaching, but keep my commands in your heart, for they will prolong your life many years and bring you prosperity. (Perpetuity, prosperity) ... you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man ... He will direct your
said. “The horse took a dim view of that.”
Horses reared up. Marilyn said they had crossed a “big” snake. She pulled her revolver, trying to get a bead on the legless reptile. She said in all her years in the back country she never had to use her gun on a person or to put down an injured horse.
But the snake spooked the animals. It had to go. Marilyn said she remembers thinking, “Maybe you ought not to do this.” After all, the blast of gunfire also could spook the horses and perhaps even the one she rode.
“I finally got it,” she said.
Another story Marilyn chronicled took place during one of the last cattle drives in 1946 or 1947.
“The first day of the drive, Uncle Clyde and I were to go into the Red Oaks and gather anything there and then drive them around the trail along the top of the ridge and catch up with the main herd of cattle before they got to Wiseman,” she wrote. “We got about 15-20 head and they were wild, half brahma and ready to run.”
The pair of horse riders herded the cattle to a place they called Steer Head Point, which bordered a “steep and rocky” decline. The wild cattle they rounded up decided to head straight down. She and her
uncle rode behind the herd and didn’t have a chance to prevent their charges’ change in plans.
Clyde Johnson yelled, “Head ‘em Sis.”
“I was riding Midget, and I ‘threw the reins at her’ and she broke into a lope,” Marilyn said as she and her horse plunged down the grade, dodging small clusters of scattered brush. “I hung on for dear life.”
Midget was fast, and she and Marilyn intercepted the lead steer. But the steer slid into them, driving hundreds of bovine pounds at an unknown but decidedly intense velocity into Marilyn and her mount.
“Fortunately, she stayed on her feet and the steers
stopped. When I looked back at where I we had come down, I couldn’t believe it. Then I got scared.”
It was that steep.
Had the animals escaped, they would have sought out the river below and it would have possibly taken an extra day to catch up to the rest of the herd. As it was, they caught the rest of the drive at a place called Lousy Springs.
“I remember this like it happened yesterday,” Marilyn said. She then mentioned how the episode stands as one of the most frightening of her cattle driving scrapes. And she had a lot of them.
Some years later in
Do not plot harm against your neighbor, who lives trustfully near you. Do not accuse a man for no reason — when he has done you no harm.
Resolution 10. DO NOT ENVY A VIOLENT MAN OR CHOOSE ANY OF HISWAYSV31–32:“Do not envy a violent man or choose any of his ways, for the LORD detests a perverse man but takes the upright into his confidence.”
Verses 33-35 ARE SIMPLY STATEMENTS OF ADDITIONAL PROMISES IF WE KEEP THE ABOVE COMMANDS: “The LORD’s curse is on the house of the wicked, but he blesses the
PASTOR’S CORNER
paths ... will bring
health to your body
and nourishment to
your bones ...your
barns will be filled
to overflowing, and
your vats will brim
over with new wine
... you will go on
your way in safety,
and your foot will
not stumble ... you will not be afraid; when you lie down, your sleep will be sweet ... he LORD will be your confidence and will keep your foot from being snared.” (Peace)
We now have covered Resolutions 1-6. Here are the remainder.
Resolution 7. HAVE NO FEAR V 25-26: Have
no fear of sudden disaster or of the ruin that overtakes the wicked, for the LORD will be your confidence and will keep your foot from being snared.
Resolution 8. DO NOT WITHHOLD GOOD FROM
Pastor Sam Estes
THOSE WHO DESERVE IT V 27-28: Do not withhold good from those who deserve it, when it is in your power to act. Do not say to your neighbor, “Come back later; I’ll give it tomorrow” when you now have it with you.
Resolution 9. DO NOT PLOT HARM AGAINST YOUR NEIGHBOR V 29-30: