When the Generations Connect in Unusual Ways.

Daddy was the youngest of a large polygamous family. Many of his older half-brothers had moved to Idaho before he was born so we never met them.  Grandpa owned sheep, like his father before him. By the time, Daddy came along, Grandpa had given all his sheep away to his older sons. Not one sheep left for Daddy. He herded for his older brothers, and earned every sheep he ever owned. He homesteaded, leased BLM land, and acquired land through hard work to run his sheep. In the early years, they ran the sheep on Cedar Mountain during the summer months. They wintered on the Arizona Strip. Later he ran them on the Sands in the wintertime and up in the Oaks during the summer. Mama took her first babies and camped on Cedar Mountain in a tent or sheep wagon all summer long.

Roland Esplin’s wife, Vilate, wrote:

Sometimes in the summer months, Amy would go up and camp in a tent and stay with Lynn.  He really appreciated having her with him.
     One spring, Lynn had his own sheep taking them to the summer range.  They had separated the sheep in the corrals below Mt. Carmel. Lynn was on a horse herding his sheep and leading a packhorse. Roland was herding his father's sheep. He was taking sheep for pay while herding his father's sheep. Amy and her three children, Shirley, Lucy and Lynn James, who was just a baby, were riding in a wagon while Lynn's father was driving the team.  LaVoy (Roland's brother) was driving the team that pulled the wagon my two children, Gwenavere and Garn, and I were riding in. We stopped about halfway up there and ate our lunch under some trees. I can still remember the delicious pickles your mother had made which she shared with us. We, in turn, shared some of our food with her. When we arrived at the ranch, I had a house to go to.  Amy was going to spend her summer in a tent. (Now we know why Mama wondered why we thought going camping was fun.)

Later, Daddy would go out to the “herd” for three or four days at a time; come in for a day or two, then go back out. In the summertime, some of us kids would go out to the herd in the Oaks with him for three or four days at a time.

My brother Lynn, who was 14 years old when Daddy died, wrote: “As a businessman Daddy was very successful. His entire ranch was paid for, starting from nothing just fifteen years before. He had no debts. He took sheep for wages from his older brothers and then bought four homesteads, Alvin "Tink" Spencer's, Howard "Howdy" Spencer's, Earl Sorensen's and Joe Jorgensen's.”

“As Daddy told me about his youth, he encouraged me to work hard and to set high goals. I learned about his philosophy of life, his hopes and some of his dreams as he encouraged me to prepare to be a man of integrity and worth. He said that he believed that every person should work hard and become very good in at least one thing, maybe even better than anyone else.  As I learned more about him I often wondered what that one thing was that he excelled in, he seemed so good in so many ways.  Was it his skill with horses?  He trained horses and had the reputation in Orderville of being able to ride any horse.  A number of old timers in Orderville have told me he wouldn't have a horse anyone else could ride.

“Maybe it was his love and care of all animals. He always had the best trained sheep dogs. His cows and horses and sheep were always well selected and well fed. He took great pride in caring for his animals.

“Daddy's physical ability could have been his greatest achievement. He could walk farther, longer and faster than anyone I knew. He kept a sharp axe and cut mountains of oak wood for our wood stove at home. He was always carrying fifty pounds of salt on his shoulder out to the most remote places on his range so the sheep would do better and they would not congregate around the water so much. One time when a mountain lion got in our sheep and killed over thirty lambs in one night he got the local lion hunter who had a ranch about ten miles away to come with his dogs to hunt it down. His name was Jack Butler and he had a ‘dude’ with him. They got up early in the morning and started out to find the cougar. I was quite young then and had to stay in camp and didn't get to go but I could hear the hounds baying for a long time as they left in the direction they thought the cougar would be. By mid-morning they were back. The hounds had got the scent of the lion and they and my Dad on foot, had started out in pursuit, leaving the other two men and their horses far behind. The hounds treed the cougar in a small pinion just under Jimmy Creek Point but it soon jumped out again and started running up the rocky hillside. Daddy shot the cougar before it reached the top.

“One of Daddy's old friends, Willard Meeks told us about an incident that happened when they were at the herd together. Sheep can run quite fast, especially downhill.  Weathers are larger and stronger and can run faster than other sheep. Anyway Willard bet Daddy that he couldn't catch a big weather they had in their herd as it ran down the bottom of Birch Canyon. Needless to say he lost the bet.

“Uncle Lawrence tells the story about one time he and Daddy met in the Head of Earl's Canyon and talked for a while. They parted and Daddy rode his horse on down the­ canyon. In a few minutes Uncle Lawrence heard Daddy yell for help. He hurried down to where Daddy was. He had broken a rein or hackamore rope or something and lost control of his horse. He was sitting on the horse, keeping him in check by holding onto a large oak tree. It was his strength against that of the horse.

“I guess the thing I remember best about Daddy’s physical strength was trying to keep up with him as we looked after the sheep, checked the coyote traps, and did other chores on the sheep ranch. Sometimes I thought I would never make it back to camp. I think he wanted me to exert myself, to have to try hard, to work hard. One time after our horse ‘Ole Brownie’ died at Bob Creek, I had been bugging him for a new horse when he said to me, ‘You are a man now, and men have to work for what they get.’ Daddy wanted his children to be successful in life and he believed very strongly in hard work, honesty, integrity, and self-sufficiency. He thought a man should stand on his own two feet - be independent. Taking good care of your body and keeping physically fit was a good way to help accomplish this, he felt.

“I was never quite sure what Daddy felt his successful area was, I wasn't sure for myself either. To a young boy it seemed he could do anything. I wanted to work hard and be like him.

“Anyway back to May 1947. Daddy had spent the winter on the Arizona Strip taking care of 5000 sheep belonging to Roland Esplin and himself. The winters are terribly cold when you are out like that all the time. A small ‘Sheep Wagon’ was his home. One other man was also there. His job was to take care of the horses and move the camp. In spite of the cold and other hardships Daddy remained healthy and strong and didn't have a cold all winter long. He came home in mid-April for a month vacation before the sheep came up to the summer range.

“We had bought two horses from Chirs Heaton the fall before.  My favorite, the one I claimed right off was a three year old gelding named Skip.  He had been ridden only once and was not very large because he had not received good care.  When we went over to get him, Daddy put a hackamore on him and legged me on.  Before I could even get hold of the rope he started to buck and quickly threw me off.  I learned another thing about my dad that day as he immediately helped me back on our new horse.  This time I stayed on and after riding around the corral for a few minutes Daddy sent me along the trail through the creek by­ the little field to the barn on my new horse, while he took the pickup around the road. I was very proud and somewhat apprehensive as I rode Skip home.

“I did not get much time to ride Skip that fall and by spring he had forgotten everything so Daddy was spending a lot of time riding and working with him during his month vacation. He would ride him up to the high school track and sit on him and watch me workout. I had won second place in the quarter mile at the BYU Invitational Track Meet earlier that spring and we were both excited about my prospects in track.”-- Lynn James Esplin son of John Lynn Esplin son of John James Esplin son of John Esplin, whose cottage we visited in Scotland.

His nephew, Roland Esplin whom Lynn James talked about above, the oldest son of Daddy’s older brother, sold his sheep for one million dollars back when a million dollars was worth a million dollars (around 1950).

So that is the family history behind my story:

As it happened, our son Brooke was scheduled to play his French horn with the Utah Symphony in Abravanel Hall on his grandpa’s birthday. (It would have been Daddy's 93rd birthday--March 21, 1997). It seemed a long ways from the sheepherd to symphony hall; yet I think Brooke would be perfectly happy at the sheepherd and I think Daddy enjoyed good music. 

By coincidence, it appeared the concert itself was in Daddy’s honor.  They played The Cowboys Overture; then the Suite from The Big Country, and On the Trail from the Grand Canyon Suite.

The featured guest artist was seventy-two year old Chet Atkins, the country-Western guitarist credited with single-handedly rescuing country music and bringing it into the modern era with his eclectic tastes and sensitivity to the new recording technology, some of which he invented.

There was foot stampin’ and clappin’ and yahooin’ I didn’t ever think I’d see the likes of in Abravanel Hall. 

To end this western evening, we all joined in singing America the Beautiful.

Tearful on many levels.

The Sheepherder's Grandsons - 1994 - Eddy & Brooke