The Ranch

When I was 17 I graduated from High School. I had not given a thought to what I would do after graduating. One of my teachers told me about a job working on a Dude Ranch in the Shasta mountains for the summer. I wrote a letter and applied for the job. I was so excited when I got the job. I had never been away from home before and I was really excited. My dad drove me up to the Ranch on the day they told me to come. His last words to me as I got ready to get out of the car were, "Ardie, I don't want you to give up on this job. You've made your decision so there is no quitting in the middle. You see it through." He gave me a hug and drove away down the dusty lane. I had a lot of respect for my Dad and I took it seriously when he gave me his advice.

I started the job and began to make friends and learn what my jobs were. It was a working cattle ranch and of course a guest ranch too. My job was cleaning cabins, cooking, laundry, cleaning up the kitchen after meals, which included mopping a huge dinning room floor, and anything else that Mr. or Mrs. Scott could think up for me and the other girls who were working that summer. The boys helped as ranch hands and were expected to do all the heavy jobs. They helped to brand and round up the cattle, take out pack trains for fishing expeditions, and saddle all the horses and lead rides for the summer guests. As time went on we girls got a chance to help with the horses and I even got to watch a branding once. I even got to learn to ride a horse and was able to go riding anytime I was on free time.

The work was hard and it soon became apparent that I was being singled out for all the hardest jobs. Even the other girls noticed it and questioned the Scotts on why I was being picked on. They explained that their son had married a Mormon and they were using me to bother her. They used the dinner table every night to heap assignments on me and persecute me about my religion. They said they were not going to pay me as much as the other members of the crew since I was giving a tenth to my church. They teased me about everything having to do with my church especially when their son and his wife were there.

In August I was allowed to use all my saved up time off to help lead a pack train high into the mountains to a lake to take some business men on a 5 day fishing excursion. I helped pack the mules, saddle the horses, and at times I was lead. It was very exciting to me, and the hardest work I had ever done. On our way down the mountain heading back to the ranch we were hit by a drenching rainstorm. I had to help get camp set up and unpack the mules. That morning I had awakened with a very bad sore throat and fever. By the next morning I was so sick that I didn't remember anything about our trip down the mountain. When we got back to the ranch The girls I worked with put me to bed, gave me some medicine for fever and reported to the Scotts that I was extremely ill. The next morning I was ordered to report to work. I was still delerious. I remember that I was on my way to 'hang' the laundry. What we did was throw the wet clothes over barbed wire fences to dry it. I guess I fainted because they found me lying in a small ditch next to the fence. I was allowed to go to my bed but was told to be back to work the next morning. This was part of the persecution I suffered while working that summer.

After I got better the Scotts threatened to send me home but the other hands said if I had to go they would go too. The Scotts had to keep me or lose their whole crew, guys and girls. I never thought to call my dad to come and get me, he had told me it wouldn't be easy and so I stuck it out. When he found out what I had been through he said he didn't mean for me to have to go through anything like that. We were on our way home when I told him and it was hard for me to keep him from going back and giving them a piece of his mind.

I learned so much that summer. I learned how to really work, and I made some wonderful friends. I learned how to ride a horse, saddle a horse or mule,and I learned how to endure persecution. It was worth it. I cherish the experience.
It's true I did get paid less, but I still had enough to pay for my first semester of college. I had grown up enough to know that I could certainly do college If I could survive a summer on a dude ranch.