Bio: Daughter of Frank and Inge Galey grew up on the ranch, 1940s to mid 1960s. Descriptor: Feeding the livestock and dad reading me nighttime stories while surviving long snowy, very cold winters.
Cynthia’s Story: WINTERS ON WG, Cynthia Galey Peck 1943-48 —-My earliest memories of White Grass in winter involved staying warm. There were the thick logs, but no insulation in the floors or ceiling. All the windows were single pane with ice on the inside corners. When I was still a toddler we spent the winter in cabin #4, (the large cabin west of the road.) Dad had made the north bedroom into a kitchen; the middle bedroom was Mom and Dad’s. I slept in the far bedroom. Grandfather Hammond had built an oversized pole couch in the living room. That was my playpen. Even though there was not a forth side to keep me there, I feared to get on the “freezing” floor, as Mom frequently reminded me. She could become a tyrant if I didn’t behave. —-We didn’t have running water during the coldest months and it did not defrost until May. We bathed in a tin wash-tub placed on a heavy towel in front of the fireplace, the warmest place in the cabin. Dad hauled the water to a large “garbage” can on the porch by team and sled. Mom brought it to heat on the stove with a metal bucket. Then the warm water was transferred to the round galvanized wash-tub. I was washed first then Mom would use the same water, Dad got fresh hot water for his turn. —-Another winter we were staying in the Hammond cabin. We had pigs, Porky and Bess. Mom threw the food scraps out the kitchen window to them. They were free roaming, clean, never smelled, and friendly. We used the “Annex” as the kitchen with the small storage room behind. It was open to the large living room with stone fireplace which Grandfather Harold Hammond built. There was a basement beneath the kitchen that flooded every spring and smelled musty year around. Mom and Dad used the bedroom next to the living room and I used the corner room past the pea-green bathroom. Again I had the coldest room in the cabin. The farthest room, which used to be Grandma Hammond’s sitting room, was shut off to conserve heat. —-During a winter in the Hammond cabin, Dad decided to make “bathtub gin.” He had a hot concoction on top of the propane kitchen stove. After a time, it boiled over. Being flammable, there was a kitchen fire. With jet-speed Dad dumped a bucket of water on the stove and Mom cleaned up the mess. That was the last time Dad tried to make gin. I think Mom had lots to do with the decision. —- My family would be gathered in the kitchen by the fire, Mom with her knitting, Dad with his pipe, and I sitting at the table in the circle of lantern light. Dudy, a mixed Chesapeake and Labrador dog, and Little Man, a mixed Labrador and Dalmatian, would be stretched out on the floor happily twitching in their dreams. The lantern flickered as Dad read The Three Musketeers aloud. Mom kept us in knitted wool socks. She said that Dad and I could wear out socks faster than she could knit them. # Dad, the dogs and I would have had a hard day. Dad would have been up first in the dark, lighting the wood stoves as fast as he could, then jump back into bed till the room was warmed. When I heard Mom and Dad in the kitchen, I would jump up, grab my clothes and run for the warmth of the fire where I would dress. As Mom started breakfast, Dudy and Little Man would lead Dad, carrying a pail of hot water, and me along the snow-packed path to the barn. We would throw hay from the stack for the horses and cattle. Then we would feed the chickens, dump the ice out of their water trough and pour the hot water into it for them to drink and then gather eggs. Next we would go into the barn to feed the team and milk the cows. The barn always felt warm from their bodies and the acrid smell from the night’s accumulation of manure. Dad would milk Tobie (she hated me and would run all the way across the field just to shake her black horns at me, I never hung around to see if she would really get me; I was too scared.) I would milk Peewee, (I was put on top of her once for a picture and she stood nice and still). We each would squirt some milk to the cats’ their mouths opened to catch it. Dad would help me get Peewee milked dry. I did not have the patience to get her dry enough to suit Dad. The cows would then be turned out for the day to feed with the other stock. Because we would throw the hay to the very edge of the snow packed area they would reach thus enlarge the packed area. The dogs would scamper ahead as we would head back to the house with the eggs and steaming milk. Breakfast would be served, bacon from our summer pigs, eggs from our chickens, butter that I would have helped Mom churn and the last of the home made bread. (Today would be bread-making day; that was a twice-a-week job.) # One bread-making day Mom went up to the Main Cabin, where some flour was stored. She ducked under the eaves slid down the snow bank into the cabin. When she had gotten the flour, she discovered that she couldn’t climb up the snow bank. The snow kept shifting under her like a steep sand dune. With no fire wood in the closed up cabin she could have frozen to death. She called the dogs. When they looked down into the hole at her, she grabbed the scruff of their necks and they pulled her up to safety. # After breakfast, Dad and I would take hot water to the barn and dip the frozen bits. If the bits weren’t warmed, the horses’ mouths would freeze on the cold metal. I didn’t believe Dad when he first told me, so I tried it. I put my tongue on the buckrake’s metal handle. My tongue froze to it, sure enough. When I jerked it lose, a good-sized layer of tender tongue flesh stayed behind, leaving a fuzzy white coating that was part of my tongue. It hurt for weeks, but I would not let Dad have a chance to say “I told you.” I didn’t anyone to know how stupid I was. # We would shovel out the manure that the milk cows and horses left during the night tied in their stalls. After, we would harness the team, hook them to the sleigh and get the big containers in which we would carry the water supply to the house. We would break the ice on the stream with an axe. The hole also supplied water for the stock. We would fill the large containers by dipping a bucket into the stream and pouring the water into them. Then we would take them back to the house. Any water that sloshed out would freeze, making the footing on the sleigh treacherous. # To keep the road to Moose passable, Dad would hook a heavy logging chain between the back runners and drive the miles to pack the snow. It was a constant struggle for Dad and the team pulling the sleigh to keep the road open. He would lose that struggle with the weather between Thanksgiving and Christmas. From then until April or May we would have to ski or snowshoe into Moose, shovel the car out of the snow drifts and drive to Jackson for supplies. We had to be back in time to feed and milk. # We would shovel snow from the cabin roofs so the excess weight would not collapse them. There was always wood to chop as wood fires provided our only heat. Evening chore time, Dad would walk ahead of me with the lantern, the days were so short. Swinging with his gait, it threw long shadows which raced across the snow one way, to stop abruptly and race back again. The shadows made Dad a giant. We would herd the cows and team into the barn; throw hay to the outside stock, and throw hay down from the loft into the cow stanchions and horse mangers. It would be milking time again with the cats waiting in anticipation. The flickering of the lantern light would make night milking time feel intimate; the deep shadows contrasted with the soft highlights on the animals’ bodies and on smooth worn logs. I would love to listen to the soft snuffling sounds the horses made as they pushed their hay around in the manger, the sloppy crunching of the cows as they ate their hay. I even liked the familiar acrid smell of the stock mixed with the fresh milk splattering into the bucket; the warm feel of the cow as I laid my head against her flank as I milked. When milking was done, we would check the chickens, bringing them fresh warm water, throw them some wheat and collect the eggs. I liked to chew on the wheat kernels; spitting out the husks, the meat would turn to a tasteless gum. When we headed home, the chores done for the night, I would carry the lantern while Dad carried the milk and eggs. # The day would wind down as we ate dinner. Dad would light his pipe. We read in the circle of lantern light, the aromatic tobacco smoke wafted by. A day devoted to staying alive on an isolated Wyoming ranch in winter would draw to a close. —-Ollie and Twila Van Winkle lived in the farthest cabin, called the Messler Cabin in latter years. It was smaller than where we stayed and I remember it always very warm. Unlike the “dude” cabins which were for summer use, it was insulated with a drop-down ceiling. Ollie helped Dad shovel roofs, feed animals and cut wood. Pine was our source of heat and much was used. (Years latter the Messler Cabin was burned by skiers. Part of closing the cabins for winter included covering the chimneys with coffee cans to keep the wet out. They must have left when they were choked by smoke.) I loved to follow Dad or Ollie. Ollie said I had “Bees in my bonnet” and “ants in my pants.” I now translate these to mean I was full of questions and activity. Cindy Galey Peck.