The Bassett Women - Grace McClure

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of course. All they could do—all they thought of was hot applications . . . and that relieved her, of course, but she died.

      So died a southern gentlewoman who had bested many strong men in a rough, competitive world. That competition had brought out the best in her, and perhaps some of the worst.

      There is no way of knowing what scars were left on the Bassett children by the premature death of their mother, and whether or not these scars contributed significantly to their later development. Probably they did not, for their personalities and attitudes had already been formed when Elizabeth died.

      The children had lived with a reversal of roles between their mother and father that was to form their adult attitudes toward the relationships between men and women. Elizabeth was, in effect, the breadwinner of the family, and their physical welfare had depended upon her. Herb had given his children laughter, tenderness, gentleness and the unhurried attention for which Elizabeth had never had time. As a result, Josie was to say, “We girls respected our mother, but we adored our father.”

      Loving their gentle father as they did, they absorbed the lessons that he taught them by his own example: the necessity for honesty, charity and love of God and neighbor. These values were reinforced by everyday life in the community, where a man’s word was his bond, neighbor was loyal to neighbor, a hungry person was always fed, newcomers were assisted, and the sick were nursed and cared for. The Bassett children learned these lessons well and followed them in their adult lives.

      Their mother had followed these same precepts, but from her and others in the Park the children had also learned to deal with the real world of survival. They learned that laws were to be disregarded if those laws favored lawless men; that Brown’s Park belonged to them and was to be defended against marauders; that one gave without question whatever was asked by a friend, but that the property of outsiders was fair game. These principles were of course never taught formally but they were universally understood. So arose the dichotomy that would be seen later in the standards of some of the Bassett children.

      The Courier in Craig, Colorado, published an obituary of Elizabeth Bassett that hints at the controversy surrounding this extraordinary woman even during her lifetime:

       A Sad Event

      Mrs. Bassett’s death occurred on Sunday after an illness of two weeks.

      The deceased is one of the best known women in the country, where she has lived since the earliest settlement. She was a natural pioneer, possessing the most remarkable courage and energy.

      She was highly esteemed by those who best knew her and commanded the respect of those who, from conflicting business interests, were her enemies. The most conspicuous and admirable trait in Mrs. Bassett’s character was her unwavering loyalty and devotion to her friends. She was only 35 [sic] years of age and apparently in the meridian of health and vigor. The sympathy of the community is extended to the motherless children.

      Who were these “enemies” whose business interests conflicted with hers? Surely not her fellow ranchers, for to them she was a leader, loyal friend and a helpful neighbor in time of trouble. Surely not the men who worked with her. Her only possible enemies were the strong, important men who controlled the range in Colorado, who dominated the free grasslands—even fenced those grasslands in defiance of federal law—and who were quick to give the name “rustler” to anyone who opposed them. The only neighbor who ever damned Elizabeth Bassett was the bitter, greedy, sanctimonious J. S. Hoy, who had been thwarted, partially by Elizabeth, in his attempt to make Brown’s Park his own private cattle kingdom.

      They buried Elizabeth on a hillside overlooking the home place, thus establishing a family cemetery that now holds most of the Bassett dead. For over thirty years, however, she lay alone, as her family contended with the difficult times and the changing fortunes that would eventually almost destroy what she had built.

      Elizabeth’s daughters were to display in varying degree all her restlessness, ambition, unruliness and determination. They would be blessed by her dynamism and cursed by her strong will. They would always have her pride; it sustained them in bad times, and set the standards by which they lived. They would always think of themselves primarily as “Bassetts of Brown’s Park,” meaning that they were the daughters of Elizabeth Bassett, head of “the Bassett gang.”

      NOTE

       THE SURVIVORS

      As Herb and his children faced the first difficult days of surviving without the driving force of Elizabeth, any fears that they would suffer materially were quickly allayed. Jim McKnight and Isom Dart were still in the bunkhouse and Matt Rash still lived down the road. Elizabeth’s coterie of friends automatically continued to handle the Bassett cattle and acted as unofficial guardians of her heritage until her own boys were old enough to stand alone. The children could readily accept this, for Isom and Matt had always been central to their lives. The ranch’s business went on as before.

      The relationship between Herb and his children also continued unchanged. They loved him and respected him for his intrinsic goodness, but they still did not turn to him for practical advice in their own lives. Herb was sunk in a morass of grief, for he had loved Elizabeth as only a generous man can love. His grief was probably complicated by a feeling of helplessness when he looked at the children for whom he was responsible. Any advice he might give them, any authority he might attempt to exercise, were weakened by the fact that he had never been the master in his own house during Elizabeth’s lifetime and therefore could not become its master when Elizabeth was gone.

      After Elizabeth’s funeral, young Sam and Ann went back to high school in Craig and Herb hired a housekeeper, “Auntie” Thompson, an Army nurse during the Civil War and now the wife of “Longhorn” Thompson, who had a homestead just east of Brown’s Park. Ann has given Auntie a certain immortality in the story she tells of Auntie’s confiscating the Police Gazettes the cowboys had stashed in the bunkhouse and using them to paper the bunkhouse walls-but hanging all the pages upside down to make them more difficult to read. This may have broken a few hearts in the bunkhouse, but it no doubt confirmed Herb’s belief that Auntie would make a good guardian for his younger boys.

      When Herb spoke to Josie about returning to St. Mary’s she refused to go, saying she was needed at home. During that first sad time, Josie’s state of mind was perhaps the most pitiable of all the family. She could not indulge in simple, uncomplicated grief for her mother, but had to suffer the added grief of knowing that she was about to give a further wound to her father. Josie now knew for certain what she had not suspected when she had left for Salt Lake City in the fall—that she was pregnant by Jim McKnight, and that unless nature graciously intervened and she miscarried, her school days were over.

      She procrastinated as long as she could, but the time came when there could be no more stalling. On March 21, 1893—two months after her nineteenth birthday, three months after Elizabeth’s death, and only four months before the baby was due—Josie and Jim were married in Green River City. The names of the witnesses on the marriage license, Charles H. Miller and Sarah C. Boorum, are not familiar in Brown’s Park annals. It is possible that Josie and Jim went alone to Green River City and waited until after the ceremony to confront Herb with the news. Their son Crawford was born on the twelfth day of July.

      If Herb was sad, disappointed or shamed, the other folks in the Park were neither surprised nor too dismayed. Like wise people everywhere, they may have quoted the old saying that “a baby usually takes nine months to grow, but a first baby can come any time.”

      Josie was universally liked by the Brown’s Park people.

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