May 15, 2011
A long-dead Oregon cowboy and rodeo star, whose life I’ve written about and continue to research, is finally receiving the recognition he deserves. John Spain (right), winner of the bucking contest at the Pendleton Round-Up a century ago — an outcome still hotly debated, has been chosen for the Round-Up and Happy Canyon Hall of Fame. The honor comes decades after the two men he beat, George Fletcher (left) and Jackson Sundown (middle), were inducted into the Hall of Fame.
On Thursday I attended the Hall of Fame’s annual meeting in Pendleton, where Spain’s selection was announced. That night I had dinner with several of Spain’s relatives. They are as friendly, open, and genuine as any people I’ve met. The lively conversation made it clear that their lives are richer for having a relative whose noteworthy past brings them together and inspires sharing of stories, stories that illuminate the family’s intriguing background. And the talk wasn’t just of John Spain but his older brother Fred as well, a rodeo star in his own right and three times named “most typical cowboy” in the Round-Up’s early years. Fred also deserves entry into the Hall of Fame.
On Friday I joined three of the relatives at the Union County Museum in Union, Oregon, where the inseparable Spain brothers spent most of their lives as ranchers. Lorna Spain, whose late husband King was Fred’s son, and I delivered to the museum the life-size cutout photograph of John, pictured above. The cutout was part of the Pendleton Round-Up exhibit that I curated for the Oregon Historical Society last year, and OHS deserves thanks for giving it to the museum. (If there’s a better small-town, rural museum in America, I’ve not found it.)
As I carried “John” from my car, I couldn’t help but think he’s come home.
As guest curator for a recently opened exhibit, “Tall in the Saddle: the Pendleton Round-Up at 100,” I worked with dozens of people across the Northwest. Sometimes the project intersected with the creative work of others. Among them was fine artist Shirley Morris of Bend, Oregon, who’s making a documentary that I’m eager to see. It’s about the cowgirls who starred in rodeos early in the last century. Not only did Shirley tailor an excerpt of her film for the exhibit, she also helped lead me to artifacts — personal items that belonged to one of the most famous cowgirls, Bertha Blancett.
The cowgirls, America’s first professional female athletes, performed around the world to huge audiences. They were tough and often glamorous. These “bucking horse suffragettes” represented new freedoms that women claimed for themselves even before winning the right to vote in 1920. Shirley’s film, Oh, You Cowgirl!, will illuminate the lives of women who in her words “left a legacy so steeped in American lore, you wonder, ‘Could it be true?’ ”
I’ll be among the first to buy the DVD. Here’s the trailer:
Few blog posts for many months means I’ve been crushed with work. But that’s a good thing in these trying economic times. The heaviest load has come from serving as guest curator for a just-opened exhibit at the Oregon Historical Society in Portland, called “Tall in the Saddle, the Pendleton Round-Up at 100.”
In May 2009, I began tracking down artifacts and other items for the 3,000-square-foot exhibit. What I thought would be the most challenging part of the project — persuading people and organizations to loan roughly 500 things — proved to be the easiest. The most gratifying part was meeting so many people who were so eager to help. The most difficult was crafting the story for a medium that was foreign to me. Read More
Rarely is anything as it appears. How’s that for an overused truism? But it’s one I keep learning again and again. Take the case of this abandoned house. During a seven-day research trip last week, it was first on a long list of places and people to see on the Nez Perce Reservation near Lewiston, Idaho.
Two years ago, my daughter Erin gave me a sepia-toned and more poignant version taken by a professional photographer. The gift was tied to a book that I was writing with Ann Terry Hill about Oregon’s nearly century-old rodeo, the Pendleton Round-Up, including stories about legendary Nez Perce cowboy Jackson Sundown. A caption below the photograph, which is displayed in my office bookcase, identifies the house as Sundown’s cabin. I had emailed the photographer for directions in 2007.
I finally made it there on June 20, beginning research for a much bigger story. The house, leaning south amid a hillside of flowering peas, is on Highway 95 in Culdesac. I took a dozen photos inside and out, and videotaped everything, complete with a hushed narration meant to lend solemnity to the moment. I rubbed my hand over wood weathered black. I peered at nails protruding from a wall, wondering whether Sundown used them to hang his clothes. I wanted to feel his presence eighty-six years after his death. Read More
I worked on a book about a world-famous rodeo for 18 months with another writer, Ann Terry Hill. I also did extensive digging for old photographs. Recreating events from decades ago based on historical research was exhilarating. Nothing motivates me like the thrill of the hunt for hard-to-unearth information.
At the outset, most of what I knew about rodeos I learned from TV as a kid. The deeper into the project I went, the more I was moved by the triumphs and travails of cowboys, cowgirls, and Indians — notably those in the early part of the last century. Read More
A familiar formula: too little sleep plus a frenetic start to the day equals foul mood.
My black cloud lifted in two stages.
Stage one: spotting one of our little boy’s books in the bathroom, propped against the wall directly across from the toilet. Suzame bought it for Atticus, and this was the first time I’d seen the title: Little Monkey’s BIG Peeing Circus.
Stage two: interviewing David Sill, 68, about his father, Jesse Sill, a legendary Portland newsreel cameraman who was among the first to film the Pendleton Round-Up, starting in 1915. (I’m co-authoring a book about the world-famous rodeo.) Reveling in memories about their life together, David said: “I had a great dad, best as you can get, or close to it. He really spent time with me.”Â
As I drove home shortly before noon, the sun found a crack in the low clouds over the hills of Forest Park. Among the brooding evergreens, hardwoods showed off their newborn leaves, glittering in shades of sage as if proclaiming, “We’ve returned!”
