Cecil's Birthday Cake with Candles

Cecil's Birthday Cake with Candles

(Not an eyewitness account)

Cecil was 9 or10 when he got to spend a whole week at the ranch with my parents (his great uncle and aunt). Cecil is a about a year younger than my brother Roger. At that time Cecil had two older sisters, two younger sisters and a baby brother. Roger had two teen-aged sisters and two already married sisters. Cecil and Roger rode horses, dug in the dirt, splashed in the horse tank, climbed things, built things and other fun “boy” things every day all day.

Toward the end of the week someone realized that Cecil would be there on his birthday. He told them he had never had a cake with candles on it so the teenagers set about making him a special birthday cake. Ordinarily, there was one and usually two or more opened packages of birthday candles in the dishtowel drawer. At this particular time there were none. And none in the junk drawer either.

Being creative, the girls made candles with string and melted crayons in tin foil molds which they put in the freezer to set. At the appropriate time they retrieved the candles and giggling at their flat side arranged them on the cake and presented it to Cecil. However, when they lit the first candle it almost immediately melted into an ash covered pool of wax. No matter how fast they tried to light the candles they could not get two burning at the same time for Cecil to blow out and they sang “Happy birthday” as they scooped the pools of wax off the cake. Cecil still had not had a real birthday cake with candles to blow out but he had a real birthday cake made with love and lit with laughter.

The Funniest Thing I Never Saw

The Funniest Thing I Never Saw

When my brother, Roger, was about 10 years old he had two best friends. Copper was a golden Labrador mix dog and Brighty was a donkey. In the summer they spent all day every day together. They were in the Heritage Days parade dressed as a prospector with his donkey and dog. There was a picture in the newspaper of Roger sharing his ice cream bar participation “prize” with Copper. The three of them roamed all over the ranch together.

Roger spent hours and hours teaching Copper and Brighty tricks. The best one was Copper jumping onto Brighty and riding double with Roger. It was quite a trick because Roger not only had to teach Copper to jump up but he had to teach Brigthy to let Copper get on his back. They practiced it over and over and over.

One day Daddy needed help moving some cows from one pasture to another. Brighty was no good at herding cows. Donkeys can’t (or won’t) turn fast enough to make a cow turn around. Besides the cows didn’t like him so Roger rode a horse named Pally. Pally was quite a bit taller than Brighty. Copper went along just because Copper always went wherever Roger went.

One big cow decided she didn’t like that dog so close to her calf. She started to chase Copper. Copper, of course, ran to Roger for protection and TRIED TO JUMP UP ON PALLY. Pally was too tall for Copper to get on and he wanted no part of a dog on his back anyway so he jumped away. The cow was chasing Copper and Copper was trying to jump up on Pally and Pally was jumping away from Copper and Roger was trying to stay on Pally and chase the cow away from Copper. Finally, Daddy and Jim (the hired man) were able to stop laughing long enough to chase the cow back to her baby and Copper and Pally stopped jumping and Roger could catch his breath and they could continue to drive the cows to the other pasture. I wish I had seen it. It must have been quite a Wild West show.

Daddy Brought the Groceries Home

Bringing the Groceries Home

Daddy had gone to town. He was kind of late coming home. It was already dark when we heard the pickup rumble down the lane and stop in front of the house. When he came in carrying a box of groceries, Mother said, “Didn't you get . . . ?” Daddy sh-sh-sh'd her and set the box on the floor.

There was something alive in the box! Daddy lifted the flap. There, to my delight, was a puppy among the canned goods. Although, she was a rust colored Cocker Spaniel just a couple of months old, I named her Dusty. She had short legs and long ears and really looked funny trailing after Daddy's coyote hounds. She and I were good friends for many years.

When she got a little older, she really wanted to be a mother. Whenever any new animal was born, Dusty was there in the way. The hens and cats were very much afraid to have her around their babies and the cows and pigs angrily chased her away. The horses were a little more tolerant and when my second baby sister came home from the hospital, my parents folded up the legs on the baby basket because they were afraid Dusty would tip it over trying to see the baby. She would sit for hours just watching the baby and would bark softly if the baby cried for more than a few seconds without a parental response..

Dusty's funniest experience with this heightened maternal instinct occurred when a sow farrowed beside a haystack about a quarter mile from the ranch yard. Daddy took an old washtub in the pickup and gathered up the piglets. With the tub in the back of the pickup, he drove slowly to the ranch yard hoping that the sow would follow. She didn't so he left the tub of piglets in the pen and walked to drive the sow home. Seeing this prime opportunity, Dusty got into the tub with the piglets. When the sow saw that, she went berserk. Dusty sat in the tub and barked as the sow charged the tub repeatedly while Daddy was trying to lift Dusty out of the tub and dodge the charges of the sow and yelling at us to stay back so the sow wouldn't charge us. Finally, he succeeded in snatching Dusty out of the tub. After the sow had calmed somewhat he was able to lift the very shaken piglets out of the tub so the sow could nuzzle and nurse them. Dusty was also shaken and avoided the pig pen for several days.

Eventually, Dusty had a puppy and her “mid-wife” interest waned.

Years later when my sister was trying to help Mother remember pieces of her life, she asked why we had Cocker Spaniels as their ears were sandburr magnets and they were no good at all either for coyote hunting or cattle work. Mother replied, “It wasn't my idea.”

Weather? What Weather?

Weather? What Weather?

Written July 3, 2012

We've been having a stretch of very hot weather too soon. This, and the fact that Daddy's birthday was July 9, have brought him to mind many times the past couple of weeks.

Except for the first two or three and the last one of his almost 96 years, Daddy had animals that depended on him for their daily food and water. And, he depended on them for his lively hood. That meant that he went out in the blizzard to feed them and sweltered in the hayfield to provide the winter feed. The weather was irrelevant to the task at hand. He went out in whatever weather EVERY day.

Daddy was very aware of the weather and he prepared for it. Hay was stacked as close as possible to where the cows would be. The haymow was filled to capacity so the horses could be fed quickly on winter mornings giving them the energy to pull the sled full of hay for the cattle. If it looked like there would be a big storm coming in, he might feed a double load. He built windbreaks in the winter pastures so the cattle could find shelter. And, he bought 100 lbs. of beans every fall so his family and hired men would be fed.

And, he dressed for the weather. Long underwear, levis, coveralls, cap with ear flaps, scarf. He didn't care what he looked like.

But it was the summer weather that really taxed him. The hot, dry, windy days of late July and early August when he worked from sun up to sun down in the heat took a toll. He would dress for the sun -- levis, long sleeved shirt, wide brimmed hat, gloves. But he would sweat profusely and his armpits would scald. He would eat extra salt and always carried a water jug. And, every evening he would all but collapse as soon as supper was over and necessary preparations made for the next day. And, his usual optimistic and fun loving spirit would drag.

After he retired and moved to town, he still had horses to feed and water every day. His winter habits didn't change that much. He made sure he had feed on hand and he dressed for the cold and didn't care what he looked like. But he let Mother buy the beans a pound at a time. And, he waited until the sun was up to begin the day.

In the summer, we would often find him sitting in the yard in his levis, long sleeved shirt and wide brimmed hat enjoying the SHADE!

Moving from the OLO

Moving from the O-L-O

May 15-25,1947

(Written from what Donna and I remember Daddy telling us and memories shared by Bob Burgess who was one of the cowboys)

Daddy's dream was about to be a reality. After years of working as a hired man or leasing ranches, he was buying a ranch of his own. His years at the Cruthers, Lotspiech, Buck and other places had allowed him to build up his cow herd and now he was buying the “Smith” place.

The Buck place north of Hyannis and the Smith place south of Alliance were about 50 miles apart as the crow flies and that's how they moved the cattle. Daddy had 300 head of cows with young calves plus about 200 on shares with Manning/Finnegan and 30 horses including draft horses, mares and colts and saddle horses.

They left the Buck place May 15^th. They only went a mile or two the first day. Jack Dubs drove a 6 head hitch on the feed sled loaded with camping supplies and food for men and animals. Jack did the cooking. Blackie Neumeyer was the horse wrangler. Bar Gordon, the stud, was tied to the sled so he wouldn't “wander off.” Stanley Burke, Bob Burgess and Daddy drove the cattle. Babe, Daddy's favorite horse and a natural cow horse, kept the stragglers moving without a rider. The drovers rode green broke broncs which were unpredictable. Bob said, “Barney said they needed to be ridden so we rode them.”

As Bob remembers they spent the first and second nights on land leased by Steve Sterns and the third night just south of Jess Lambert's place. He thinks there was another night before they camped on the Star Ranch but he can't remember for sure. (Bob wrote this information down for me in 2012.) They then stopped on the Herian ranch just east of Antioch and crossed the railroad and highway the next day. Bob thinks there was another night and then a night on a hillside where they could see the lights of Alliance. If Bob's memory is right it took them 9 days. He doesn't remember that they lost any calves and some of them were quite small and would ride on the sled occasionally.

One of the stories I remember Daddy telling was that Blackie was upset when Daddy told him to ride my horse, Buck. (I was 6. Buck was a kid's horse. Buck would let me put a bridle on him anywhere. A man had to fight him to lower his head so a bridle could be put on him.) Buck didn't get in a hurry for anything. Blackie complained so Daddy said he could ride Jug. Jug was a smaller draft horse that was also broke to ride. Jug went at a trot all day long. (I can remember hearing his harness jingle when he was on the hay rake.) Blackie rode Buck the rest of the way.

Daddy had had the ranch house moved across the valley so he would have the windbreak of the hills and the vista of the meadow. There was a small pond in front of the house. He made his dream come true.

I don't remember moving. Perhaps that was one of the few times Carol and I stayed with our grandparents. I do remember the delight of having a flush toilet and electric lights like Grandma had.

A Pleasant Sunday Afternoon

A Pleasant Sunday Afternoon

My sister-in-law, Kathryn, and I are very good friends but we rarely have the time we’d like to just sit and visit. However, we fondly remember a pleasant Sunday afternoon in the early 1970’s that was idyllic. (The time frame is important to the story.)

Our family was visiting her family in Berthoud CO. We had eaten Sunday dinner and the dishes were in the dishwasher. Kathryn and I settled in the living room with our knitting and the guys and kids were going to play football in the church yard next door. Kathryn’s husband, Morris, checked the baseball playoff game on TV. His favorite team, the Cincinnati Reds, was playing and he would have liked to watch the game but his kids were there so a game of touch football took priority. My husband and children joined them.

Kathryn and I visited uninterrupted for a few minutes then her stepson came in to get a drink of water. He looked at the TV and said, “Why are you watching baseball? The Broncos are on.” And, he changed channels and checked the progress of the game before returning to the game outside.

A few minutes later Morris came in to check the baseball game. “Why are you watching football?” He changed the channel checked the progress of the game then returned to the game in the yard with Norm and the kids.

Then John came in again. “Why did you change channels?” And he changed back to the football game, checked the progress and returned to the family game in the church yard.

This scenario repeated itself for about 2 hours. The baseball game concluded and the football game was in the last quarter when the dads came in and collapsed on the couch and the kids needed a snack.

Kathryn and I had enjoyed an afternoon of conversation, made considerable progress on our knitting projects, and kept track of both the baseball and the football games and never once got up to change channels!

90th Birthday

Written for Daddy's 90th birthday  July 9, 1999

Bernard was the name Andrew and Nellie Welch Applegarth gave to their third son. He took the name Thomas as a middle name when he was confirmed. But most everybody who has met him in his 90 years has known him as “Barney.”


When his Mother died when he was about 14, he assumed the protection and care of his younger brother and sister. He took this responsibility seriously even into adult hood.


Andy Applegarth and his boys were a crack hay crew and contracted haying in the sandhills between Bingham and Gordon. Barney’s skill with horses showed itself at a very early age and he contributed to his own support by breaking horses. Besides providing the necessities of life, this sideline also assured that he would always have a good horse to ride. Bronc riding and racing were natural to him.


He was the first of the Applegarth’s to finish high school. He was on the basketball team and they (Bingham) went to state all four years. This was before class divisions were established so they always faced much larger schools and were eliminated in the first round but for boys from the sandhills, the trip was exciting and they loved going to Lincoln to play that first game.


Barney worked on various ranches in the sandhills and continued to break horses and compete in rodeos on the side. One fall while he was away on a trail drive, a new teacher requested a change in her assigned board. Someone suggested that Barney was gone and she could stay there until another boarding situation could be found. June cleaned and rearranged the house but only stayed one night. Of course, when he came home Barney wondered who had rearranged his house. She’s been rearranging it for nearly 60 years.


In 1947, Barney realized a dream. He bought a ranch of his own. Leaving the familiar ranches of Cherry and Grant Counties, he moved his family, his horses and his cattle to the Smith ranch in Morrill County. There he raised Hereford cattle, thoroughbred horses and kids until his retirement into Alliance.


In his 90 years, he has seen many changes. From horse and buggy to jet planes, from horse drawn hay equipment to mammoth tractors, from sons and sons’ sons staying on the ranch to families scattered across the country, he has changed with the times. Always believing in education and teaching himself to do many things, he has adapted and learned from the changes he’s seen.


Happy Birthday !!