Features

Down on the Farm
By S. Mary Bodde

“If only I could pet a horse again!” S. De Paul Sandoval wished, recalling fond memories from her childhood on a ranch in southern Colorado. Her family of five girls was large enough to cover all the cooking and cleaning at the house, so when one of her four brothers ‘broke in’ a horse, “he let me ride it to corral the cows wherever they happened to be,” she said. Her wish traveled from fifth to second floor Mother Margaret Hall at Mount St. Joseph. Nurse Pat Campbell just happens to live near Four Hoofs Hotel, Irene and Don Bernard’s horse farm off Hillside below the Mount. On Aug. 12 all the Sisters from the second floor, and S. De Paul, took a bus trip to the farm. First off the bus S. De Paul got to pet Ellie, one of 11 horses, and a mini horse named Princess. She also wanted to see Clyde, a 1,900 pounder. “If I were younger, I’d get right up there!” she exclaimed. “That’s the way the late S. Mary Eudora Corbin used to when she and two other children in her family would all three ride their horses to and from school.” S. De Paul loved the outdoors, working in the garden with her mother and helping her with the cows and calves. After her brother died, “we couldn’t hire workers during the Depression,” she said, “so I came home (from Trinidad Junior College) and helped as much as I could with the cattle, gathering them and getting them out to pasture.” After such a successful trip, Pat promises another to the Four Hoofs Hotel, hopefully later this fall.

 

 

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