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Title: Riding the White Horse Home : A Western Family Album by TERESA JORDAN ISBN: 0-679-75135-1 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 31 May, 1994 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.53 (15 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Learning to See
Comment: Riding the White Horse Home is appropriately subtitled "A Western Family Album." In it, Teresa Jordan explores her family's history as cattle ranchers in the late nineteenth century and throughout the twentieth. She compares the life she has lived to the land from which she originated through anecdotal snippets of her ancestors' lives, searching out the "unconformities" in her history and linking herself to her family's past. Jordan grew up surrounded by generations of family living together on a ranch in Wyoming. She begins the book by describing her experiences walking with her great- grandmother on the rugged land, awestruck by her almost magical ability to find arrowheads and crinoids: "It's was a matter of looking, she said, of learning to see." By writing the history of her forebears, Jordan looks into her own life, learning to see who she is. She speaks of a troubled time when she was sorely in need of reviewing her life, "It was then, I suppose, that I first started trying to excavate the unconformities of my life that connect my heritage with who I am now, that I began to learn how to see." Her great-grandfather J.L. came to the land from the eastern Untied States to carve out a place for his family in the temperamental Western soil. From him sprang a procession of proud cattle-ranchers whose indomitable spirit helped them break the land like a stubborn colt is broken for riding. Jordan describes the curious, continuous war between the necessity for self-sufficiency in such an isolated setting and the people's need for community. Early in her life she strove for the same independence her grandfather did: "'I kill my own snakes,' Sunny was wont to say, 'and bury my own dead.'" So, too, she describes the other men of her family: "I believe it comes directly from the primitivist urge that glorifies man alone and makes him believe he should be able to succeed entirely by himself." Jordan boarded with relatives in the city when she was young, and there was introduced to the urban prejudice against being from a rural community. She struggled with this for years, trying to become her own individual, distinct from the provincial taint of her upbringing and yet at the same time like her mother, who "had chosen to be fully herself. Early on, she had decided not to make sacrifices she couldn't make willingly; from that authentic core she was able to marry and mother free of martyrdom and guilt." Midway through her college career her mother passed away, and with that extra support gone, she writes, "Now I have to confront how scared I am to go on alone." She took a semester off college and worked on her senior project studying the history of the American West and found the sense of community and belonging that she had been searching for, right back where she had started: "My mother was dead and the ranch was for sale, but in the study of the American West, I had found a way to come home." Later in life she returned to the wilds of her home for her wedding, and the everyone in the entire area lent a hand to make the event possible, from digging the barbecue pit to hanging the decorations. She comments, "For a hundred years, the community worked because its people had been tied by land and labor and shared destiny. . . . I left Iron Mountain half by choice and half by necessity. I returned because I needed healing." She found the healing that she needed in the land that she loved. That sense of welcome hominess colors all of Jordan's writings about her family. They seem as familiar as the uncle at one's family reunion who puts whoopee cushions on Grandma's chair or the cousin who hides in the corner reading a book. Her ancestors have the same commonalities and quirks that everyone does. Her writing gives the West an enchanting and realistic immediacy, like her description of the calving season: "We come in each evening splattered with mud and milk and manure, stained with blood and amniotic fluid, stinking of afterbirth. It's hard to convey the sheer satisfaction of it all." She holds back nothing from her past, recording even her prayers for a broken bone so that she could prove her strength and immortality like the rest of her family. Riding the White Horse Home is a charming and thoughtful piece of writing: a bouncy pickup ride through the years of a young woman's life in rural Wyoming.
Rating: 5
Summary: A loss of a way of life
Comment: Reading Teresa Jordan's novel Riding the White Horse Home inevitably inspires a sense of regret and loss. Throughout her portrayal of the rugged untamed wilds of Iron Mountain Wyoming and its people, she paints a vivid picture of a culture and a way of life that has all but died out. Using her own personal experiences with her friends and family, she shows the reader what ranch life was like. Her detail and imagery is superb as she takes her acquaintances one by one, chapter by chapter, and tells us their story. We learn of Sunny the grandfather who took pride in his way of life, of her mother who loves her yet is hard to understand, of her friend Kelley and how their kind are not socially accepted today, her small local wedding, childhood experiences, and more. She shows us the stark differences between ranch culture and the culture of progress. We see the unspoken rules and laws of her people and their stoicism. We come to admire their discipline and stubbornness, their ethic and devotion. And we feel the same sense of loss that Teresa must have felt as this way of life slowly drifted away. For me, it was this central message of the book that was most touching. As someone who grew up in and frequently visits Idaho, I can at least partly relate to her sadness at the change. Like her, I feel an odd sense of pride whenever anyone speaks with disdain of the old fashioned methods of my state. I enthusiastically tell all my friends the Idaho state motto; "Idaho IS, what America WAS." This is the way that Jordan displays the ranch life. She shows an honor and pride that has since been lost to the world. Her people respected hard work over hard cash, and took satisfaction from their endless labor. Despite crop failures, drought, loss of livestock, and tiring years with no seeming gain, they trudge on, unbending. My own father is much like this, taking a job that pays much less then his previous one because it gives him more satisfaction. The power of her story comes through in its reality--we are made to see through her eyes, and with this new perspective come to love the land and people as she does. We mourn with her the loss of tradition and see the beauty in the harsh terrain of Wyoming. Although it is not written chronologically, the reader can easily see the transition from family owned ranches to modern technology. Each chapter is devoted to one of her family or friends and we learn of them in detail. Jordan expertly takes us into her life and experiences. We see her fierce love for her family and the kind of relationships that they have together. At college when her mother dies, she decides to come home and immerse herself in ranch life as she remembers their connections. She talks of how much she learned from her great grandmother, and of how much she didn't see. The reader learns the trials of ranch life--calving in all its messy glory, getting mauled by bulls, fighting against the land. Her story becomes to the reader representative of the lives of all ranchers, and we come to feel a connection of our own with this unique people. There is sadness at her shame when she goes to school as a child--her people are not accepted there. Her style is frank and open, and her honesty makes her words that much clearer. She tells it like it was. For those who love to farm and for those who are content in their cozy heated homes, this is a wonderful book. It inspires the reader to change his ideals--we come to value work and stoicism like a true rancher. It makes us appreciate our loved ones more, and we realize just how much we take for granted. Teresa Jordan has taken her life and set it out before us, and we should not pass up the opportunity to learn from it.
Rating: 4
Summary: Great book with a deeper meaning
Comment: Jordan's book was much more than ranching and her life, she tells us about her feelings and thoughts that are associated with her life events. The reader becomes indulged in her feelings are can feel empathy for her. This book is a down to earth, real life story that is worthy of reading by most people.
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Title: Where Rivers Change Direction by Mark Spragg ISBN: 1573228257 Publisher: Riverhead Books Pub. Date: 08 August, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Cowgirls: Women of the American West by Teresa Jordan ISBN: 0803275757 Publisher: Univ of Nebraska Pr Pub. Date: June, 2003 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: Feels Like Far: A Rancher's Life on the Great Plains by Linda M. Hasselstrom ISBN: 0618124950 Publisher: Mariner Books Pub. Date: 01 May, 2001 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Breaking Clean by Judy Blunt ISBN: 0375701303 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 07 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Solace of Open Spaces by Gretel Ehrlich ISBN: 0140081135 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: December, 1986 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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