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PURCHASE BOOK

Ruth's Family History

Ruth is working on a family history project. These are her notes from family interviews. 

This interview is with my grand-daddy, Joe Willows.

Ruth: Grand-daddy, tell me about yourself and what you do.
Joe: I own and operate Tall Willows Ranch. We breed and train quarter horses. It’s a family business I started it about forty-five years ago. I am also a proud member of the Kiwanis Club
Ruth: Did you always live here in Golden Valley?
Joe: No, my parents had a little ranch a few hours outside of Pueblo. I bought this place when I was dating your Grandmother and we wanted to get married and have a place to call home. It was just the house and a barn with a few fields. As my business grew I bought more land, made improvements, and it is what we have today.
Ruth: Tell me about your family growing up.
Joe: Growin’ up I was one of six. I’m second to the youngest. I have four sisters (three older and one younger) and one brother. My parents had a small cattle ranch. We farmed enough to be self-sufficient and sold beef for income. All of us kids had jobs on the ranch. My older brother, Robert, and I were the cowboys. We did everything on horseback: rounded up the herd, caught calves for branding, you name it. I fell in love with working with the horses and that’s why I started my own training and breeding business. You want me to tell you the story of how I met your Grandmother?
Ruth: Sure Grand-daddy, but is there anything else you want to say about growing up?
Joe: Well it was certainly a different time to be alive. No cell phones – which was a blessing and a curse. There were computers, but not like we have today. One computer could fill an entire room. Your grandmother worked with one of them when she went to college. She’s where you and your daddy get your smarts. Did you know she was supposed to work for NASA – but she turned them down.
Ruth: No, I don’t know that story.
Joe: She was a very, very bright lady, and her parents sent her to college to be an engineer – which was not typical in that day and age. Her daddy intended for her to get a graduate degree and he wanted her to work for NASA because he LOVED the space program.
Loretta had different plans. The Women’s Rights Movement was in full swing, but Lottie really wanted to get married and raise a family. Soon after we first met, she told me that she had turned down an internship offer from the space program and made me swear that I would never tell her father. Her father was not happy that she was going to marry me and not go to grad school. I don’t know if he ever found out about the NASA offer.

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© Created by Heywood Paige

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© Created by Heywood Paige

All rights Reserved