D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
July
2008
Voice of a Ranchwoman
Page: 3So those guys who work up in those mountains, they are kind of wild. But I guess Jerry used to come off Soldier's Farewell pretty fast, too. I wasn't with him when that happened. Thank goodness.
When my daughter Michele was just a little girl, Jerry gave her a colt and she named him Flip. But they had to brand him and they would fore-foot and tie them down and brand them. Well, when they roped this horse he broke his neck. That was the end of him. She had that horse, I think, for two weeks. But you learn that these animals don't keep. Sometimes something will happen. It did make her sad, but that was the end of it.
Our kids spent a lot of time with the animals they raised, but then they go to the sale and they're gone. They were never sad about it — they were kind of glad to get it over with, so they didn't have to do that again for a while. But Michele had one calf that got water belly. We thought he was gonna be a good, nice, heavier calf and he got water belly and was all puffed up. The boys were down there jumping on him like a trampoline after he died.
Grandpa Jeremiah McDonald had a neighbor up here, close to here where Bill's windmill is, and that's called the Morril Place, because the people named Morril lived there. Mrs. Morril, Louetta Book Morril, had a baby, and she was sick after she had this baby, so Grandpa Jeremiah McDonald rode his horse to Tyrone. Back then they had a big hospital at Tyrone. And he rode his horse to Tyrone to get medicine for her several times. But the husband was kind of a quack doctor, and he didn't think she needed the medicine, so he'd throw the medicine behind the bed. They found it there, later.
He wouldn't give it to her. So the mother and the baby both died. And Grandpa's horse that he'd ridden to get this medicine had been ridden so hard that the horse went out in this pasture in this oak tree over here, and hung his head in the fork of a tree and died. Then Grandpa McDonald was helping this same man gather his cattle the following November, and it came a rain, and Grandpa got a chill and got pneumonia, and he died. So from one man not using good judgment, there were three people and a horse that died. That was the year of 1922, when his son Grandpa Jonnie McDonald was 10 years old.
In 1960 Jerry was riding in the 4th of July Rodeo, riding a bull. That bull was a Charlois bull. Jerry's head went down and that bull's head came up and he smacked him right in the mouth and knocked him off and knocked him and his teeth out.
His mom, Evelyn McCauley McDonald, was in the stands. They had a big tall fence there and she was over that fence, in her dress, and out in that arena! And that bull was out there, too. No, she wasn't scared of that bull. She had a son out there who was hurt. I guess they got the bull away from her, too.