The Matlock Ranch

This is from my mom’s journal, written in 1991.

I have left it exactly as written.

This is the house where I was born and lived until I was 13 years old. At that time the house was white, and there was a balcony across the front on the second story, instead of the upper window, there was a door. It had a white picket fence across the front and a white gate. The house had rather a long kitchen, with a well behind the door, which we didn’t use. Behind the wood kitchen stove, to one side, was an opening into the wood box, so we didn’t have to go outside for wood. There was swinging door between the kitchen and dining room, a front room which had a lovely old foot pumped organ. How I loved that organ. I used to imagine myself being able to play it when I got big. Mother and Dad’s bedroom opened off the front room. All of us kids slept upstairs. There were two big bedrooms and a small one, and a large landing at the top of the stairs. In the bedroom where we girls slept was a big bed with a high headboard and a matching armoire, the most beautiful thing. That set, as well as the organ belonged to Mrs. Matlock, the owner of the ranch. My father was renting the ranch from her. In the front yard were lilac bushes and other bushes, also different kinds of trees, and especially the honey locusts, which were so fragrant. When they bloomed in the spring, the were alive with honeybees. The yards were large and afforded us kids lots of room to play.

The Matlock Ranch where I was born, was about 17 miles east of Salmon, up the Lemhi River, halfway between Baker and Tendoy. It was quite a large ranch, cattle mainly. It had the usual farm buildings, horse barn, cow barn, chicken coop, pig pen, and a “separator” house, where Dad separated with a hand turned separator, the cream from the milk. He sold cream to the “creamery” or cheese plant in Salmon. Mother made cottage cheese out of some of the milk. Dad grew wheat, alfalfa, and raised cattle.

The ranch was quite large, with the goat (?) hills on the West, and beyond them, the mountains of the Salmon range. On the East, bound by the Lemhi River, there were also more mountains beyond foothills, part of the Sawtooth’s. The Lemhi Valley, to me was, and is, one of the most beautiful valleys in Idaho. Cattle ranching was predominant. Some sheep, but mostly cattle.