Unspun Tales: Sheep in San Juan County kicked off the 62nd season for the Aztec Museum & Pioneer Village on Saturday and gave attendees a better understanding of the importance of the region’s sheep heritage.
After a brief business meeting conducted by Debbie Klein, Aztec Museum & Pioneer Village Association board president, a diverse panel hosted by Katy Scott Moss featured Jack Scott; J. Paul Brown; Nioma Gallegos; Bill Hateley; Les Wilson; Irma Henderson; and Jennifer Halpin, Four Corners Stockmans Association president.
The panelists shared anecdotes and family stories about sheep herding in Southwest Colorado and Northwest New Mexico and gave insights into what life was like for their parents and grandparents.
“At one time, there were 60,000 lambs shipped out of here in Aztec through the stockyards every year,” Scott said, adding that about 30,000 lambs were shipped out of Farmington along with their wool.
Sheep can survive on snow, unlike cows who must be watered, Scott said, noting that sheep will eat sagebrush while cows won’t.
Scott said stillborn lambs are often skinned so orphaned lambs can be wrapped in the skin and be adopted by the ewe, which identifies with the lamb skin and raises the orphan lamb as its own.
Discussing Finnsheep, Scott said ewes may have up to seven lambs, which if bred into the herd will increase the percentage of twins and triplets.
“I can say there’s nothing sadder than an orphan lamb with the skin of a dead lamb tied onto it,” Moss said.
Gallegos, born on a ranch in Allison, Colo., recounted helping her dad with sheep as a young girl. Both parents came from sheep herding families, with her mom herding sheep around the Chimney Rock area with her older brother.
Her father took up sheep herding when her grandfather died around 1912, leaving her mother with eight children. Her father and his older brother stopped attending school to become sheep herders.
Gallegos said her father recalled going to Mancos, Colorado, at 13 years old with his brother to herd sheep and feeling “so homesick,” not being familiar with Macos. The brothers, who ended up sheep herding in Utah, eventually discovered they could make more money working in the mines around Park City.
Her parent bought a ranch in Allison and raised a flock of about 50 sheep, she said. As a skinny girl of 7 or 8, Gallegos recalled being awakened by her father before dawn to help drive the flock for grazing to Lone Tree, Colorado.
The herd followed the ringing of a bell worn by the lead sheep and quickly crossed a 15-foot-high bridge over the Piedra River, she said.
“It’s a mass run across that bridge, which was great,” said Gallegos. “We didn’t lose a single sheep.” They drove the flock 35 miles in one day.
Gallegos also talked about packing the wool down with her feet in a big 7-foot-long gunny sack, which her mother stopped doing because of sheep ticks and her lanolin-saturated pants.
Hately talked primarily about his grandfather Orville Vernon Smith from Aztec, who was a chief animal inspector from 1927 to 1959 when he retired.
“If he were here today, he would probably say something like, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help,’” Hately said, eliciting a few chuckles from attendees. “But remember the 1920s and 30s. He was serious about helping the sheep herders and then the cattle ranches too,” adding his affection for sheep was from being a sheep herder.
Smith, who stood 5 feet 6 inches tall, was “a bundle of energy” and could befriend anybody, Hately said. At age 11, fleeing his abusive father, Smith hopped a train and ended up in Roswell, New Mexico, where he was adopted by the Corn family, who ran a large sheep farm.
Smith joined the 36th Engineers in 1917 to serve in World War I and helped break horses for the Cavalry in France. Upon his return to the Carrizozo area, he bought a ranch and became a veterinary assistant.
Smith met Elsie Avisa Townsend at a dance in Aztec. They married shortly after and went back to his ranch in Carrizozo, where Hately’s mother was born. In 1927, they moved back to Aztec where Smith became a sheep inspector. Smith has a copy of his contract of the State of New Mexico, showing he made $1,000 a year.
For the next 40 years, Smith worked as a very popular sheep inspector. He served all of Northwest New Mexico.
“And the reason he was so popular, he could speak fluent Spanish, fluent Navajo as well as English,” said Hately, adding his grandmother always complained “he was never home.”
Hately shared a couple of Smith’s favorite sayings, such as “If you tell a man you’re going to hit him you better do it, or he’ll never have any respect for you.”
He said he taught his grandkids that a handshake should seal the deal, because “If your word’s no good, what good is your signature?”
The Aztec Museum has an exhibit with photos of Smith and his stack of detailed ledgers can be viewed.
Henderson, 78, whose mother was born in 1911 under a bridge in Shiprock, said she grew up in the Table Mesa Little Water area south of Shiprock.
The last living of nine children, Henderson grew up herding about 60 to 70 sheep in the mountains.
“We went there because we hated to work at home work on the farm,” Henderson said, prompting laughter from attendees.
Her mother was “a great character” in her upbringing, always telling the children if they don’t like farmwork and sheep herding, they should go to school.
Henderson said she didn’t really know how to prepare wool growing up, but she learned after her mother died 20 years ago, leaving the sheep to her children. Her mother favored the Churro sheep, who have no hair on their face or legs and rarely abandoned their babies.
“They were just clean, except their wool was long and the fiber was also really long, not so greasy,” Henderson said, adding she learned how to wash the wool and shear by hand with huge scissors.
Sharing a story about her mother’s “antagonizing” of the men she brought home, Henderson said her mother would sit them down and ask, “what is his clan and on and on,” and finally tell her, “You stay away from that guy.”
“So I end up with Les – he doesn’t have a clan,” she said to hearty laughter.
Wilson replied, “I grew up in California, that’s kind of shameful.”
Henderson said she calls San Diegoans like Wilson the “beach clan.”
Wilson, who’s owned the Two Grey Hills Trading Post for the last 40 years, said, “I don’t know what to say about it. I’m tired of doing it.”
He said rugs, arts and crafts are the trading post’s focus now Walmarts and dollar stores have been built everywhere.
The couple met when Henderson stopped by the trading post and asked for something for a stomach ache.
“He gave me an Alka-Selzer,” Henderson said.
“And you never left,” said Wilson to more laughter.
Halpin, who’s also involved with 4-H, said the Four Corners Stockmans Association nonprofit is dedicated to supporting youth involvement in agriculture.
“Because agriculture is dying across the country, our county fairs are shrinking,” Halpin said, noting that it’s getting harder and harder to get youth involved in agriculture.
FCSA provides graduating high school seniors with scholarships to help “keep agriculture alive.” And, they put on a livstock show for individuals with special needs or disabilities at the San Juan County Fair.
An at-risk youth project provides an animal and feed for the youth to raise, with a scholarship provided upon completion.
Halpin traced the roughly 140-year history of the county fair, which has become “extremely competitive.” Jeanette Nichols, who’s family has a long legacy of raising and exhibiting sheep, has her name on the show ring in the sheep barn.
Additionally, Halpin said, sheep wear the blankets to protect their sensitive skin after being sheared and are muzzled to keep them from eating things like cotton candy and turkey legs.
J. Paul Brown said there were probably 100,000 head of sheep between Aztec and the Durango-Pagosa area.
“And now we’re it, Debbie and I. We’re the last one standing that have a range operation,” Brown said, adding they run sheep in Crouch Meas and Knickerbocker and on the Scott’s private land in the winter.
Their sheep are trail sheep who never get on a truck, Brown said. He invited everyone to be part of the celebration of bringing the sheep down from the mountain when they pass through Bayfield the last Saturday in September.
Brown said he was really surprised to see his mom’s picture as the first winner of the National Make It With Wool contest back when she was about 16 years old.
Recalling the rich history of his family in the sheep business, Brown said his dad Casey visited Durango on a senior trip, fell in love with it and convinced his dad to visit Durango.
“My granddad, he was kind of gregarious. He got around to the coffee shops and and stuff, and found out that there was a sheep outfit that was for sale,” Brown said. “My granddad bought it well on a shoestring.”
Casey at one time owned a trading post, Navajo Center, in Farmington and learned how to speak Diné and always tried to use Navajo herders.
“Now it’s very hard to get Navajo sheep herders that will stay,” Brown said. “It’s just that time … so we’re using Peruvian herders now.”
Regarding their current herd of about 2,300 sheep, Brown said by crossbreeding their Finn rams with Rambouillet ewes, they have achieved a strong lamb percentage.
With lambing season currently underway – with about 3,400 lambs born in 17 days – Brown joked, “if anybody knows my wife, please don’t tell her I’m down here. I snuck off. I just thought it was neat you guys were having this.”
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