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Show Page 9 women were also entering professions such as medicine and law, professions previously open only to men. Ann was also fortunate to have been born on the frontier where women were scarce. In Colorado a few years before Ann's birth there were twenty men to every woman. This scarcity of women therefore gave them some prestige. In addition, the realities of life on the frontier did not encourage the idea that women should be sheltered and dominated. There was too much work that had to be done simply to survive, most of it hard work. The few women were therefore very visible as they, of necessity, chopped wood and plowed fields, as well as cooked and cleaned. So women's roles were starting to expand when a determined four-year-old Ann decided she wanted nothing more from life than to cut a calf out of a herd or lasso a wild cow as neatly as the most expert cowpuncher. And since girls as well as boys were taught to ride, Ann had already begun her training. To teach the young children on the Bassett ranch how to keep their balance, "bucking" contests were held in the hay corral. In the evening clean hay was spread over the ground. Then a cowboy would come bucking out of a chute on all fours with a young rider clinging to his back with gripping knees and moccasined feet, one hand clutching the handkerchief tied behind the bronc's "front legs." The cowboy would rear and sunfish, pretending to be a wild bronc being ridden for the first time. There was no time limit. Riders stayed on until they fell off |