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

Epilogue

z 347 z Epilogue Grandfather clocks with pendulums grown still . . . dolls and toy soldiers owned by children now old and dead . . . jewels no longer warm with the life of their wearers. —Russell Hoban, The Bat Tattoo n The objects of history are ever on the move. Most of those associated with my subjects are beyond my grasp. Ida’s recipes are no longer to be found, the taste of her cooking lost to my tongue. Thus, I have relied on records and people’s memories of the things that my subjects’ owned, things that stood for them: Ida’s camera, Josephine’s Derringer, and John’s whip. Josephine was particularly sensitive to the trajectories of physical objects. The historical documents of early Livermore were sparse, so she collected lots of things. I think she sought the inner life of the past in these objects. This epilogue is a meditation on death—on the remains of the three ranchers, their memorials—and it is an inventory I have made of the objects that Josephine collected for her museum, a museum she did not live long enough to open. z Inventory 1. John’s .30-.30 long-barrel Winchester rifle. A book of manners for the guidance of persons visiting the White House. A brass bed. epilogue 348 A hurricane lamp. Ida’s heavy cream pitcher. The 2 iron of Jo’s Two Lazy Six brand. A serving plate from the Livermore Hotel, showing a castle and lake scene (manufactured by Grundy, Staffordshire, England). Jo’s collection is now gone—scattered, burned. Or most of it. A few things remain, such as the cream pitcher, but not the Winchester or the book of manners. Some of the lost objects, though, became known to me. For Jo Lamb, the value of collecting went beyond pride of ownership . It was a means of understanding and an instrument of instruction. She wanted her collections to be available to the public so people might learn about Livermore’s past. z Inventory 2. A turquoise ring, Native American. Josephine gave the ring to her favorite niece and instilled in her the idea that turquoise could be a force for good or evil. A box of arrowheads and spear points. Indian beads, colored. A Pueblo pot. An Indian horsehair quirt, dyed two colors, weighted with sand. An Indian bridle owned by a chief, woven of horsehair, dyed three colors. Judy Cass showed me the quirt, but the bridle has disappeared. Jo told children to look closely at anthills because the ants bring up beads that were once sewn on warriors’ buckskins. John Glass told how she taught him to look for “Indian stuff.” “Everything,” she said, “that’s in the country is natural, but when you see something that isn’t natural, if it doesn’t fit this part of the country, then you better pick it up.” Two packed rooms in the old Livermore Hotel attested to her collecting fervor. They were the Music Room, which was once the reception area, and the Great Room, formerly the dining hall of the hostelry. These east-facing rooms were hard to heat, so they became storerooms, filled with boxes, old furniture, a grand piano, historic clothing, antiques, objets d’art, pioneer tools and hardware, saddles, fossils, a butterfly collection, books, paintings, and the memorabilia of a lifetime. In the northwest corner of the Music Room were her papers, stacked against the wall, almost reaching the ceiling. She wanted to open a museum—I call it Miss Lamb’s Cabinet of Wonder—but when Death called on Jo Lamb, her precious things grew epilogue 349 legs and walked away. Some went to charities, some went to the landfill, some were burned in large oil drums. The papers of a lifetime. Her nieces and nephews went through their aunt’s collections. They were astonished to find boxes full of old wooden toys, dolls, playthings. She had no children , so they could not figure out why an old woman had so many toys. She had no children, no husband. “Jo Lamb didn’t own anyone, so she owned things.” That is the way Deborah put it. Yet Jo was a link between generations. Through her collections she worked to pass something on to the future. z Inventory 3. A collection of historical clothing (formal wear, riding habits, dresses, old cavalry uniforms, yellowed wedding gowns). Lamb’s heirs donated the clothing...