Stirrups; a visit to West Texas

By Bebe and Sissy Fenstermaker

Sissy has returned from a short trip to West Texas and brought back a book written by Alpine area rancher Ted Gray, Shades of the West: A Cowboy's Memoirs, (2001, Iron Mountain Press). Another book on Ted Gray, The Last Campfire, written by Barney Neslon (1984, Texas A&M University Press), has been in my bookcase for many years. It is a chronicle of his life which I greatly enjoyed, so I look forward to the new book of memoirs with much anticipation.

Born around Jacksboro, Ted Gray moved to the mountains of West Texas as a teenager in the 1930s, going to work for many of the old-time ranchers of the area. Little by little he managed to build a reputation as an excellent cowman and was eventually able to assemble a small herd of Hereford cattle, later buying land and putting together his own ranch. That was unusual because most of the ranches were handed down through generations, and it was rare to find a hard-working cowboy who saved, planned, and achieved his own ranch. Ted Gray stands out as a rancher who worked hard all his life to build what he has today, living on his land, knowing it intimately and believing in it.

(New ranch owners are very different these days. Oil money, computer chip money, or who-knows-what money has enabled buyers from the world over to try their hand at “ranchin'” for awhile. This happens so often now and it is really painful to hear of the old places spinning through ownership. The new owners live far away, not on the land. They come for events with parties of friends, streaming through town hitting all the cute shops, talking loud. When the fun is over they jet on home to tell of “being there” but not knowing much about where they've been.)

Since I am an artist, I always look at the artwork of books; their dust covers, drawings, and photographs. Both books have plenty. I am just a bit perturbed by a few faults I noticed in the dust cover drawing of the new book. A figure on horseback sits, right leg over the saddle swells, looking off into the distance. Clearly the drawing is of West Texas because there are mountains and grass bunches in the distance. If the rider is supposed to be Ted Gray there are some glaring discrepancies. Some of the rider's gear is more often found in Wyoming or Montana, although there are many street cowboys in Alpine today sporting that look. But all the photographs of Ted Gray and his contemporaries do not show those men in dress like that. They wore khakis or jeans, small cowman Stetsons, some wore boots, others high-top lace-up work shoes, and many wore long, loose-legged leather chaps which almost covered their stirrups. I ought to know this look, it is the look of my childhood in West Texas. So ingrained in me is it that when I see the modern “cowboy” I just can't help muttering something about a dude. They can't work cattle in all that truck, it's dangerous besides taking hours to buckle and tie it all on. Don't get me started on those mini-skirted things called chaps; what use are they in brush?

But it is the saddle stirrups in the drawing that keep it from being of Ted Gray. Modern high-top boots rest in open stirrups, an unforgivable lack of observance by the artist. Ted Gray used covered stirrups all his life and this is clearly visible in all but a couple of early photographs in the earlier book. It is the one very distinctive characteristic of his tack. I have not read far enough in the new book to discover whether he has anything to say about his stirrups (if not, it still would not excuse the artist, who is supposed to be visually oriented). I am interested in his use of covered stirrups because that is all we were allowed on our saddles when we were children. The dread slip of a foot through an open stirrup and the gruesome consequences of being drug to death was a just often enough repeated story to keep us from asking for anything else. Our father was adamant that we only ride with covered stirrups, and each saddle was provided with a tooled leather flap braded and laced onto each open stirrup frame. We felt marked as children riders, not western ranch riders.

Anytime there was a discussion about our stirrups it seemed another person had a terrible story to relate. I remember old Ben Vargas of Alpine, Papa's crew boss who built our adobe house, told us about a female he saw bouncing over the rocks behind her horse. Those stories just won't leave the memory, although I do actively avoid thinking of them. We thought it was just Papa who insisted on our safety and felt singled out stirrup-wise, even though rancher friends often complemented us on “our” wisdom. I suspected they had been put up to it somehow, somewhere. Gradually we began to notice in photographs and old paintings that these stirrups could be quite elegant and taken to real heights in design. There were fancy Spanish versions with latigos dangling from conchos, huge Old West ones in unusual shapes, and some were bullet-shaped that form-fit the foot. We saw real working cowboys using them on ranches and sometimes in rodeos in Pecos. Maybe it was okay. My saddle today has open stirrups and somehow doesn't seem complete. It's as if the maker left something off. It's true that what's learned in childhood sets things in gear for later.

Not too many years ago Papa's niece gave us her old English saddle, and to our utter amusement it came with covered English stirrups. So Papa was not the only one in his family who held these views; our Uncle Clarence insisted that Betsy ride in safety. The only thing was that she had to endure covered stirrups on an English saddle, horror upon horror. That really did stick out as different. Covered stirrups on western saddles were acceptable, but not these. They were hand built, stiffened with beeswax, and braded onto an English stirrup, and they do look funny. I can see Uncle Clarence directing the saddlemaker and Betsy whining but getting nowhere. I took them up to the saddlemaker in Boerne to get new straps for them and he was agog. He had never seen anything like them, but gamely restored them with additional beeswax and told me to hang onto them because they were an item. The English saddle is less than comfortable and we try not to use it often. We recently bought a dressage saddle from our cousin Kelly, Papa's brother Arthur's daughter. She was not selling her stirrups so we went right in and brought out the covered ones. She was disbelieving and really horrified that we had no qualms about using them. She said it was possibly okay if we just stayed on the Ranch with them. To me they look just fine (haven't we all come a long way) and of course they're mighty safe.

Bebe Fenstermaker

Our cousin Kelly finally convinced me to visit her. She lives west of the Pecos River in the town of Fort Davis. I am wary now when visiting that part of Texas. It is where I spent much of my youth. I remember the mountains and the wide open spaces of that time. I have visited there since our family moved away, so I am aware of the changes that have been made to the landscape. Even so, driving up from Balmorhea was still spectacular, winding up and up through the mountains to higher elevations. One of my favorite mountains, Star Mountain, was, as always, a special treat for me to see. We drove under rain clouds during that last leg of our trip, running through a little shower at one point. We ate supper that evening on the screened porch and enjoyed the lovely, fresh cool breeze. We looked down over the town where a street dance was under way. The band was good. They played everything, country western, conjunto, rock ‘n' roll, tejano, and even cajun. Fireworks could be seen going off from one end of town to the other. After all, it was the Saturday before the Fourth of July.

West Texas is no longer the state's best kept secret. It was “discovered” in the early 1960s, not long after we had moved away. Many more people live there now, more than the last time I visited. Ranching is no longer the main engine that drives the small towns. People and their needs do. They have come to the area from all over the country. Many have decided to make it their home, while others are content to just spend their vacations there. Much to my delight, the old adobes are being snapped up and restored. Some of the ranchers are subdividing their flat, rolling great pastures into a mix of manufactured homes, ones built from scratch, and trailers. Where once I could look forever and see nary a structure, now that is no longer possible. When I look at a mountain I have to steel myself for that mansion perched on top and its accompanying road scar from top to bottom. The newcomers speak of the “magic of the place” and how it drew them there. I fear that “magic” is in real danger of being destroyed and thus lost to future generations. The National Park Service, Texas Parks and Wildlife, and the Texas Nature Conservancy are three entities that have acquired various land holdings and set them aside, in one form or another, for the future. Some of the old families are keeping their ranches intact for future generations but it is a struggle given the shift in this state's population dynamics. A few newcomers have bought ranches. The future of some seems safe, while the fate of others remains to be seen. If any West Texan, old timer or newcomer, questions the importance of preserving the “magic” of the area, I invite them to visit another part of the state that once had a “magic” of its own. That would be the Texas Hill Country. Come soon, it is disappearing as I write.

West Texas has always attracted writers and artists. Go into a local bookstore and one finds on the shelves historical accounts of the Indians, U.S. cavalry forts, the Buffalo Soldiers, early settlers, ranches and their cowboys, and the merchants. Artists have left visual accounts of living in the area or their visits to it. During the mid to late 1960s, the artist Donald Judd arrived. When looking at his art one can understand why he was drawn to the area around Marfa. He became a major presence in that town. By the middle 1990s Marfa, Alpine, Marathon, Fort Davis, Terlingua, and Lajitas had attracted even more artists. Galleries popped up everywhere. Galleries opening evenings became popular and remain so even today. Art councils were established in the towns to coordinate functions and to organize participation in other activities of the towns.

Sissy Fenstermaker