This story, “Journey of the Out of doors Life Lady,” appeared within the July 1973 subject of Out of doors Life, when Hardy was 80 years outdated.
On a September morning in 1914 a 21-year-old lady from Spokane, Washington, put her horse into what a whole bunch of onlookers considered a considerably hazardous climb. Gladys Hardy was tackling the ascent of 37 steps that led as much as the door of the capitol constructing at Salem, Oregon.
On the high of the steps Oregon’s Governor Oswald West and Salem’s Mayor B. L. Steeves waited as an official welcoming delegation, decked out of their greatest bib and tucker, together with derby hats. Movement-picture cameramen have been available to report the climb in that day’s model of the newsreel. Due to the unsure footing of the rain-wet steps, the horse wore rubber “boots” that had been specifically made by a saddle firm.
The horse went up slowly and punctiliously, step-by-step, steadied and inspired by his rider. On the high, on the broad strategy to the capitol, Gladys climbed out of the saddle and shook arms with the Governor and Mayor.
“That was enjoyable,” she instructed the 2 officers with a smile. “Wish to attempt a journey?” she requested the Governor.
Oregon’s chief government lengthened the stirrups, swung into the saddle, and reined Goldie, the horse, by means of the door and down the size of the capitol hall. When it was time to depart, Gladys selected to not danger descending these 37 steps. As an alternative, the horse was led into the passenger elevator and brought to floor degree, inflicting Governor West to remark that as far as he knew Goldie was the primary horse within the historical past of Oregon to journey the capitol elevator.
Gladys Hardy was halfway on a horseback journey by herself from Spokane, Washington, to San Francisco, California. She was attracting quite a lot of consideration, partly as a result of she was making the journey underneath the title of the Out of doors Life Lady.
Born at Divide, Colorado, in December 1892, Gladys remembers taking part in hooky from faculty to wander alone within the woods. Her first pet was a burro that she rode into hidden nooks and canyons at each alternative.
Early in 1914 she was working within the Northern Pacific Railroad workplace at Spokane, and she or he had wearied of the routine. When male fellow employees dared the younger lady to undertake a solitary horseback journey to San Francisco, she determined to take the dare. She had been keen on horses and using all her life, and the thought of the lengthy, solo journey appealed to her.
Gladys raffled off a piano to purchase a horse, promoting tickets that ranged in value from a penny to $2. She remembers {that a} 29¢ ticket gained the piano. She purchased Goldie, a delicate buckskin, and the boys who had dared her to make the journey chipped in and gave her a saddle and the remainder of the gear she would want.
In search of earnings to pay her means, Gladys wrote to J. A. McGuire, the writer of Out of doors Life in Denver. This publication was then in its lusty youth, having been based in 1898, proclaiming itself “A Journal of the West” and that includes articles about vary using, Wes tern fireplace lookouts, and such typical tales as one titled, “The Tragedy of Sitting Bull.”
Gladys Hardy requested McGuire if he would authorize her to solicit subscriptions to Out of doors Life as she rode. McGuire should have seen the promotion prospects of the proposal, for he was fast to provide it his blessing.
Gladys rode away from the workplace of the Spokane Chronicle on June 16, 1914. Between her and San Francisco lay greater than 1,000 miles of highway and lonely mountain path. Fortuitously, little or no of the highway was paved. Paved highways meant harmful going for horse and rider, and her solely mishap of the journey would come at Portland, when Goldie slipped on rain-slick pavement and fell on his rider and broke her leg, leading to a delay of a number of weeks.
Earlier than she left Spokane, Gladys made a wager together with her fellow employees. They gave her $10, which she sealed in an envelope. Her facet of the wager was that she would journey into San Francisco with that envelope unopened. The chances gave the impression to be in opposition to her, for she began the lengthy journey to San Francisco with precisely 50¢ in her pocket.
However the Out of doors Life subscription enterprise proved to be surprisingly brisk. By the point the horsewoman rode into San Francisco on a wet night in November, she had bought greater than 1,000 subscriptions. She had augmented her earnings by using in parades and rodeos and for newsreels, and when she led Goldie off the ‘Frisco ferry that remaining evening, the envelope nonetheless rested in her pocket with its $10 invoice intact.
By then Gladys Hardy had ridden by means of sufficient wild and exquisite nation, had sufficient thrilling adventures, and met sufficient fascinating and pleasant folks to final any outdoor-minded younger lady a lifetime.
The journey up the steps of the capitol at Salem was one of many highlights of the journey. Earlier than she left, Gladys offered Governor West with a complimentary subscription to Out of doors Life, and she or he nonetheless cherishes what the Governor stated when he accepted it.
“When the work of state will get oppressive and the whole lot appears unappealing, it drives away the cares to delve into {a magazine} which tells of the outside,” he instructed her. “That life is the true life.” A lot of Gladys’s journey was by means of mountains, on roads that have been little greater than cattle trails, or on tough corduroy utilized by heavy logging wagons (this was lengthy earlier than the day of logging vehicles) with crude pole bridges. Greater than as soon as Gladys needed to cowl holes in these bridges with lengths of pole in order that her horse might cross.
However now, as an aged lady, she nonetheless remembers these mountain woods as essentially the most lovely nation she has ever seen. Bushes, ferns, and moss grew so thick that in lots of locations the solar not often touched the bottom. Springs broke out from beneath rock ledges, feeding crystal-clear streams.
“I believe my horse dabbled in each creek we got here to on that journey,” she says in the present day.
Usually the Out of doors Life Lady turned enchanted by the cool dampness and great thing about this rain forest, and she or he dismounted and walked in order that she might higher savor the solitude and silence of the place. She and Goldie got here to know each other so effectively that if he loped forward as she walked, he would come again at her name.
Gladys rode in horse races at a roundup alongside the way in which and in addition spent two days in Seattle taking within the Golden Potlatch, a celebration that she says originated when the primary boatloads of gold have been introduced in from Alaska.
Some days Gladys rode 60 miles. Between Tacoma and Centralia, Washington, she was retracing her means after she’d taken a incorrect highway. The horsewoman was using in thick woods simply earlier than midnight and was about able to camp for the evening when she heard a group and wagon coming.
At first, the driving force thought the flashlight-carrying determine was a holdup man, and he whipped up his group. However when he noticed he was coping with a lone lady, he pulled up, and Gladys was invited to a close-by ranch for the evening. This sort of expertise was pretty widespread on the journey. Repeatedly the Out of doors Life Lady was entertained within the houses of ranch households. She completed the journey with excessive reward for the friendliness and hospitality of the folks she had met.
There have been nights, nonetheless, when issues didn’t work out so effectively. As soon as she slept in a unclean small-town resort that had no locks on the doorways. She camped with forest rangers and stayed with sheepherders of their camps. At one level she overtook a gaggle of transients who have been climbing from place to put on the lookout for work. Lots of them have been carrying bedrolls on their backs. Gladys loaded as lots of the bedrolls onto Goldie as she might, after which walked with the boys.
She traveled with this group for a number of days, sharing the meals she had in her saddlebags, consuming beans, and ingesting espresso out of tin cans.
“They handled me like a sister,” Gladys says.
On a lonely path close to the highest of Saddle Mountain she got here throughout a grave that had a picket headboard with an inscription revealing that the person buried there had been killed by a bear in 1892.
One morning, close to the city of Shasta in northern California, she stopped at a small nation faculty and was invited to provide a chat to the kids. Within the midst of it the kids abruptly jumped to their toes, and one among them shouted, “Look! The mountain is blowing its high!”
The announcement proved true — the teenager should have meant Lassen Peak, which some months earlier had begun a interval of volcanic unrest that may final till 1921. Gladys has by no means forgotten the spectacle.
Close to Winters, California, she was proven what was reputed to be the most important rose bush on the earth. Its trunk was 42 inches round, and the highest measured 44 by 56 toes. In Portland the Out of doors Life Lady was the visitor of the Portland and Oakland baseball groups. Gladys rode her horse onto the diamond and bought each member of each groups subscriptions to Out of doors Life.
At Willows, California, she was entertained at an area duck membership and invited to go alongside on a duck shoot. She loved the hunt immensely however admits that she killed no geese.
Gladys had higher luck with deer. She had by no means accomplished any deer searching however had all the time thought that it sounded thrilling, and the urge grew after she met a pair of prospectors within the city of Canyonville, Oregon. The lads had are available in for provides and have been packing their mules and getting ready to depart when Gladys encountered them. For the reason that prospectors have been going her means, the three left city collectively, with the boys on foot, main the mules. Gladys might have traveled quicker alone, however her companions invited her to stick with them till midday and be part of them for a venison dinner.
They discovered a great spot for the midday fireplace, and the younger lady unsaddled Goldie after which introduced water from a close-by stream whereas one prospector unpacked cooking gear and the opposite minimize dry wooden and. bought a fireplace going. The Out of doors Life Lady remembers that dinner as an excellent meal, and the searching tales the 2 males instructed across the fireplace additional whetted her urge for food for deer searching.
Gladys was to get the possibility a lot ahead of she anticipated. Within the early afternoon she pushed on and left the 2 prospectors behind. Ten miles in need of her scheduled cease she heard a horse coming behind her at a quick clip, and she or he pulled up.
The rider was a younger lady about Gladys’s age who launched herself as Mamie Clements. Miss Clements had simply accomplished a journey of 235 miles by herself from Eureka, California, to her house, and now she was coming back from a deer hunt on her father’s homestead on the head of Cow Creek, about 25 miles away, the place she had killed an excellent buck.
The 2 ladies struck up a friendship on the spot, and when Gladys expressed eager curiosity in deer searching, Mamie invited her on a hunt. Three days later, on a cool October morning, Gladys was a part of a searching occasion that was headed for the Cow Creek nation. Mamie’s father Jess Clements, her brother Blake, and a searching companion of theirs named Miller drove the grub wagon with meals and outfit as the 2 ladies adopted on horseback.
The hunt was a full of life one. The primary day they noticed quite a few does and fawns, and two or three bucks that have been out of vary. The second morning they tied their horses and began up a steep mountain on foot. Nearly without delay the hunters jumped 4 bucks inside simple capturing distance.
The others waited for Gladys to shoot first, however she missed her likelihood. In a sudden seizure of buck fever she dropped her gun and stood shouting, “Have a look at ’em go! Have a look at ’em go!”
The following day, nonetheless, Gladys redeemed herself by dropping a two-point buck. She and Mamie rode again to Mamie’s house by themselves, however earlier than they bought there a black bear challenged them within the highway. It was too darkish for correct capturing, however Gladys fired a few pictures from her .38 handgun within the bear’s course, and it cleared out.
Nearly on the finish of her lengthy journey Gladys encountered sudden difficulties. Close to Sacramento a bridge was out, and she or he put her horse into the stream to ford it. Goldie was shortly trapped in quicksand. However simply then two younger males got here alongside on bikes. They bought a loop of her reins across the saddlehorn, and with the horse floundering and the 2 bikers pulling, Goldie was hauled free.
On the wet evening of November the Out of doors Life Lady rode her horse ashore on the Ferry Constructing in San Francisco. She had ridden greater than 1,000 miles in 5 months, with mny prolonged stopovers. She had made good on the dare she had taken at Spokane again within the spring, and she or he had additionally gained a $10 wager. Out of doors Life subscription cash and the opposite cash she had earned alongside the way in which had paid the prices of the journey.
After the numerous weeks within the solitude of woods and mountains, Goldie confirmed a robust dislike for the crowds and site visitors noises of San Francisco. And the ferry journey had accomplished nothing to calm him down. Gladys remembers that danced his means completely across the Ferry Constructing.
To complicate issues, Gladys had acquired two massive canines alongside the way in which — an Alaskan Husky and a Russian wolfhound. She employed the primary expressmen she noticed to place the canines into his wagon after which Gladys began up Mark Avenue on her solution to the San Francisco Chronicle workplace, using within the wagon with the horse tied on the tailgate. She was afraid to attempt using the animal within the site visitors and on pavement made slippery by the rain, for he had no rubber footwear now.
Gladys had gone only some blocks when Goldie reared again, broke unfastened, and bolted. Mounted policemen gave chase and caught the horse six blocks away. The officers led Goldie again, and Gladys climbed into the saddle and rode the remainder of the way in which, with the spooky horse strolling on his hind legs a lot of the time.
By now the Out of doors Life Lady’s plans had grown extra formidable. She determined to journey on to Los Angeles, and from there head east throughout the continent to New York Metropolis and New England. She had begun the journey in Washington, on the excessive northwest nook of the nation. She would finish it in Maine, on the far northeast nook.
She made the journey to Los Angeles uneventfully, however then a very unexpected impediment arose: a extreme outbreak of hoof-and-mouth illness swept California, and a strict quarantine was clamped down that banned taking any animal out of the state. The quarantine included Goldie, and at that time Gladys Hardy’s journey got here to an finish. She waited a number of months in Los Angeles. Through the journey she had met some film individuals who had invited her to look them up at Common Stu-dios. She went there and was put to work using in Westerns.
Abandoning her cross-country plans ultimately, within the fall of 1915, Gladys bought Goldie to the producers of the well-known silent movie, “Delivery of a Nation,” gave her Husky canine to a film cameraman, and booked passage by ship for Seattle. She was lastly going house.
The journey included a change of ships at San Francisco as a result of the one on which she was touring was condemned as unseaworthy. The Out of doors Life Lady transferred to a lumber schooner, which ran right into a storm at sea, and for 2 days she and her wolfhound shared a bunk that was padded with pillows to maintain them from being thrown out because the schooner pitched and rolled and wallowed in enormous seas.
Eight days later the ship limped into port at Aberdeen, Washington, with half the deck cargo of lumber having washed overboard.
By that point the Out of doors Life Lady had seen an excessive amount of journey to return to a routine desk job.
In July of 1919, Gladys says, “the lure of silent locations” drew her right into a summer season job as a fire-tower lookout within the mountains of the Colville Forest in western Washington. Forest rangers constructed her a snug cabin, full with a fire, at an elevation of seven,000 toes. A packer took her in with a five-horse packtrain that carried her outfit.
The rangers replenished her woodpile as usually as vital that summer season, sheepmen saved her in mutton, and she or he packed her ingesting water on horseback from a spring that lay half a mile down a really steep path. Gladys manned a tower all through the fireplace season, by herself, on responsibility from dawn till after sundown, day after day. It was a nasty fireplace yr, and through July and August she reported greater than 50 blazes. Earlier than she went out within the fall she joined a celebration of rangers on a deer hunt and killed an excellent buck.
Two years later, in 1921, the love of journey referred to as Gladys to Arizona, the place she spent most of a yr on a cattle ranch on the head of Camp and Cave creeks, 50 miles northwest of Phoenix.
She rode with the ranch arms, roped calves, did her share of branding at roundup time, hunted, and — most of all — reveled in what she calls “the liberty of using alone.”
Right now the Out of doors Life Lady, now Mrs. Gladys Thompson, an 80-year-old widow, lives by herself in a small cottage at Beaumont, California, with 4 canines for firm. A nurse and a housekeeper are available in each few days, and associates make frequent calls. Her son Dick Murray was a flier in World Warfare II and is now an airline jet pilot. He has three youngsters and lives in San Antonio, Texas, however Gladys says she will be able to’t take the climate there for causes of well being.
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Suffering from eyesight failure so extreme that she will be able to sort a letter solely with nice issue, Gladys just lately wrote Out of doors Life a letter that contained a quick account of her lengthy journey in 1914, together with some images. Gladys expressed the hope that we’d need to retell her story for the good thing about in the present day’s readers. We now have instructed it right here.
“One of the best recollections of my life are of the folks I met on that journey and of the unspoiled, lovely nation I noticed,” she instructed us.
