Sheep Industry News June 2023

Author Looks Back on Washington Ranch Life

N oted western writer Wallace those up to age 11. Author Richard W. Etu lain thought about that statement for a long time before setting out to write his story, Boyhood Among the Woolies: Growing Up on a Basque Sheep Ranch , just released by Basalt Books. It covers his early youth on a sprawl ing sheep ranch 20 miles east of Ritz ville, Wash., and about 70 miles south of Spokane, Wash. – 11 years that became the launching point for his later career as a western history professor. Etulain notes that his experiences mark edly differed from those of most young men from the surrounding farms and estates. About 100 miles to the east were the rich wheat ranches of the Palouse Country; to the west, smaller stock ranches and less fertile and more compact wheat ranches. Almost no sheepmen were in this area, save for the Escure brothers, his family’s next door neighbors. “When I bragged about our 10,000 acre ranch (I didn't mention that our best crop was rocks) to fellow Ritzville school students, they were convinced I was lying,” he writes. Etulain’s memoir provides a glimpse of the annual patterns of life and activities on a sheep ranch. Lambing began in the coldest months of January and February, the sheep shearers arrived in April or early Stegner once stated that the most fruitful years for memoirists were

May, and the “trailing” to the mountains commenced in late May. Their four bands of sheep – totaling up to 8,000 ewes and lambs – grazed for about three months in the verdant mountains on or near the Idaho Montana border. Meanwhile, the Etulain family resided in their St. Maries summer home. The boys swam, roamed the neigh borhood, and enjoyed getting into trou ble. In October, they returned to the sheep ranch and restarted the yearly routines. “If the dry grazing lands dominated the ranch setting, the personalities of my Basque Dad and saintly Mother molded our family and home life. An immigrant from Spain, Dad was a driven, nonstop worker who tried, unsuccessfully, to convince his three rascal sons to become gung-ho ranch ers. Instead, we preferred sports and ranch games. Mom was the peacemaker, help ing her sons with schooling and generally encouraging our interests,” Etulain says. He recounts their experiences in the rural, one-room Lantz School with fewer than 10 students, as well as later schools in Ritzville. Trips to town for Saturday shop ping, music lessons (he dreaded them), the library (a favorite) and church on Sunday were invigorating breaks from the isolation. He also portrays the lives of their sheep herders and ranch workers, ranch animals, and delightful, frequent pranks. The final chapter traces what Etulain considers the major legacy of early sheep ranch years – his work ethic (from his

Dad), interest in books (encouraged by his Mom and grandma), and fascination with history, especially the American West, Abraham Lincoln and the Basques. Boyhood Among the Woolies is available through bookstores nationwide, direct from Basalt Books at 800-354-7360, or online at basaltbooks.wsu.edu. The trade imprint of nonprofit academic publisher Washington State University Press in Pullman, Wash., Basalt Books concentrates on general inter est titles about cooking, nature, history, science, and more for young children to older readers – all with a connection to the Northwest.

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