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Share Your Story

Share Your Story is about Your White Grass Story(s) whether you are a former dude or wrangler, volunteer, rehabilitation specialist, special friend to the ranch, preservation workshop instructor, trainee, historian, student or interested person.

Share Your Story documents how the dude ranch experience changed the lives of many individuals and families and it seeks to document White Grass evolving into a National Park Service Training Center teaching historical preservation skills to professionals and students from across the country.

But don’t take our word, read an invitation to Share Your Story from Cynthia Galey Peck who grew up on the ranch with her parents, Frank and Inga Galey, starting in the 1940’s.

“I invite all to share your White Grass stories whether it involves life changes, working, a dude experience, fund raising campaign or rehabilitation and training stories. (It is) a way to share and contribute to the history of White Grass Ranch (and) fulfills a desire of former Dudes and Wranglers who wanted their ranch stories and history collected, preserved and available for the future.

Your story(s) will be added to the many White Grass stories collected between 2010-2014 by the National Trust for Historic Preservation who granted permission for 75+ stories to be posted below. (Your) pictures are welcome on the site also.

I am delighted that White Grass’s story and history is ongoing, humans are using this special spot, animals still roam the area and natural processes continue. May all who come to White Grass enjoy this special place.” -Cynthia Galey Peck

Please click on the names below to read their stories, or use the search bar above to look for an individual or topic of interest, e.g., person’s name, pack trips, cabin girls.

The stories are made available here for educational and research purposes only. Commercial use is prohibited. Requests for reproduction of these materials must be submitted at: whitegrass@jacksonholehistory.org

Judy Allyn Schmitt 4.22.2010

Bio: First Year Dude, 1955. Descriptor: Judy’s Ballad of White Grass. Judy’s Story: 1955 was my first year at the WG. I have so many memories that I would like to share my Ballad Of White Grass: She got off the train filled with excitement, electricity in the air. She saw a dark pensive cowboy dressed black waiting there. […]

Annie Messler Cuddy 4.16.2010

Bio: Dude, Chore Girl and Wrangler, 1946-1950’s. Descriptor: Milking cows, harvesting hay, lighting the furnace in the bathhouse and lots of other daily ranch chores. Annie’s Story: 1946 was my first year on the White Grass. My parents, sister and I had driven for 6 days from Florida to get there. We all took to it like fish […]

Bernie Huebner 4.9.2010

Bio: Dude Kid, 1953-60; Wrangler 1961-62. Descriptor: Taking a Nobel Prize winning chemist on a pack trip and taking the advice given to learn to relax. Bernie’s Story: Pack trips were a wrangler’s chance to get away from the daily grind of trips to the Phelps Overlook or Taggart Lake. I remember Frank asking me to take a […]

Johnny Holmberg 4.8.2010

Bio: Dude and Wrangler, 1954-1960’s. Descriptor: Coming to the ranch as a boy from New Jersey, first snipe hunt, developing friendships and a bear in the kitchen. Johnny’s Story: GREEN DUDES The Holmberg Family left Summit NJ at dawn on an early June morning in 1954. It took seven days to travel along route 30, through cities and […]

Fran Strawbridge 4.6.2010

Bio: Dude, 1952-53; Wrangler, 1954-57. Descriptor: The adventure of taking an Argentine family on a pack trip that didn’t turn out well.  Fran’s Story: Hope this story does not appear twice Summertime – A Dude Wrangler at the White Grass It was the summer of 1956 – my third year as a dude wrangler on the White Grass […]

Tommy Barrett 1.1.2010

Bio: Wrangler, 1969. Descriptor: Full moon dinner on the slope of Buck Mountain and chasing a runaway horse in a thunderstorm. Deborah’s Story: It was a dark and stormy night…..wait, I’m getting ahead of myself. It was the day that the night would have the full moon at the Whitegrass. Frank had planned the full moon dinner on […]

Deborah Wilson Lopez 3.24.2010

Bio: Dude, 1959+. Descriptor: Riding horseback from Phelps Lake with a full moon. How the White Grass Barn spoke to me. Games on horseback with the kid wranglers. Being in Kuwaiti and knowing I had to go back to the Tetons/White Grass for myself. Deborah’s Story: My family came from Coconut Grove, Florida. My first ride with the “kid wrangler” was […]

Bernie Huebner 3.24.2010

Bio: Dude Kid, 1953-60; Wrangler, 1961-62. Descriptor: Memories of the dude ranch, the ranch run over by marmots and the start of ranch rehabilitation. Bernie’s Story: Reading Nancy’s recollection of March 24th, I was reminded of the time I brought my wife Lucie out west for her first time. We drove in over Togwotee Pass as did Nancy, […]

Nancy 3.24.2010

Bio: Dude, 1973-85. Descriptor: The fun, adventure and camaraderie with family and friends at the ranch. Nancy’s Story: Our first summer at White Grass was in 1973; our last was the summer that Frank Galey died in 1985. Our initial approach was inauspicious. Driving in a heavy rain storm over Togwotee Pass, we got our first glimpse of […]

Karin Gottlieb 3.11.2010

Bio: Kitchen Help, mid 1960’s; winter resident, 1968. Descriptor: Wonderful staff stories, the ranch’s 50th anniversary celebration and winter at White Grass. Karin’s Story: My sister, Betsy (Gottlieb), and I came to White Grass from college in the summer of 1963 to wait tables AND wash dishes. I was there many times in one function or another after […]