Beneath the Window: Early Ranch Life in the Big Bend Country

by Patricia Wilson Clothier

Before it became a national park, the Big Bend was home to a number of ranches and mining operations. On the Wilson ranch, which stood at the center of the current park, Patricia Wilson Clothier spent her youth exploring the wonders of ranch life in the Chisos. Patricia´s richly detailed memories, coupled with a backdrop of Depression era hardships, bring the Big Bend to life in this original and vivid description of a childhood spent Beneath the Window. Big Bend has been a National Park since the mid 1940´s. Thus it is preserved for visitors to enjoy, however almost all signs of earlier ranches and homes have disappeared. It is difficult today to imagine crops growing, peach trees bearing fruit and fenced pastures and shearing sheds. The Wilson ranch alone had some 40 miles of fence with careful attention paid to preserving water sources and using them carefully. Being a stone´s throw from the Rio Grande made Mexico and its people close and friendly neighbors to the American community in Big Bend. If you ever have a chance to visit Big Bend National Park, this memoir is a must."

Genres: History

192 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2003

Reviews

[Merri Dillinger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Big Bend National Park was a bucket list visit for me. We went a few years ago, and while we were visiting the Homer Wilson Ranch I ran into a couple where came to Big Bend because the husband had read this book and always wanted to visit.

I would look for this book on and off through the years, and finally was able to obtain a copy through an inter-library loan system.

It was a very interesting read, made special by connecting it to our visit to the park. However, it’s rather disjointed and could have benefited from a good editor who to help shape it into a better flow of the narrative. I’m still rating it a 3 because of my interest level, but as if I was rating it on writing quality I would probably rate as a 2

[Peg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beneath the Window – Early Ranch Life in the Big Bend Country by Patricia Wilson Clothier

The Big Bend Country in southwest Texas wasn’t always the site of a National Park as it is today. Before that it was home to a number of hardy ranchers and their families who made a living from the land. In the first half of the 20th century, Homer Wilson and his wife, Bergine, came to the Big Bend country and put together land for their ranch that was measured in sections, not acres. Homer was a geologist who stayed on as a rancher and was the father of the author, Patricia Wilson Clothier. In her memoir of life in the 1930’s and 40’s in that remote part of Texas, Patricia tells, not of a life of deprivation and loneliness, but a life filled with hard work and the friendship of neighbors. These hardy families, together, survived the Depression, a drought and the beautiful but difficult land that was their home. Her descriptions are vivid and capture the harsh allure of the land.

Big Bend has been a National Park since the mid 1940’s. Thus it is preserved for visitors to enjoy, however almost all signs of earlier ranches and homes have disappeared. It is difficult today to imagine crops growing, peach trees bearing fruit and fenced pastures and shearing sheds. The Wilson ranch alone had some 40 miles of fence with careful attention paid to preserving water sources and using them carefully. Being a stone’s throw from the Rio Grande made Mexico and its people close and friendly neighbors to the American community in Big Bend. If you ever have a chance to visit Big Bend National Park, this memoir is a must.

[Helen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I truly enjoyed reading about life in Big Bend country. Patricia Wilson spent the first 14 years of her life experiencing the wonders and hardships in that rugged place. One can only imagine how her family dealt with all the trials. But there were good times, too. It was a place where neighbors helped and they all depended on each other. A place where you could open your mailbox and find a watermelon left by your neighbor.

I felt so sad for the family when they had to sell their land for a National Park. One wonders if it would have been better left in private hands. While BB is the least visited of the National Parks, it seems to have so many visitors (at least when I went) that all those people probably left their marks, including myself, though I hope not. The question of who is the better custodian is one to consider.

Books, especially memoirs, that document a way of life that has passed are so interesting and of great value. We are reminded of what came before us. One day our own life will be like that,

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first pages of Patricia Clothier's memoir takes the reader back to 1936 and the drive from Persimmon Gap to author's new childhood home on the Wilson Ranch, one mile below "The Window." This is a child's view of growing up on land that would ultimately become part of the Big Bend National Park. In Oak Canyon, her family endured hardships of the Chihuahuan Desert, including drought, accidents, loneliness, and financial downturns in their efforts to raise goats and sheep.

Places to visit on the Texas Mountain Trail: The Window, Persimmon Gap, Oak Canyon, Boquillas, and the South Rim in Big Bend National Park; Alpine.

check out: www.texasmountaintrail.com/read

[Megan Dawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is, by far, one of the best, most passionatly written books I've ever read. patricia let's you explore her memories of a simpler more rewarding life that few had the chance to experience in that remote country. with her scenic descriptions of the land she so loved and the bonds it weaved between friends and neighbors, she makes you wish you could have been there. I love this book and would reccomend it to anyone looking for an honest look at early ranch life in the american west.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up after reading "I'll Gather My Geese" by Hallie Stillwell, and boy, was I disappointed.
The author writes about detailed memories and conversations that she would have "overheard" at 5? Really, I think the author wanted to tell a meaningful story and basically just generated the conversations she imagined her parents would have had.
Additionally, from the first page, she speaks as though the national park stole her family's land, and I respect her right to hold that opinion. She then backpedals her statements and says that they were happy to share the same land with the public so that they could enjoy it as well. Which is it?

For those reasons, I don't care for this book. I can say that I appreciate the original family photographs and that maybe they tell a better story about this pioneer family.

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just returned from a birding trip to Big Ben National Park and a friend gave me this book. Big Bend is a beautiful park, but it has lost its wonderment as I now imagine the beauty of it before the commercialization and intrusion of tourist. Enjoy seeing this area from the Rio Grande to the heights of the Chisos Mountains in the early 1930’s through the eyes of a young girl.

[Janie Sedlak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written memoirs from someone who lived as a child in the Big Bend Area...before it became a National Park.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sadly, not well-edited, but interesting story as I just visited Big Bend country. Picture of family life there in the 30s.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful look into the experience of growing up on a ranch in the Big Bend before it was a National Park!

[Brandon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting book! Loved the perspective of someone who lived in Big Bend

[William C. Montgomery · Rating 3 out of 5]

Patricia Wilson Clothier lived on father’s ranch from the time she was born until she was fourteen years old. Her father, Homer Wilson, was a mine engineer and began buying properties in the Big Bend in the late 1920s until the property was purchased prior to the establishment of the Big Bend National Park in June 1944. In 1930, Homer married Bergine, the widow of a close college friend, and they had three children of whom Patricia was the eldest.

My first impressions of Beneath the Window were not good. In retrospect I can see that the writing style of the author changed over the course of the book. It is odd to me that an editor did not have root this out, but then again it was published by Iron Mountain Press of Marathon, Texas, so maybe they couldn't afford a big city editor to work with their amateur writer.

In the early chapters the author recounts history through conversations that a child could not possibly remember 60+ years later. The dialogue is obviously contrived and the poorly executed literary device is uninteresting and insulting to the reader. For example, numerous events to which the author did not witness first hand were portrayed via a conversation between Bergine Wilson, the author’s mother, and Nena Nail, wife of a neighboring rancher. As the two women prepared dinner one afternoon, they supposedly reminisced, “Do you remember when…”

I suppose the author was trying include these stories that happened before she was born or could recall, but did not want the readers to think she had witnessed them. I don’t doubt that she did hear these stories from her mother and her mother’s friends. But that wasn't how it happened. When writing a memoir, don’t put words between quotation marks that were never spoken and present them as fact. Summarize them. Write, “My mother told me…” But don’t create bucolic scenes and put words into character’s mouths as though this was a movie screenplay. Maybe Clothier began writing this as a screenplay and changed midway through the book. Whatever the reason, I’m glad the style changed and that she abandoned this annoying device by the fourth or fifth chapter.

Due to the awfulness of the early chapters, I had to force myself to plow through it and continue reading. I guess I was sustained by my love of Big Bend and frontier life and the obligation I felt to read the book since a coworker, whom I barely know, went to the trouble to lend the books to me. Now that I am done with the book, I am glad that I persisted. In fact, I am left wanting more. I want to know more about these tough people who made Big Bend their “paradise.” There was no epilogue that recapped what happened to the family and friends in the decades following the ranch’s closure.

Homer Wilson died of a massive heart attack in July 1943. He was in his mid-forties but looked at least a decade older. It took another eighteen months for Clothier’s mother to sell off the remainder of their stock and vacate the property. The family briefly relocated to Alpine and then to Del Rio. The author’s biography only gives a few other tidbits: Clothier married, moved to Kansas and is an artist and teacher. Whatever happened to Bergine? Did she remarry? Is she still living (not likely)? What of her brothers, Homer Jr. and Thomas? Where did their close friends, the Nail family, go? Daughter Julia Nail was the source for several accounts in the book, so I presume they are still in contact. What has Julia been doing for the last sixty years?

So despite this book’s glaring flaws at the beginning and end, I really enjoyed reading it. I loved learning how these people dealt with life during the Great Depression. Of course, they didn’t know that the economy would stay in the toilet for ten years. Initially they thought it would be over in six months. They fought through it. They adapted and made do with what they had. It required a great deal of innovation, resourcefulness and hard work. Still, little Tricia loved it. She described her home – a place so desolate that after vacationing there my wife has no desire to ever return – as “paradise” several times. Of course, the child knew no different, but “paradise” is the word that septuagenarian Tricia chose to use after decades away from the place.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

5 stars for the history and my love for the Big Bend region. 3 stars for editing and narrative flow. I'm glad and thankful Mrs Clothier was able to share not only her own experience and time growing up in the Big Bend before it became a national park, but also that of her friends, family, and neighbors.

[Dino Price · Rating 5 out of 5]

Breath taking vivid portrayal of life in the Big Bend – before there was a Big Bend National Park.

[Nancy Mulder · Rating 4 out of 5]

We’re going to Big Bend next week on a birding expedition. Can’t wait to see it after reading this book!