A Land of Love

Jack checking things out

The ranch I worked for last summer is a place whose history you can’t ignore…it’s all around you.  The geology, the landscape, it’s working past and present, the remnants of the families that have occupied, struggled, and even thrived among its challenging terrain of windwhipped valleys and snow covered hills.  The ranch used to be owned by the Malmberg family up until 2004; I had made this drive to Lander to attend the wedding of a member of this family with my old boss, Pee Wee.  Prior to this family owning the ranch, it had been run by others whose name I cannot track.  And prior to this, the ranch was owned by the Mills family, whom wrote to a Ms. Ethel Waxham in 1905 and informed her of the incidentals and necessities the young woman would need upon her arrival to Wyoming, where she would serve as the school teacher to seven students in a one-room school house.

“Mountains were far away ahead of us, a range rising from the plains and sinking down again into them.  Almost all the first day they were in sight.” Ethel Waxham- 10/22/1905

 Rangeland

Corral at the Red Bluff Ranch

 Staggering

 Ms. Waxham arrived at the Red Bluff Ranch, and took up her post; reading Uncle Tom's Cabin to the children in front of the woodstove on a cold winter day, some of whom rode 5 miles on horseback to attend her school. 

 Near Twin Creek, the view south from the old school house

Throughout Ms. Waxham's tenure at the Red Bluff and into the future, she was courted by a Scotch cowboy, John G. Love, originally from Wisconsin, and actually the nephew of the "Father of the National Parks," John Muir.  Mr. Love would ride out to the ranch every few months, on his way back toward his ranch on Muskrat Creek outside of Riverton, from the Sweetwater region, Green River, or some other area he may have been conducting business.  Mr. Love wrote Ms. Waxham letters for five years.

 Remnants of an old homestead or an extension of Ms. Waxham's schoolhouse

Old fireplace

Ms. Waxham was also receiving letters from friends she had attended school with at Wellesley College back on the East Coast, friends whom were living distinctly different lives: medical school, law school, adventures in Paris.  According to the preface of the brilliant book, Lady's Choice: Ethel Waxham's Journals and Letters, 1905-1910, Ms. Waxham was "indirectly being asked to choose between a very isolated family life and the realm of other possibilities easily within reach of (as someone puts it in a letter to John Love)  "her combination of strength and the gentlest charm--welded by that of flashing mind (p.xi)."

 Jackson having a ton of fun in the sagebrush behind the old school house

 faces in the rocks





"The dampness had brought out the darkness of the red soil, and the blackness of the green cedars.  The sagebrush, too, along the way, was as black about the branches as if a fire had passed over the hills.  The bluffs loomed dark and moody against the gray sky, but far away at the Big Bend the hills were the color of pale straw.  The mountain looked yellowish green, softened by a sifting of snow.  It is strange how the whole face of the country will be changed by a little dampness, like the face of a person intensified but softened by tears (p.xii)."

Sheep Mountain, the mountain referenced in the above passage.  Pee Wee's cabin lies beneath it.

Ms. Waxham writes with a perceptiveness of the landscape around her that is unparalleled; her love for the land and her experience is nothing short of tangible.

John McPhee, the author of Rising from the Plains, calls the early story of Ms. Waxham, in which she must essentially choose between the life she knows will provide her with security, comfort and opportunity, and a life of the unknown, one surprisingly rewarding and satisfying, "a ladies choice...a classic universal dilemma." 

In fact, the address at Ms. Waxham's college graduation in 1905 served as a foreshadow of the very choice she would soon be confronted with: The speaker at the college graduation chose the theme "Apollo or Idas: The Choice of the College Woman; Should she find happiness by following Apollo, a symbol of aristocratic education which shines it's gifts and knowledge down on the world from above, or by joining Idas, a shepherd representing the sorrow, toil and wealth of humanity?"  Essentially, would she carry with her the gifts and skills college provided her, using them to impress, or would she work with people, humbly sharing her well-honed skills and beneficial knowledge?  This allegory can also be transferred to the concept of the lifestyle one chooses or accepts, and Ms. Waxham was confronted with this as well.

 Montana Bitterroot in the red dirt

The speaker based his theme on the Stephen Phillip's poem "Marpessa," where Apollo and Idas present their offers to the lady.  Marpessa weighs both options, ultimately rejecting Apollo's "transitory glitter," stating "It is not in the power of the human mind to be perpetually brilliant."

 this is the canyon in which this occurred

Marpessa concludes:

But if I live with Idas, then we two
On the low earth shall prosper hand in hand

In odours of the open field, and live

In peaceful noises of the farm, and watch

The pastoral fields burned by the setting sun...

Five years after their first meeting, Ethel Waxham informed John Love of her feelings for him, "P.S. I like you very much."  They were married shortly after--her choice was made.  David Love was born a few years later, a son, a ranch kid, a boy who didn't hear music until he was ten years old due to the isolation of the family ranch.  This boy would grow up within the vast and baffling Wyoming geology, and would become the preeminent field geologist of that state; he was the senior author of two editions of the geologic map of Wyoming and the geologic map of Grand Teton National Park. 

 

a beautiful sight

I find it strange that I should end up at the Red Bluff Ranch when I did, facing quite the same choice.  I can return to the life I knew and face those things that I grew weary of and outgrew, like a pair of too small shoes, yet receive the love and comfort of family and friends, or I can commit to the choices I have made up to this point, and finally face the consequences that accompany them, even those negative and heartbreaking ones, which have been postponed for quite some time.

I know what I want for my future and life--yet it's just so frightening to say goodbye to what I know and love for the unknown and solitary road that leads toward that which I seek.

To read about the courtship of Ethel Waxham and John Love check this PBS site out:
http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/program/episodes/eight/psilikeyou.htm