by Clarissa Fetcher

This letter was written as a series of correspondence from Clarissa Fetcher to her father after moving to Colorado and settling a ranch near Hahn’s Peak with her husband, John, and young children. Letters are courtesy of Jay and Gael Fetcher & the Fetcher Ranch.

June 8, 1953

Dear Father:

We have had cold, windy, rainy weather, but today was glorious and I’m hopeful that we are in for a good spell now. Fortunately we had two fine days last week, Monday and Tuesday, when we moved the cattle up to the Peak (Hahns Peak) with the usual hullabaloo. This year Fred rode Cherry till lunch time and then switched with Ned who rode the rest of the way, and both felt proud to really be a part of the drive. Again, I drove the pickup with the grub and all the little folk including Evelyn and Lincoln, and so Minnie came along too, as she hadn’t done this before. The little ones were very good, and this year we really did pick up a lame calf too.

This will interest thee. Along in January the water line going out to the chicken house froze up and so did the water line to the milk room. The one to the milk room thawed out one bitterly cold morning in early April. The one to the chicken house, which passes under a shed and therefore did not get direct sunlight waited until today to thaw. (Both these lines are 18 inches deep.) And here we are almost at midsummer. The chicks incidentally are thriving. Our broilers are wild – they eat like crazy, and Lord, the racket they make. The 50 little pullets seem most sedate in comparison. The fat old hens are a pain in the neck and are producing very poorly.

Now the boys are on vacation, they are kept busy outside much of the time doing odd jobs. Billy is glued to the lawn mower and he considers the care of the “lawn” his province. Stan has rigged up a little pump to pump water out of the irrigation ditch to water the lawn. It is run by an electric motor. Billy’s daily routine is to get the lawn mower out right after breakfast and run that for about an hour, and then start the pump and this he broods over like a mother hen for the rest of the day. He is terribly intent about these jobs and the rest of the boys laugh at him for his seriousness. It is almost impossible to get Ned to do anything. Jay is a great one for running errands. Evelyn is a great outdoors girl too. Always chatting about “see cow” and always in the barn for milking. Very appreciative of anything new and different which is greeted with “see pretty?” She is most agile and her pigeon-toes don’t slow her down one bit.

Sunday we all took off to Hayden to visit the Carpenters for the day – that means all of our family and Stan’s kids and Minnie and one of our eastern boys. It was a very happy day, made especially memorable because the Carpenters had a Geiger counter, which had been left with them by a disappointed prospector. He had been poking around with the thing for a month and a half and then abandoned it and went home. Of course Billy latched on to it and the first thing I knew he had the thing all assembled and the earphones over his head – a funny little sight. Mr. Carpenter let us bring it home. John and the eastern boy fixed it, and the children have been having a huge time with it as Mr. Carpenter also had a piece of uranium ore which gives off very satisfactory tick-tick noises. Billy is a true child of the 20th century – he told me he would put the Geiger counter up high so Evelyn wouldn’t reach it, but she may play with the uranium! Well, she’s a funny one, loves to fill her pockets with little pebbles, but this hunk of stone wouldn’t fit, it is quite large.

We also met, at the Carpenters, the heads of the Perry-Mansfield Camps, Charlotte Perry and Portia Mansfield, Smith grads of some vintage long ago and very talented and capable women, and of course very pleasant to meet at luncheon. Miss Perry got John to promise to play quartets with them next Sunday so he is now practicing like crazy.

The cattle market is not bright and prospects for us this fall are gloomy. The drought areas are selling their animals and putting a lot of beef on the market. Things should look up after this fall. We are hoping to have a large hay crop and might even be in the condition to sell some, a pleasant reversal to our procedure these past winters.

Well, these are busy days. I am now feeding three extra hands and my day starts early so it’s early to bed too.

Much love to thee and all,

Clarissa