Rabbit Creek Country: Three Ranching Lives in the Heart of the Mountain West

Preface

z xi z preface n IwalkedintothelivesofJohnElliott,IdaElliott,andJosephine Lamb. The chance discovery of a deserted house on Rabbit Creek in the northern Colorado foothills turned me into a biographer. I have spent the better part of a decade researching and composing the story of the last occupants of that house. When I think back on the origin of this project, I can only wonder at the role geographical accident plays in altering our destinies and destinations. As a boy, I liked to walk the countryside, but mountains were a land form I did not know, for I grew up on a flat, sandy peninsula bounded by the Chesapeake Bay and the dark gray Atlantic. There were no hills in rural southern Delaware, and the only mountains were the waves of the ocean seen through the eyes of a child. Then, on a Boy Scout trip in Virginia, I climbed Massanutten Mountain, merely a hill by western standards, but for me a turning point in my experience of the world. I moved to northern Colorado in 1979, taking a position as professor of English at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. Ever since, I have roamed the hills and mountains of the Front Range. Where I most like to go is the Livermore country, a land of pastoral valleys—Rabbit Creek is one of them—and granite monoliths. Two emotions are at the heart of my book: dismay at the progress of rural sprawl in this region and curiosity about the early-twentieth-century settlers who ranched these grasslands. Their way of life, like all ways of life, was flawed, and the myths and clichés about the Old West that arose out of it have left a misleading picture of the past, with all the usual consequences. Yet these ranchers also developed an extraordinary intimacy and affinity with the mountain lands they occupied, and they saw themselves as good stewards of the environment. I wrote this biography to understand the interwoven lives of the Elliotts and Miss Josephine Lamb, and to convey a particular vision of preface xii the land-bound culture they represented, a culture that flourished in the first half of the twentieth century. Their story, fascinating in its own right, offered a window into the inner life of times that, though different from ours, are nonetheless a prologue to the profound changes we have seen in the foothills during the past two decades. John Elliott, Ida Elliott, and Miss Josephine Lamb lived together for forty-two years. This fact provoked intense discussion in the community and dissension within their family. As a result, their lives became more accessible to me than they would otherwise have been. Yet I never met the ranchers about whom I write. The last of them passed away six years before I came to Colorado. I myself am neither a rancher nor a resident of Livermore, both of which might have posed an obstacle to gaining the trust of the people I talked to. From the beginning of the project, however, I had the good fortune of working with Deborah Dimon. She agreed to be my research associate and is a colleague in the Department of English at Colorado State University. Deborah had lived in the Poudre Canyon and worked there as a natural and cultural resource interpreter for the United States Forest Service. Not only was she familiar with the local scene, but she had personal connections to many Livermore people. Her presence opened doors. Together we were able to uncover the remarkable story of the three settlers. After that first walk up Middle Rabbit Creek, an urge took hold of me to unwrap the mystery of the place, to lay bare the destinies of the unknown ranchers who had lived there. It was as if those three individuals were asking me to disinter them from obscurity and bring them back to life—no matter what the risks. I have taken up their invitation. Jon Thiem Fort Collins, Colorado Courtesy of Vicki Cotton ...