Memories of Mary Ellen Thomason

Yesterday, my friend Shirley Parker told me that Mary Ellen Thomason had left $1,000 to the local PEO when she died a couple of years ago. The organization is now exploring ideas for dispersing the gift. Mention of Mary Ellen brought back immediate fond memories.

Later in the day, while talking to our museum curator Ann Ferguson, I learned that Mary Ellen had been more than generous with her financial gifts to the Boundary County Museum and the Bonners Ferry library, to the tune of several hundred thousand dollars. This did not surprise me because Mary Ellen, a fine, sophisticated lady, loved the past and, as a trained teacher, she loved learning. She had no children, so her generosity toward community entities seemed natural.

My first memories of Mary Ellen Thomason go back to my grade school years, when we'd go out to visit them at the Selkirk Hereford Ranch. Mary Ellen and her husband Howard initially established their cow herd on Oak Street in Sandpoint in 1948 when a chicken-wire fence kept their first Hereford bull penned up most of the time, except for when they had to chase him back home from Sandpoint Ice and Fuel.

They added a few heifers to the enclosure and got serious about finding a little more space for their cattle. First, they moved them to Mary Ellen's folks place in West Sandpoint near the Pend Oreille River. After driving lots of country roads, they eventually found the perfect setting on what was thought of by the neighbors as a sand hill near Samuels on Selkirk Road. They moved to the ranch in 1951 with 20 head of registered Herefords.

With the help of an elderly neighbor named Walter Wood, Howard and Mary Ellen worked for the next several years, clearing the initial 250 acres, picking up sticks, building fences and constructing a building a year until they finally had adequate facilities to house, feed and separate their ever-growing herd.

They also added to their land holdings, including a large field on Selle Road. Howard, a Sandpoint native who had worked for the Internal Revenue Service, sold bulls at the Missoula Top Cut Show and Sale every February and gradually established the Selkirk name as one of the premier bloodlines throughout the West.

My dad often accompanied him to the annual sale or to other ranches where he would purchase cattle. Occasionally my folks would even buy some of Howard's stock for outcrosses in our small herd of horned Herefords. Over the years, we became such close family friends that my brothers worked in the hayfields with Howard and I worked for Mary Ellen a time or two with house cleaning and cooking.

Mary Ellen loved cats. In fact, when we first visited their ranch-style home---tastefully decorated with a nostalgic, sophisticated Southern motif of Mary Ellen's Kentucky roots---more than 40 cats of every kind, size and color came running and meowing to the cement deck as soon as she appeared to hand out their treats. All had a name, just as did every bull, cow and calf among the hundreds in their herd.

I have immortalized Mary Ellen in my first book, and surprisingly, after reading the anecdotal account in the story "Great Horned Cows," she approved. Once, my dad purchased a yearling Hereford heifer from the Thomasons. This young cow was a big girl with a long, ugly face, iddy biddy eyes and tiny curled horns. Nonetheless, because she came from their ranch, we named her Mary Ellen. That really pleased our friend to know that she had a namesake, even if the heifer was kinda ugly.

Well, Mary Ellen, the cow, grew and grew and grew. At maturity, she stood almost shoulder high to me whenever I could get near her. She never was a friendly sort, and when we changed her name to Mary Elephant, she kept her distance all the more. We did explain this name change to our lady friend, Mary Ellen. She kindly understood.

When Mary Elephant had her first calf, it was January, and the weather was just as ugly as the cow. Lots of ice with lots of rain keeping it slicker than snot. My dad found Mary Elephant with the calf and herded them to the barnyard for the calf's vaccination against a disease called white muscle. I went out to see the new baby, but Mary Elephant's maternal instinct and maybe even a bit of her resentment for that new name took over.

She stuck her head with those little horns down toward the ground and began charging my way. I turned around to run but slipped in the slop. My only defense was a handful of wet cow dodo. I flung it smack dab in her ugly face. Apparently, that was enough to scare her off cuz she turned around and went back to her calf.

Of course, we shared the story with our friend Mary Ellen, who found it amusing. The Thomasons eventually got out of the cow business here, selling their herd and the ranch in 1973 to a rich man from Cincinnati who eventually moved the herd to a 30,000-acre spread in Dillon, Montana. The herd made big news when a later article in Time Magazine indicated that a Japanese investor had bought the ranch and the cattle.

Over the years, Howard and Mary Ellen moved back and forth between Bonners Ferry and Sandpoint, started a few cow herds again, but never to the extent that they had done with that gorgeous ranch they'd built out there on Selkirk Road. These days, it's owned by a nice young couple from California who have associations with AOL. They've maintained the ranch and kept it in lovely condition----Mary Ellen would highly approve.

Both Howard and Mary Ellen are gone now, but the wonderful experiences shared with them during those times so long ago, will always remain as sweet memories.