Stories of a family and a ranch--told through the poetry of the West. This book brings to life the real West--true stories of ranch living in good times and bad over nine decades. This collection of photographs, essays and story-poems will bring some laughter, some tears, but always a clearer understanding of early western life.
Although Jane Morton married a "city kid," she is the rancher's daughter. Ranch history and family history are intertwined. She says these stories have been inside me for a long time and finally they came out as poems. Someone asked her how long it took to write a poem. She thought a moment and then she knew. All of her life.
Jane Morton brings history alive in her excellent new collection, "Turning to Face the Wind." The poems, stories, and vintage photos are about her family's Colorado ranch, but they tell the larger story of so many ranches and so many families.
The family's ranching history began with Morton's great great grandfather, a circuit-riding Baptist minister who left Illinois and headed to Colorado in 1872. His son Harry Ambrose joined him, eager for a new start after grasshoppers devastated his Kansas crops. Harry registered some of the county's earliest brands, and faced floods, diseases and other ranching challenges, including the arrival of the dreaded grasshoppers in Colorado. Harry's son took over and farmed the land, and his son, Jane Morton's father, eventually bought additional land and started raising cattle.
Morton creates vivid portraits of her parents. Her mother didn't realize that her husband, a teacher and coach, was determined to return to the family farm. She faced a hard life with dignity, so well expressed in "Summer of '34," a poem that tells about her being often alone in the house, pregnant amidst the unrelenting heat and dust storms, and piecing a quilt that has remained in the family. In a story about the next year's storms, which she endures with her 9-month old asthmatic baby, "Fine wind-driven silt sifted into the house through hairline cracks, coating...even the butter in the cupboard."
Morton's father, a frugal, taciturn man, looms large throughout the book. The "Tom Sawyer-like" story of "Branding," beautifully and humorously drawn in verse, tells how his gruff manner actually worked to his advantage with the people who came to help, much to his children's surprise. He was still ranching at 89, "a man truly satisfied with the life he chose."
There are joys remembered, and there are many poems about holidays and happy events, full of fun and fond recollections. The chapter "On the Lighter Side" includes poems such as "Cowboy Culture," "Mutton Bust'n" and "Horse Thieves" and there is a whole chapter of Christmas poems, which give a great sense of the customs and the times.
But there is no "happily ever after." The poems that deal with the loss of her parents, encroaching development, and recent fires stare harsh reality in the face. They represent some of the finest writing in this book, tales told with a special grace, well learned from these strong people.
This clear and candid chronicle of a family's ranching roots embodies the history of America's westward expansion, exploring the hardships, hard-taught lessons, and hard-earned rewards of settlement. With Jane Morton's sure guidance, hearts and souls are acutely revealed in these sensitive but unsentimental poems and stories. The tales also afford a thoughtful examination of family bonds and unflinchingly confront the realities of ranching's endangered future.
Morton's writing is important. It belongs in schools and libraries, and in the hands of all who value Western heritage and the ranching tradition.
~Margo Metegrano - CowboyPoetry.com
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