Archives and Special Collections Mansfield Library, University of Montana Missoula MT 59812-9936 Email: [email protected] Telephone: (406) 243-2053

This transcript represents the nearly verbatim record of an unrehearsed interview. Please bear in mind that you are reading the spoken word rather than the written word.

Oral History Number: 049-040 Interviewee: Fannie Sperry Steele Interviewer: Kathy White Date of Interview: October 22,1976 Project: Montana Women's Oral History Project

Note: This interview is difficult to hear and unintelligible in many places.

Kathy White: This is Kathy White talking with Fannie Steele at the Cooney Convalescent Center, in Helena, Montana, October 22,1976, I just happened to have a calendar there.

Fannie, I wanted to talk to you—first before we get into your rodeo career—talk to you about your parents and where they came from and your early life in Montana. Your father and mother came here from Detroit [Michigan], is that right?

Fannie Steele: Yes.

KW: Your father came here first?

FS: Yes, he came out first. I can't remember that good. Now, that sister-in-law of mine, she knows all about that.

KW: What did your folks do? Why did they come to Montana?

FS: Well, gosh, I don't for sure about that either. She does, though, I think. She knows more about it than I do.

KW: What did they do for a living?

FS: They got cows—milk cows. My dad, when he come here, he had some big horses—big Percheron horses.

KW: He did?

FS: I don't know what he did with the horses. I never heard what he done with them. He used to have them though, and he used to work them. He even worked them—drove them to town. My mother used to make butter, and he took it to town, peddled butter, in town. He used to drive them big horses to town for quite a long time. They weighed about 14, 16 hundred pounds.

KW: Big horses. Did he always have those horses around? 1 Fannie Sperry Steele Interview, OH 049-040, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. FS: Well, that's so long ago, I don't remember whether he...He must have brought the horses from where they come from. I didn't know too much about that. Frieda and them...that's my sister-in-law. She's my youngest brother's wife. She knows more about all that hearing them talk about it than I do.

KW: It says here that your father did some freighting in Fort Benton before he came to Helena.

FS: Yes. He did that.

KW: He might have used the horses for his freighting operation then.

FS: He done that, and then he worked in the...They used to cut timber here and float it down the Missouri River to Fort Benton. But a lot of that early stuff I (unintelligible). I don't remember it—what it's all about.

KW: He used those horses for a variety of different things it seems.

FS: He had them there on the ranch and he used them for everything.

KW: Well, did he, then, start ranching when you were a child?

FS: I think he was ranching in Helena, but not out there. Not out in the Beartooths.

KW: Where did you go to school?

FS: Mitchell, Montana. Now there ain't no Mitchell in the country anymore.

KW: Is that out by Sleeping Giant, too?

FS: It's where Sieben is now.

KW: Oh. How far was that from your place?

FS: We call it five or five-and-a-half miles. I think a little over five miles. That's where we went to school.

Wait a minute, I got to tell you something else first. The Indians used to come through there, you know. Go down to Fort Benton, the land of the buffalo. Went almost right through the place.

KW: Right, because they'd go through that gap where the highway is now, is that right?

2 Fannie Sperry Steele Interview, OH 049-040, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. FS: No. They come from the other way, from Great Falls way, I think.

KW: Back this way...?

FS: I don't know exactly how they did it. I think that's where they come from or they might have come more the other way—the Washington way. I don't know for sure just where they come from. Those Indians came through all the time.

KW: When you were a kid...?

FS: Yes. They were going through down to Fort Benton way, and they'd put these...My dad worked there while he was cutting timber and floating the logs down on the river down to Fort Benton. Then when he got through, I think was when he come up with the team. I don't think— he might have drove the team up sometimes from Fort Benton.

When they were married, anyway, they was married at Fort Benton. My mother come from Detroit, and they was married at Fort Benton. Did he have a mule team, or did he have the big Percheron horses then, I guess? I don't know for sure. I think he had the big Percheron horses then, though. I know when I was little, that's all I seen around the place —

KW: No mules?

FS: —those great big horses. He drove a team, both stallions, and great big ones.

KW: Did he ever have any encounters with the Indians that were less than friendly?

FS: No, I think they was all friendly Indians. I don't think he ever had trouble...any...

KW: Did you enjoy seeing the Indians when you were a child? Was that something that was exciting for you?

FS: Oh, yes. Us kids would get awfully excited about the Indians coming through. Sometimes they'd come right through by the house. They come through below the house and run across over and down the hill to the Missouri River. More like an Indian trail then, it was a regular Indian trail is what it was. They didn't come right through the ranch. They missed the ranch. But that's where they went all the time, below the ranch. Where we got our horses, they come through there once, and there was a part Indian—a half-breed Indian—worked for my dad for a long time,Bill O'Connell. He happened to see the Indians once coming through there—a whole bunch of Indians. We never seen them too much then because we weren't down there or we would see them unless they just happened to come by while we was there. They had a bunch of horses. They had a colt that was played out. The poor little colt couldn't keep up any more.

3 Fannie Sperry Steele Interview, OH 049-040, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. So this fellow that was working for us—he was an Indian, you know—so he asked them what they wanted for that colt. They said the colt just couldn't keep up anymore. He said, "What do you want for that colt?" I think he paid a dollar for that colt, (laughs) It was a young colt, you know. It was played out, just about played out. They was going clear up by Fort Benton was where they was headed for.

KW: But the colt was weaned so you could keep it?

FS: Oh, yes. It was a little yearling—probably it was just a half-yearling. I don't know just how old it was. But it couldn't keep up, and so he paid a dollar for it.

KW: Did he give it to you?

FS: No. He gave it to Carrie, my oldest sister. Then every colt they had to give the rest of us down the line (laughs).

KW: So that's how all you kids got your horses—

FS: Yes.

KW: —from that one start.

FS: Yes, from that one pony.

KW: How old were you when you first learned to ride?

FS: Oh, I couldn't guess that! How old I was when someone set me on a horse...

KW: So you remember being born knowing how to ride a horse. Is that just about right?

FS: Well, pretty near, because we had to go to school, to Mitchell, you know. We couldn't go to Helena. It was too far. We didn't have anything but that team and one little old white horse. Where we got the little, white horse, that's something I can't...Us kids used to ride him around and that was all he'd do. We had fun with him. You'd get back too far, and he'd kick up. (laughs) He wouldn't hurt nobody neither. He just done that for fun. Well, then she got that colt, and as the colt growed up, well, they gave the colt—each colt—to the next kid, the next oldest kid.

KW: It was lucky that colt was a mare then, right?

FS: Yes. (laughs) Bertha got one, and let's see...Bertha got one and then Arthur got one and then...There was five of us, and we got all of them colts just as they come (laughs). That's the

4 Fannie Sperry Steele Interview, OH 049-040, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. way we learned to ride was riding on them colts. My dad wouldn't ride a horse. He said he just...it made him tired. He said he didn't want to ride a horse. I never seen him on a horse either.

KW: Really?

FS: My mother done all the riding. If there was riding to do, she done it.

KW: Your mother liked to ride?

FS: Yes. She had to!

KW: Did she have her own horse?

FS: No. She rode the same...I don't know what they had. I guess they had an old horse before they used to live over by Helena for a while. This side of Helena, don't know exactly where. What do they call that place? Little old...just close in by Helena between this road that comes this way and the one that comes over the hill. Him and his brother had the place together. I never saw that place. I wasn't born there.

KW: But your mom had a horse there?

FS: I don't know where she got the first horse she had. All I would remember about that was when she rode that white horse.

KW: Did she ride side-saddle?

FS: Yes. She rode side-saddle, but I never seen her on the side-saddle. She didn't ride on it—

KW: She didn't ride it unless there was company around or what?

FS: Well, I don't know. That was so far back I don't remember.

KW: She did ride straddle though?

FS: Oh, yes, afterwards she did. Golly, she had such wild horses, and everything else.

KW: Did you ever ride side-saddle?

FS: No, I didn't. I got on one once just for fun, and I thought I was going to fall off when the horse started to walk, (laughs)

Fannie Sperry Steele Interview, OH 049-040, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. KW: I know they're rather uncomfortable.

FS: I'll say they are! I think it'd break anybody's back sitting on there that way.

KW: It amazes me that women could ride at all on those things.

FS: Some women could too—ride pretty good. I seen a woman in a show one time at—I think it was a big show with eight rings. By golly, she rode her jumping horse on the side-saddle. How about that? She did.

KW: She did --jum ped him and everything.

You went to a school there in Mitchell through the fifth grade. Do you remember your schooling?

FS: Yes, I remember the first teacher. Gee, I don't know if she's alive now. I don't think...very long ago she died. Minnie Lane (?) and her sister used to be there, where Sieben is now, they had a bunch of little cabins along on the hill there just before you turn to go down. Of course, now the road goes above it altogether. It used to go down where the...have you ever been there?

KW: Yes.

FS: Where the old cottonwood grove was down along the creek above Sieben's ranch? That's where the school house was. I think they took it down now. I think they said they took it down. That's where we used to go to school. We had to go that far. At first we didn't have no place to put the horses. We had to put hobbles on them. Sometimes they'd take out for home, and we'd have to walk halfway home to find the horses.

KW: Had to walk home to find your horse.

FS: Find the horse and then go back and saddle and start back, (laughs)

KW: Did you always take them oats just in case that happened?

FS: Gosh, I don't think we ever give them any oats. We just hobbled them. They'd stay around most of the time. Once in a while they'd take a notion to go home and let us walk.

KW: Your niece told me that you went to school through the fifth grade there at Mitchell. Is that about as far as the school itself went? Could you have gone through eighth grade? Could you have gone to high school if you had wanted to?

6 Fannie Sperry Steele Interview, OH 049-040, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. FS: Not really, I don't know.

KW: You would have had to come into Helena if you'd wanted to get more schooling?

FS: Yes. Of course, we didn't have...we weren't overloaded with money so they couldn't send...They sent Carrie to town for a while—my oldest sister. She's the mother of them girls now that's down there at (unintelligible). She had ten children altogether, my oldest sister. They've had, what, about four or five?

KW: So they sent Carrie to school in town?

FS: In town for a while, yes.

KW: Did they want her to be a teacher? Was there any special reason—that she was the oldest child?

FS: I don't know anything about that even. The only thing I do know is that they sent her. I think they drove a single horse—kind of a light buggy. There's three of them that go'ed all the time by horse and buggy. Well, then the horse he got mad one day, and he didn't want to go to school anymore so...I don't know what he done. He upset the rig, anyway, and busted it up. That's when they started to ride to school because they didn't have no horse. Had a horse but no cart, I mean. So they went to school quite a while—the three of them: Bertha and Carrie, and Arthur. They went to school that way with the horse—just a single horse. I don't know how he happened to get mad, but he went up and busted the wagon. Busted a wheel of the wagon or something. Then Arthur and us other two kids rode for two or three years—I don't know how long—to school. Five miles over there. They call it five and a half now. I'd have to walk out after the horses in the morning, get up and walk out after our own horse. Of course, we had a pasture, but it was a pretty big one. Go out and walk after the horse.

KW: So you'd go and catch the horse every morning before you'd go to school?

FS: Well, we'd bring them down to the house, then get them.

KW: What did you do after you finished your schooling?

FS: Well, what we had to do was stay home and work.

KW: You worked on the ranch?

FS: Milked a lot of cows.

KW: What were your chores on the ranch?

7 Fannie Sperry Steele Interview, OH 049-040, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. FS: Milking cows. Bertha, the oldest girl, she was the one that—that's Mrs. Andy Younger down there now. She's in the hospital now. She's 92 or 3 years old. She used to help with the cooking mostly. She done most of the cooking after—my mother was pretty old then, you know. My mother, they wasn't married until she was getting way up there too, above 28, 20...I don't know exactly when she was married, but way in her late 20s. She used to like to ride. There's a lot of wild horses in that country, you know. Hadn't been corralled for 20 years.

KW: Isn't that funny.

FS: They finally got some of them. They shot some of the older ones, and then they got them younger ones. Then they put them across the river. They thought they'd have them in a different place, and then they could corral them. But they couldn't corral them after a while. There were all the colts—I don't know how many colts there was. It might have been yearlings and colts. Probably was. They'd run them over there, and they thought then they could drive them in. Well, they didn't do anything with them, they just left them in there, you know. That didn't do any good. You'd have to be around them. They were just as wild as the others. They got wilder than the others. You couldn't corral them at all. The way you'd corral them was catch them...You'd have to put corrals on their trails and be sure and have a gate so that they won't know the difference. You get them in and then somebody'd have to sit there close and shut the gate on them just as they got in there. That's the way they got most all of them or we did. Yes, we got most of them.

KW: Did you start working with those horses then when you were fairly young? I'm wondering how you started your career, how you got that involved with horses.

FS: Well, I grew up with the older kids out there in the country...

KW: Excuse me...

[Break in audio]

FS: As I told you before, though, there was those big, Percheron horses—those great big ones over 1,000 pounds or 1,400, 1,500, I guess...Those great big horses that he had when he come here. Then for a while when he come here he did some logging down on the river. There was some people...gosh, I don't remember them, I just want to talk about that — down on the Missouri River by the gates of the mountains. He used to work down there and cut them big trees and float them down the river.

KW: You were telling me that your chores on the ranch or on the farm were milking the cows. I suppose that you took care of the little calves.

8 Fannie Sperry Steele Interview, OH 049-040, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. FS: Oh yes. Break the calves and drink the milk. By the bucket.

KW: How did you start riding wild horses or broncos or get interested in doing rodeo-type things?

FS: Well, I guess we just got that way because we liked to ride horses and mostly from that little Indian pony's colts.

KW: Did you break those colts yourself—you kids?

FS: Us kids did, yes. (unintelligible)

KW: That's how you learned?

FS: We'd ride them when they was yearlings.

KW: Well, little kids...You didn't weigh much, I guess.

FS: Well, ours was all tame around there, you know, and they'd have to come in right by the house to get water. Of course they could get water out of the spring that was way up on the mountain-side, but they'd come to the house here for water. We'd go out there and get on them when they was eating salt or anything.

KW: So they got sort of like puppy dogs.

FS: Yes, they got pretty tame. Once in a while, they'd get kind of ornery now, but...

KW: Well, how did you...?

FS: I had to help milk cows soon as I got big enough.

KW: How old were you when you were finished with your schooling and working pretty much full time on the farm?

FS: Oh, I don't even know as I could tell you.

KW: About 12?

FS: Probably about that. Yes, probably, I think about that.

KW: When did you first start getting involved with rodeo? How did that happen?

9 Fannie Sperry Steele Interview, OH 049-040, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. FS: Well, what we'd like to do is ride horses all the time, and of course there was some more kids. There was Walter and Arthur and Bertha. Bertha and I and the oldest, Arthur—the oldest boy. He left home earlier and worked out and turned out to be a blacksmith afterwards. He was pretty good, though, too. He used to ride bucking horses also. What you'd do to break them...You'll have to because they'd buck, (laughs)

One time I was going to get on a little bay mare we had and...Well, she wasn't so tame asthe some others like (?) the old bachelor there. She bucked me off the first time I got on. SoI went and so, Jones, Don Jones—we always called him Jones—he said, "You going to ride her again?"

I said, "Yes, I'm going to try it."

"Well," he said "Do you want me to hold her?"

I said "Yes, you can hold her till I get on. Let me get a good hold first."

Well, I only had blankets, was the first thing, didn't have any saddles. I got on her and I rode her when I got on her (unintelligible).

Do you know what a (unintelligible) is? They're kind of webbed things, you know?

KW: Yes.

FS: I got a hold of that and just put my hand under it, you know, and I rode her. Kept riding her to school and that's how I broke her.

KW: Did she buck anymore after that?

FS: No, I don't think she ever did. We'd monkey with her all the time and ride her to school. After a while they didn't know what we'd done with them, (laughs).

KW: Nobody taught you, then, how to ride a bucking horse. You learned —

FS: Oh god, no. Ain't no use in trying to teach anybody unless they want to ride them. You can't get a kid to ride them unless they want to,

KW: What was your first rodeo that you were in? Do you remember that?

FS: Well, I rode at places where they had bucking horses. They wasn't regular rodeos like they have now.

KW: What were they like?

10 Fannie Sperry Steele Interview, OH 049-040, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. FS: Well, they were just horses that would buck, and they'd take them out to have some little event like the fourth of July or something. They'd always want me to come and ride them. I used to ride in Helena quite a lot. Used to take a horse or tw o in there and ride just because of the...on the fourth or something, you know. They'd want something extra. Then I used to ride in M itchell—it was a little place—and W olf Creek. Ride down to W olf Creek. Then they'd just take a hat collection around.

KW: So you'd get on a bucking horse in all these different places and ride for a while.

FS: Just for exhibition to ride the bucking horse.

KW: You became pretty well-known around this area then, I guess.

FS: Yes, everybody knew me, I guess.

KW: Were you the only girl that was doing this kind of thing?

FS: Yes, except my sister. She never rode out that way, though. She didn't (unintelligible) that way. (Unintelligible) But I don't think she rode a bucking horse that time. She might have. I don't know for sure. But (unintelligible) she got pretty good...pretty well along. I don't know...Of course, she was married a while. They went to town, and of course, they wanted somebody to ride a horse. I think she did ride one, but it wasn't much to do with bucking or anything. It was a regular horse that wouldn't have to buck or some kind of horse they had to buck. That's the only time I knew of. It wasn't long after that that she got married. Of course, then she began raising kids.

KW: And stopped riding bucking horses.

FS: Yes. (laughs)

KW: Were there other girls that were doing this? Did you know other girls in this area? Were you the only girl then who was doing this?

FS: Yes.

KW: Did people think that it was peculiar for a girl to be...I don't associate riding bucking horses for exhibition with the image of what a young lady was supposed to be. At that time...What were the dates here that we're talking about? Around 1930,1940?

FS: I don't know...That's the worst. I wish I had that book. It would make it much easier to tell.

11 Fannie Sperry Steele Interview, OH 049-040, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. KW: To remember the date. Let me look on here. Well, you were married in 1913, right?

FS: Yes. I remember that. From then on is when I started riding mostly.

KW: So maybe we're talking about 1908,1909. At any rate did people think...What did people think of a girl doing this?

FS: I don't know. Every time they'd have a show, they'd ask me to come and ride, (laughs)

KW: Do you think they asked you because they thought it was sort of neat for a girl to be doing this, and they—

FS: I suppose so, yes.

KW: That was something sort of extra—an added attraction.

FS: Wolf Creek. Wolf Creek and Marysville, you know that was a big town once upon a time. They go uptown there and a lot of small places, (unintelligible) And then, let's see...we went to Miles City. Of course, that was getting later. No, that was in '13, I guess—the same year we were married, I believe. Let's see...When we went to Miles City...no (unintelligible) so I don't know when it was that we went to Miles City because we rounded up a bunch of wild horses. We had to run them down and rope them, take them home. That's the only way you can get them. They come back towards the river, right from the Beartooth. The Beartooth goes right down pretty near to the river, you know, the Missouri River, part of it does—not the part you can see. It goes down that way. And we used to cross there to the fort with the saddle horses (unintelligible).

Let's see now. (unintelligible) you think ahead of time and then you have to go back.

KW: You have to go back, yes.

Well, you were riding in these small exhibitions around this area. Did you gradually just start riding in more and more rodeos and more and more exhibitions? How did you start getting into competition? I know that you won some championships along the line.

FS: Well, I guess the first good sized rodeo I went to was maybe at Miles City. That was in 1915, or something, (unintelligible) 1914. 1914 was when I went to Miles City. That was a big show.

KW: You were competing in that show against other women?

FS: Yes. But the other women didn't ride like I did.

12 Fannie Sperry Steele Interview, OH 049-040, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. KW: How did they ride?

FS: Not with stirrups.

KW: Oh yes? And you rode with a stirrup the whole time?

FS: I rode the same as the men. That's the only way I rode—with hobble stirrups.

KW: Why did they ride with hobble stirrups?

FS: Because they had to.

KW: Was that the rule, you mean?

FS: No, they couldn't ride unless they had hobble stirrups.

KW: How did the hobble stirrups help them?

FS: It's the same as tying them on with a rope. They tie the stirrups together under the horse and then they get their feet in the stirrups and put their spurs in the cinch or even in the horse's ribs. They can do it pretty good that way too, if they got their spurs. They can lock the spurs and that makes it easier too. The men can't do it, but the women they did. That's a dangerous way to ride, though, because if the horse falls, you can't get away from them. I never would ride with them. Just lots of times, they'd come out and they'd beg me to ride, "You can't ride that horse without hobble stirrups." I said, "What if I get bucked off? I'm not going to hobble my stirrups." I never did. I never did hobble my stirrups.

KW: Was the advantage to having hobble stirrups supposedly because the stirrup was always there, and you could always grab for it?

FS: Yes. But you can't grab for anything...you wouldn't find it. (laughs)

KW: But that was the idea? That was—

FS: No, it was the idea so they could stay on. They couldn't ride the other way. The woman wasn't as strong as the man. Most of them. I wasn't one of them because I rode more, I mean I worked outside more, (unintelligible) There wasn't any of them girls that I ever knew of that rode without hobble stirrups that didn't get bucked off.

KW: Did they get hurt when they got bucked off?

13 Fannie Sperry Steele Interview, OH 049-040, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. FS: Oh, sometimes they would, but not too bad. I don't remember any of them got hurt too bad.

KW: You didn't know anybody who got a leg broken or something because she couldn't get her spurs out of the cinch?

FS: No, but oh god, I seen one girl I thought she'd got killed 3 or 4 times before they got her off the horse. I guess she had her spur caught, I think probably caught by her spur or something caught up on the saddle. The horse kept bucking, she came down along...head down hanging one foot up there in the saddle. God, that horse went and bucked all over that arena, way they went through gates and everything else got her head lashed all around. When she got off, she didn't know where she was at. I forget now how they got her off. I don't remember seeing the horse buck at the fence I don't think.

KW: She lived through it though?

FS: Yes, she lived through it, but she...for a long time she didn't know where she was at.

KW: The pillow is slipping off the stool, (laughs) [refers to her seat]

FS: (laughs) Well, that's awful slick, that stool.

No, I thought she'd of got killed, but she didn't. The horse butted her up against the fence and everything else, how would you ever live, I don't know. If you get that spur in the cinch or even if you don't, them hobble stirrups are bad business. A horse bust into the fence or anything, they knock their foot out of the stirrup, they're gone right there. Lots of them get dumped off at the fence. Some horses got that habit too, they go for the fence. They just leave their riders right there.

KW: Where there quite a few women riding in the competitions?

FS: Oh, sometimes there were less, at first there were only about 4 or 5, 5 I think when I went out to Calgary.

KW: When did you go up to Calgary?

FS: 1913...1914...No, '14 I went to Miles City, '13 I went to Calgary.

KW: Was that the Stampede? The Calgary Stampede?

14 Fannie Sperry Steele Interview, OH 049-040, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. FS: Yes. Same guy that, I think he committed suicide, they said...I don't know if he did it or not, I don't know why. But for some time he was the manager, at that time, and then he was also the manager of the other Stampede down in Montana, in Miles City.

KW: How did you happen to go to Calgary?

FS: Well, just because it was a big show that they advertised that day. I just wanted to go up there. I didn't plan to ride when I went up there.

KW: Oh, you just wanted to go to the show?

FS: Yes. Just wanted to go to the show, and I didn't want to go by myself. So I coaxed my mother to go along with me (laugh).

[End of Side A]

15 Fannie Sperry Steele Interview, OH 049-040, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. [Side B]

KW: ...to see the show...

FS: I didn't intend to ride in Calgary. I didn't even take my bronc saddle, I just took my ordinary saddle.

KW: Well, what happened then? How did you end up...did somebody ask you to ride in it, or did you just get this sudden urge? (laughs)

FS: No, I just asked him if I wanted to ride...I told him I'd like to ride. I went up there to see about the horses, because I thought there might (unintelligible) advertised a good lot more. I thought that would be a good place to go, you know.

Unidentified speaker: (Unintelligible)

[Break in audio]

FS: I just took a notion (unintelligible) Winnipeg. I won the money at Calgary, you know.

KW: Now, how much money? What was the prize money?

FS: A thousand dollars first money

KW: Would you like me to put the other pillow behind you?

FS: What?

KW: Would you like me to put that other pillow behind you?

FS: No, I don't need it. I'm just squirming around.

KW: Okay. A thousand dollars!

FS: Yes, a thousand dollars first prize.

KW: And you competed with other women? Your own age?

FS: Yes. There were five women besides me. (Unintelligible) That was the first big rodeo they had was Calgary. I drove to all them little places and towns, you know. I didn't intend to ride when I went up there because I thought they had so much...so many...a lot betterhorses probably. It's just a big crowd. I figured there'd be a big crowd up there. So I didn't even take

16 Fannie Sperry Steele Interview, OH 049-040, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. my other...I had a better saddle there, too. I rode the old saddle I'd been riding all the time. So after I seen the horses buck, why, I thought, Well, they ain't no different than the bucking horses I've been riding.

KW: So you decided to give it a try?

FS: Asked the guy at the fair if I rode, and I said, "No," but I said, "Can I try one of the horses."

They said, yes. Horse is up in the corral. A fellow got killed there that time too. That same corral. I don't know if the horse fell, or...I forgot. Yes, I think the horse fell on him. When he got up then his foot caught in the stirrup over the saddle horn. When the horse got up, why he got his foot caught (unintelligible) someway in the saddle and the darn horse was bucking around there and broke his neck. Killed him (unintelligible).

Then I had to go up there. They was trying them out in the corral, instead of out in the arena. Some of them (unintelligible) big corral. I rode up there, and asked if they'd give me a horse to ride, "I want a horse," if you've got one (unintelligible). I said, "I'd like to try one of the horses." I went up there (unintelligible) asked if I could try one. (Unintelligible) Great big sorrel, and he'd never been rode before I don't think. He didn't act like it. (Unintelligible) I rode him though.

KW: You did?

FS: Yes. Then I went out and rode (unintelligible), but I didn't even have my bronc saddle. You know what a bronc saddle...? It's weathered a little bit in the front give you more chance to (unintelligible). Well, this here was just an ordinary saddle (unintelligible). (Unintelligible) they didn't have any (unintelligible) horn, but this one had a small one but not very big.

The big old sorrel horse (unintelligible) halter broke, he didn't act like it. I'd had to ride him too if he hadn't gotten away in the show. They'd be giving him to the first one (unintelligible).

KW: You didn't draw for horses in those days?

FS: Yes.

KW: You did draw for horses?

FS: Yes, you'd draw for them, but that time...I don't know, now maybe they've changed it (unintelligible). Anyway that was the first darn horse that they put out for someone to ride. And I thought that was pretty darn smart because I didn't think they would put him out there.

(Unintelligible section)

17 Fannie Sperry Steele Interview, OH 049-040, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. FS: (Unintelligible) he was wild, I don't think he was even broke to lead and that's why when I started to get on him, they had the door open and said, Get on him outside instead of in the chute.

KW: Why?

FS: Well, the chutes are a bad place. The darn horse can mash you into the gate when they go out or something like that. They used to say to all the girls, Go outside to get on.

KW: Why do they have chutes in the rodeo then? Why do the men get on inside the chutes?

FS: They just pretty much have to. They can't hold a horse outside too long because he's mean. (Unintelligible)

KW: But they have the women outside the chutes, I don't quite understand what the—

FS: The horse's pitching real bad—on some horses. Some of them will bite and everything else. And kick.

KW: So for the women they would choose the horses that weren't as mean?

FS: Well, mostly they did have, but they had some tough one. Later than that, they had tougher ones, but when I went to Calgary that was pretty different too. One horse they called Midnight.

(Unintelligible)

I got Midnight and he was one of the hardest bucking horses in the state.

KW: You rode Midnight then—

FS: He was a black horse.

KW: Was he the horse you won on?

FS: Yes.

KW: How much was your entry fee? Did you have to pay an entry fee?

FS: No.

KW: That was before entry fees?

18 Fannie Sperry Steele Interview, OH 049-040, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. FS: Well, the men probably did. I don't know if the men did at that time or not. I don't know. That was the first time I went to there, you know, and I don't know. I just showed up and jumped on.

KW: Did they give women the same horses that they gave men to ride?

FS: Well, no. Most of them had horses they thought weren't too mean. They were saddled and all that stuff. Some of them would throw on the saddles and they'd saddle them up coldback. Of course once in a while others did too. I had a little brown horse that (unintelligible). I was going to break him to ride. He was kind of a cute little bugger, wasn't very big, about 800 pounds or something, and so I asked him how much he wanted forhim. They put the saddle on him and he bucked and bawled and squealed like a pig, and so, "W ell," he says, "if you want to keep him, you can have that one. I'll give him to you." He's a bachelor and he couldn't ride much himself anymore, so he said, "I'll give him to you." So I kept that little bugger all the time I was riding—a

KW: He'd buck every tim e! (laughs)

FS: Yes. He never failed to buck, he always bucked.

KW: He kept you tuned up anyway!

FS: That's the thing. He wasn't mean at all, he just liked to buckand bawl. Sometimes he would just bawl like a pig. (laughs) He was a funny little horse.

KW: Was it fun up in Calgary? Did you have a good time?

FS: Oh yes. My mother went with me up there, you know.

KW: Was there a social life attached with the rodeo then the way there is now? People from the rodeo go around to the other and go have a party or something?

FS: Oh, I guess they did some. Lots of them went to rodeos all the time. A lot of them just followed the rodeo, you know. There wasn't many girls. There never was very many girls. There were five (unintelligible).

KW: How were the girls in the rodeo thought of? Did people pretty much take it for granted that there were young women riding in the rodeo? Or were you looked upon as something odd, something special?

FS: Maybe something on account of riding slick the same as the men.

19 Fannie Sperry Steele Interview, OH 049-040, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. KW: But they didn't think of the other women as being peculiar because they were doing what was...Was rodeo considered a man's sport, or did people think of it as a sport for both sexes?

FS: Well, I think they did mostly...I don't know. I couldn't tell you, they started...this Bertha Blancett was from Pendleton, Oregon. They had some shows over there before, but I never went to them and didn't know anything about them. I don't know how they rode them over there. Bertha Blancett, she was the one that...She was a cowgirl (unintelligible). I thought she was riding slick, but she wasn't. She rode with hobble.

KW: Did you go to Winnipeg?

FS: Yes. That was the second 1,000 dollars that I won was Winnipeg.

KW: That was a very lucrative trip for you, wasn't it?

FS: Yes, and I didn't intend to ride at all.

KW: So after you won in Calgary, what made you decide to go to Winnipeg?

FS: Well, I just, really I didn't intend to ride in Winnipeg. I just went up there to see the show. I wanted my mother to go with me, and I didn't want to go alone and she didn't want me to go alone either. So I said, why couldn't she come along (unintelligible), (laughs) There was no room the first day. The smaller arena there (unintelligible). All around that arena, in fact so many people in there, there couldn't another person get in there, they couldn't see anything, it was just packed all the way around.

I was on the regular ring side of it, the great big arena, (unintelligible). She couldn't get in. She's standing there until someone there with the duke and duchess. She always talked about that.

KW: Was she more excited about that than about the fact that you won 1,000 dollars?

FS: (laughs) Well, I think she was. She told everybody about being up there.

KW: Were the duke and duchess impressed that this woman's daughter won?

FS: Well, I guess so, I don't know.

KW: That must have been sort of exciting for them too I would think.

FS: Suppose it was.

KW: But you went to Winnipeg then from Calgary.

20 Fannie Sperry Steele Interview, OH 049-040, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. FS: Well, no, the next year. The next warm, they had a big (unintelligible). (Unintelligible)

KW: So when you went to Winnipeg, you were going up there to ride for sure.

FS: No, when I went to Winnipeg, I didn't know whether I was going to ride or not. I didn't even take my bronc saddle when I went to Winnipeg. I didn't intend to ride in the first place. They advertised so big, oh gosh, you'd think it's going to be a wild old place. I thought, I don't know if I want to go up there or not.

KW: You won championships in both Calgary and Winnipeg?

FS: Yes.

KW: And you won 1,000 dollars in both places?

FS: One year after the other.

KW: How did you meet your husband?

FS: Well, at the fair, because he'd heard about me riding, and he wanted me to ride at the fair. I believe it was Deer Lodge, the Deer Lodge Rodeo that time.

KW: He was involved in rodeo then before he met you.

FS: Well, I don't think he rode in rodeos much, but he used to ride out on the range with the regular range riders—they'd gather up cattle—and he could ride broncs. Before I met him, he was at Deer Lodge until he had his shoulder broke. A bucking horse fell in a wash-out with him and broke his shoulder. He couldn't work very much and so he knew a fellow at Deer Lodge who was...what do you call them? Penitentiary what do you call them?

KW: Warden?

FS: Warden, yes. He met the warden, he knew the warden before. So that's one reason I went up there.

KW: Now, how come he wanted for you to come up there and be in the rodeo? You hadn't met, is that right?

FS: We met at Deer Lodge, I think, before. Yes because he wanted me to come to Deer Lodge.

KW: Was he helping put on the rodeo at Deer Lodge?

21 Fannie Sperry Steele Interview, OH 049-040, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. FS: Well, no. Well, he helped some, but he didn't ride on account of that broken shoulder.

KW: I'm wondering how it was that he happened to ask you to come? He must have been involved in organizing the rodeo or doing something.

FS: No, I don't think he had anything to do with it. Well, he might have. I don't know. But he worked there and that's when he was up there with his bad shoulder (unintelligible). And then he worked out at (unintelligible).

KW: So how did you meet? How did you meet him?

FS: Well, let's see. I think he come over there. I don't know now. (laughs) (Unintelligible)

KW: Right. You met him when you went there to ride?

FS: I think I went over there to ride, and he was over there. (Unintelligible)

KW: Did you win money when you went there? On these exhibitions, did you make money?

FS: Yes, but not very big money.

KW: How much? Twenty-five dollars or so?

FS: I have it all down in a note, but I don't remember.

KW: You don't remember?

FS: Not really, no. But it wasn't too much. It wasn't 1,000 dollars.

KW: When you met your husband, he wasn't in the rodeo. He wasn't a clown, yet.

FS: No, (unintelligible) to ride at Deer Lodge.

KW: You rode at Deer Lodge, and you met him.

FS: Yes.

KW: Did you court then for a long time? What was your romance like?

FS: Oh, let's see. That was earlier that fall. I got a little horse over there that I thought was something neat. She was a cute little blue grey mare—a little bitty thing. (Unintelligible). Igot

22 Fannie Sperry Steele Interview, OH 049-040, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. her for ten dollars, (laughs) Then he had a horse of his own. He used to be on the cattle roundups in Montana. That's where he used to work. That's where he got hurt. He use to ride broncs there you know. Always had one on a cattle drive. (Unintelligible) That's the way he got...He said he got it from a bucking horse. That darn thing bucked up to a wash-out, and he thought the horse would jump the wash-out. He said it gave it the spurs, you know, and though he'd jump it. Instead of jumping it, he fell in it and broke his shoulder. Then the warden at Deer Lodge told him to come up there, and he stayed up there then. He stayed there, and then he got a place (unintelligible). That's how I first saw him. He come over (unintelligible). (Unintelligible).

KW: Well, was it love at first sight for you?

FS: Oh, I don't know. I don't think so.

KW: How long had you known each other before you decided to marry?

FS: Oh, probably a year.

KW: How did he get interested in being in rodeos? Through you?

FS: No, he started on the range and that's the same as the rodeo. Ride in a big bunch of cowboys and round up cattle. They have bucking horse shows every morning when they go out and get on their horses.

KW: What did you do after you were married? You were married1913 at the in Diamond Block (?) in Helena. What did you do then after you were married? Did you have a ranch?

FS: Oh yes, I was on the home ranch for a long time.

KW: Your own's place? Did you husband come there with you?

FS: No, (unintelligible) brought me back from Deer Lodge, brought that little horse back over. I stayed out the winter there, and he helped around the ranch that winter. Then the next year I went to...oh, dang thing was in Helena...Can't think of the name of it. The next rodeo in Helena. Then we got a bunch of bucking horses, and that's when we started traveling around the country.

KW: You and your husband traveled around the country then with a string of bucking horses?

FS: Yes.

KW: Where all did you go?

23 Fannie Sperry Steele Interview, OH 049-040, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. FS: Now that's another thing. I've forgot (unintelligible). That makes me mad.

KW: Well, just generally, did you go to Canada and all the rodeos in the northwest?

FS: Mostly...Well, we went to (unintelligible) went to Calgary, too. Then when we come back from Calgary, I just couldn't think of it earlier, from Helena...What was the name of that? Then I'd put on exhibitions, bucking exhibitions, all the way down because we had 29 head of horses.

One thing too, was rounding up them wild horses I was telling you about—the ones you had to you had to rope all of them. You couldn't put them in the corral—couldn't corral them. Nobody could corral them. You could run right in front of them and if you knock them down they wouldn't turn. You couldn't turn them at all. It was the funniest sight you've ever seen. They'd start some place, they'd have their ears and their head just like they was looking at something way off on the tundra. They'd take off and you could no more head them things off than not, and they'd go all around you (unintelligible). You couldn't turn them at all. Only way you could get them was rope them. That's how we got them.

KW: Did you use those horses?

FS: No, I never got any of them in as bucking horses. I don't think they would've been too good, I think they'd have been too wild. They'd have probably run more—

KW: They'd have just run, yes.

FS: But some of them might have, I don't know. We did keep some of them out.

KW: Was there pretty good money in going around with these bucking strings?

FS: Well, it was pretty good. It took quite a little bit of money just to have (unintelligible), (laughs).

KW: Did you have a lot of fun?

FS: Oh yes, it was lots of fun (unintelligible).

KW: When did you go to Chicago?

FS: Oh god, I don't know. Let's see. I guess I went to Chicago (laughs) I think so.

KW: After you were married?

24 Fannie Sperry Steele Interview, OH 049-040, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. FS: Oh yes. I didn't go anywhere big before. Just down in (unintelligible).

KW: There was a big rodeo in Chicago? Is that right.

FS: There was a rodeo in Chicago, I think. I can't think of where that was, or when. About '16 I think. (Unintelligible)

KW: Did you win prize money at that rodeo?

FS: I started thinking about that rodeo. I don't know.

KW: Were you and your husband ever part of a wild west show sort of like Buffalo Bill's?

FS: Well, only one time I went to see Buffalo Bill's show. We went to his show once, and that's all. We never traveled with his show.

KW: But you did go to see Buffalo Bill?

FS: What?

KW: You did go to see Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show?

FS: Oh, yes (unintelligible).

KW: Did you know him?

FS: Oh, yes.

KW: What was he like?

FS: Oh, I don't know. Just like anybody (laughs). He was pretty old then.

KW: I've seen a picture of him and you and there were some other women who were rodeo riders in the picture. Do you remember that picture?

FS: No. I believe Betty's got it down there somewhere now. I think she's got the original. I've got all the original pictures. I think she's got it there.

KW: (Unintelligible)

FS: No, won't do any good I don't think. I don't know, it is getting a lot worse here lately, (unintelligible)

25 Fannie Sperry Steele Interview, OH 049-040, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. KW: Well, the weather's been getting much colder.

FS: Might be the weather. I don't know. I can walk on it when I get up, straight up, but I can't get up. (Unintelligible) down to that table while I get up.

KW: You never had children.

FS: No.

KW: Did you not want to have children?

FS: Oh, I didn't care anything about it because I wanted to ride.

KW: You wanted to ride, so you —

FS: And my sister had too many. She had five...or ten I mean. Not five, ten. And a big lazy man besides. You don't need to put that in. (laughs) I'll never hear the end of it.

KW: So you saw your sister as being sort of tied down.

FS: Well, I'd say so.

KW: Saddled, as it were.

FS: She had to go along. I think once it did get a bit hard on her, and took her (unintelligible), but I believe they sold some cattle. Everybody had some cattle, both of them. She married brothers you know, they married brothers.

KW: Kerry and Bertha?

FS: Yes. They went over there to the cattle sale, I think, and for a woman, I don't know why, that's the only place he ever did take her (laughs). First she had so many of them kids she never could go anyplace too.

KW: So you, you definitely did not want to have children.

FS: I never thought about it. I just seen too many of them.

KW: Did your husband want to have children?

FS: No. He was a widower, so he had a boy.

26 Fannie Sperry Steele Interview, OH 049-040, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. KW: So the boy grew up with you.

FS: No, the boy was, he wasn't...He lives in...Let's see, how was that? Hard to remember the dates without them to look at once in a while. Let's see, Buffalo Bill's show was right after we come back from...No, it was before we went over there to Oregon—that show. Buffalo Bill was in the show. I went to Miles City after we come back from Chicago.

KW: The boy stayed at a home or with friends?

FS: He separated from his first wife. He was a widower.

KW: His wife had died, or they had divorced?

FS: No, they separated, and they had a boy.

KW: The boy stayed with his mother then?

FS: Yes, the boy stayed with his mother (unintelligible). She wouldn't let him get away. He wanted to go to his dad. He was pretty ornery, I think (unintelligible).

KW: Well, how did you limit your family? Did you use birth control?

FS: No.

KW: Was there any such thing as birth control as it's known today?

FS: No, I'd say there wasn't.

KW: So what did you do?

FS: (Laughs) Well, we didn't do anything (unintelligible).

KW: You were just lucky, in other words.

FS: Yes, lucky.

KW: Maybe all that...

FS: Yes, I think he had two boys. One boy died, one of those kids' diseases, (unintelligible) the oldest one I think.

27 Fannie Sperry Steele Interview, OH 049-040, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula. [End of Interview]

Fannie Sperry Steele Interview, OH 049-040, Archives and Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana-Missoula.