How Cowboys Celebrated Easter

 

Out on the open range, Easter for cowboys was usually a quieter, more practical affair than the church-centered celebrations back East. Spring was a busy season in cattle country--calving was underway, grass was coming in, and long days in the saddle left little time for formal observance.  Still, many cowboys marked the holiday in simple, meaningful ways. If a ranch was near a town, they might ride in for a church service, trading dust-covered hats for a brief moment of reflection. More often, though, Easter was acknowledged right where they were: on the trail, around a chuckwagon, or beside a small campfire under the wide prairie sky. 

 Food played a central role, as it often does on holidays. The ranch cook might make an effort to prepare something a bit more special than the usual fare--fresh biscuits, maybe a pie if ingredients allowed, or even eggs if they could be had. Coffee was strong, conversation a little lighter, and the men might swap stories or speak of home, where families were likely celebrating in more traditional ways. For some, Easter was a reminder of distant loved ones and a life left behind, adding a note of quiet sentiment to an otherwise rugged existence.

 Though their celebration lacked ceremony, many cowboys still carried a personal sense of faith. A few might read from a small Bible kept in their saddlebags, or bow their heads briefly before a meal. In a landscape as vast and unforgiving as the frontier, moments like Easter offered a chance to pause, reflect, and find a bit of peace. Even without churches or choirs the spirit of the day endured--simple, resilient, and shaped by the rhythms of life on the range. 

Happy Easter,

 

Sandra 

 

Books available at Amazon 

 

More than a Ranch

There are places that exist on a map and then there are places that exist in the bones of a community. The ones that call you home.

Knight Ranch is one such place.

Set just outside a small town which is yet to be named that still believes in hard work and keeping your word, the ranch has been part of the landscape for generations. Not just in the fields of cattle and rows of crops, or the horses that move like they were born from the land itself but in the people. The kind of people who show up when it matters.

Because that’s what the Knights do.

If you ask around town, you won’t get one single story about the ranch, you’ll get a hundred, each a little differently depending on who’s doing the telling.

They’ll tell you about the matriarch first.

She’s the kind of woman who doesn’t ask what you need. She just shows up, already knowing. A hot meal on your table. A plan in motion before you’ve even had time to fall apart.

Then there’s Weston.

He didn’t ask for the weight of the ranch, but he carries it anyway. You’ll hear folks say he’s all sharp edges and short patience, that he keeps a tighter grip on the books than most men do on their pride. But you’ll also hear this—if Weston Knight shakes your hand, he means it. And he expects you to mean it too. In a town where promises used to be enough, Weston is the reminder that words only matter when they’re followed by action. Just like his father before him.

And the ranch itself?

It’s more than land.

It’s where the town turns when things get hard. It’s where teenagers get their first jobs, where neighbors trade stories, where the seasons don’t just pass, they’re earned.

Over the years, Knight Ranch has grown beyond cattle and horses. Fields of hay stretch  under wide skies. The crops rotate with the seasons. And when fall rolls in, the ranch transforms..

That’s when the community comes alive.

The pumpkin patch fills with families. The corn maze winds with laughter and a few wrong turns. The farm stand hums with fresh produce and homemade goods. And at the center of it all, marking the true start of the season, is the Fall Festival kickoff bonfire.

It’s not just an event, it’s a tradition.

As the sun dips low, people gather. Hay bales form uneven circles. Kids run with cider-sticky hands. Someone always brings a guitar, whether they can play it well or not. And when the fire finally catches, lighting up the night, it feels like the entire town is breathing together.

Stories are shared. News is passed. And sometimes, things shift in ways no one quite expected.

Because that’s the thing about Knight Ranch.

It holds history in its soil and change in its future.

It’s seen good years and hard ones. Seasons that gave more than expected, and others that took a little too much. Through it all, the ranch has remained—steady, stubborn, and deeply rooted in the lives of the people around it.

Around here, Knight Ranch isn’t just a place you pass through.

It’s where people show up when life gets complicated and where they find out exactly what they’re made of.

Authors on a cruise ship!

  

   I love vacations and books. What could be better than a bookish vacation? An author cruise!

    Cruising is one of my favorite ways to vacation. Several years ago I was looking for author retreats and came upon one on a cruise ship. Then Covid happened and travel came to a stop.

    Last years I was searching again and found the Love Lit Cruise. I was so excited but couldn't go. This year I booked it before I even knew if I could get the time off of work.

    This is the second year of Love Lit Cruise and it was amazing!! Erin Burgess of Betty Brown Travel had a dream of combining authors, readers, and vacation and in 2025 her plan came together. A little over 50 people attended and in 2026 it was 198 people. 

   Love Lit was held on Virgin Voyages Scarlet Lady. I have sailed on Carnival and Royal Caribbean, but Virgin Voyages is far different. It is an adults-only cruise line and so full of great entertainment and food.

  We had group event and dinners with the authors and on a five day cruise, you really get to know the authors and fellow readers.

  

  There were author panels and games that were great. Bookish Feud was so much fun. It was like Family Feud but all categories involved books.

  Some attending authors were Amy Daws, Sara Cate, Brittianry Cherry, Willow Winters, M Robinson, Juliette Cross, Naimi Simone, Trilina Pucci, Sarah Bale, Nikki Sloane, Victoria K. Taylor, and several more. 

Talking with other authors and readers was great. We talked about our books and I confessed I was struggling with writers block and Krysta Dearson (an attending reader but who is also an author) held an impromptu Boot Camp to help me. Victoria K. Taylor (attending author) and Sally Schedlock (my cousin, writes non-fiction) all met and talked writing and strategy.

An afternoon was spent on a book signing and thankfully I had room in my suitcase for lots of books! When the cruise came to an end, I had many new friends and authors to follow. I hope to be able to go again next year.

Victoria K. Taylor

Willow Winters

  Happy to say that Boot Camp did indeed help with my writers block. I stayed on the ship for another sailing after Love Lit was over and went to the Loose Cannon Pub to write with an octopus we named Jethro. So every day for the next four days I made time to go there and write. Since I've been home, I've managed to get a new book almost finished!  I think I need to get an octopus statue for home.

Long John Dunn: King of Taos ~ D. K. Deters

The Old West was full of hardened outlaws with tough stories. Many tried to leave their pasts behind, but few succeeded. Long John Dunn, nicknamed for his towering six-foot-four frame, became a legend.

Born in 1857 in Victoria, Texas, Dunn grew up in poverty. After his father’s death, he hired out on a couple of farms, then headed west to work as a cowboy and trail driver, earning a reputation as a skilled marksman.

Around 1885, he stepped into a violent quarrel to defend his sister from her abusive husband. During the scuffle, Dunn’s brother-in-law struck him. Dunn swung back. The man fell, hit his head on a hitching rail, and died. Dunn was handed a life sentence in the Texas State Penitentiary.

Transferred to a prison farm, he received a smuggled file, sawed through his leg irons, and escaped by jumping into a nearby river and floating to freedom. On the run, he eventually reached Mexico.

After a stint as a smuggler and a gambler, Dunn returned to Texas. He entered a rodeo, but one of the horses he’d sold to pay his entry fee turned out to be stolen property, which led to his second arrest. As a judge was about to sentence him, Dunn stepped forward, leapt through a window, and rode off on another stolen horse. A friend helped him to enter the New Mexico Territory.

By 1887, he’d made his way to Taos Valley, where he became an entrepreneur, gambler, and transportation pioneer. In Taos, he opened four saloons, a gambling hall, and a livery stable. He bought the bridges spanning the Rio Grande, and after floods destroyed them, he built a new toll bridge. Dunn operated stagecoach and mail routes and later purchased one of Taos’s first automobiles, launching a taxi service as the town modernized.

Though a professional gambler, Dunn became a respected community member. People liked him despite his flaws. Folks described him as a “lovable rascal” with a sharp tongue and broad humor. He became a local legend known as Juan Largo de Taos and as the King of Taos.

Texas never forgot his prison escape, but in 1942, the Texas governor granted him a pardon.

Long John Dunn died on May 21, 1953, at the age of ninety-six. The outlaw who once leapt through a courtroom window and rode out of town on a stolen horse was laid to rest as one of Taos’s most colorful and respected citizens.

Resources:

Long John Dunn of Taos: From Texas Outlaw to New Mexico Hero by Max Evans

John Dunn: The Man and His Legacy by Cindy Brown

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/72943405/john_harris-dunn

https://discovertaos.com/john-dunn/

https://johndunnshops.com/

The Ides of March & Why It Belongs in a Western Romance

The Ides of March & Why It Belongs in a Western Romance

 

I’ve heard the term the Ides of March and wondered when it was and what it meant.

March 15^th is the day Julius Caesar was betrayed and murdered by the very men he trusted most. Not by strangers. By friends. Allies. People who had stood beside him.

Western romance, whether real or fictional, is full of its own versions of the Ides of March.

Outlaws turning on each other. Ranch hands switching sides. Best friends becoming enemies. Families torn apart by secrets and land disputes.

But the good thing about romance is that these conflicts have two people falling in love when they probably shouldn’t.

Every romance has a moment where there is misunderstanding or even a betrayal. The secret that comes out and changes everything. Trust is broken and hearts are on the line.

It’s the point in the story where the hero or heroine wonders if they were wrong to believe. If love was a mistake. If walking away would hurt less than staying.

But here’s where romance is better than history. People fight for love.

Where Caesar’s story ended in tragedy, our stories get a second chance. A moment where characters choose courage over fear and love over pride.

So this March 15th, I’m tipping my hat to the Ides of March—not as a warning, but as a reminder.

Sometimes the darkest moment is the one that proves love is real.

And every cowboy worth loving has to earn his redemption. 

 

Dime Novelist Laura Jean Libby ~ Julie Lence

Last month, I discussed the romance dime novel and gave three samples, to include what is considered the first romance dime novel, Malaeska, the Indian Wife of the White Hunter. Laura Jean Libby penned a story for that work, and it wasn’t her last. During the course of her career, she sold over fifteen million copies of her books.

 

Born in Brooklyn, New York on March 22, 1862 to Thomas and Elizabeth Libbey, Laura lived most of her life in the city and began writing around age 20. Some of her earlier works appeared in The New York Family Story Paper, The Fireside Companion, and New York Ledger and were popular with readers, enabling her to negotiate exclusive contracts at higher salaries during the 1880’s. Her earlier works were later reprinted in dime novels by publishers George Munro, Arthur Westbrook, and John Lovell, with Laura striking it big in 1889 with The Pretty Young Girl, which sold over 60,000 copies in one month.  Though she had little formal education, Laura was a savvy businesswoman and went on to edit Munro’s Fashion Bazaar from 1891-1994, earning over $10,000 per year, according to her financial records.

 During her career, when fellow authors changed genres according to public likes and dislikes,  Laura stayed true to her genre and voice. Many believed she used a format for her stories since they had the same elements, but she denied the claims. As time progressed and interest in the dime romance dwindled, she moved away from penning stories to writing a love advice columnist for the New York Mail. Sadly, she met with little success in this endeavor.

Little is known about Laura’s private life, other than her mother forbid her to marry young. At age 36, (two years after her mother’s passing) she married Brooklyn lawyer Van Mater Stilwell. They had no children, as Laura’s writing career and being identified as an author were more important to her, so much that even after marrying Stilwell, she was still publicly known as Laura Jean Libbey. She passed in 1924 due to complications from cancer surgery and was laid to rest in Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.     

 

Carrie Shelton - the first female governor

 

Since March is Women in History month, I thought I'd share a little info about a woman many don't know served as Oregon's governor before women had the right to vote.

Carrie Bertha Shelton is a woman all but forgotten by history.

 

Library of Congress

For a weekend in 1909, she was the first female governor in the United States.

Carrie Bertha Skiff was born October 3, 1876 in Union County, Oregon, the  fourth of Willis and Mary Skiff’s six children.

Accounts report her childhood as one of comfort. Her father was a Union County and Union city official before transitioning into the role of business man.

However, life changed for Carrie in 1886 when her father disappeared. He was on a business trip to North Powder, Oregon, and was last seen sitting outside the town's hotel, awaiting the midnight train to return home. When he failed to arrival, his disappearance sparked an investigation. The case was never solved.  Carrie's mother passed away a few years later, leaving the children orphaned. Carrie and two of her siblings went to live with their older brother, Orin, and his wife.  In 1889, Carrie, and her sister Mabel become wards of Union County Judge John W. Shelton, who was one of the leaders looking into the mystery if Willis Skiff's disappearance.

In 1892, with his wife away visiting family in California, John Shelton obtained a divorce before heading off to Weiser, Idaho with Carrie. They wed just two weeks after her 16th birthday and moved to the Portland area. Less than two years after their marriage, Carrie was a widow.

She started a career as a stenographer at the Portland law firm of Chamberlain and Thomas in 1895. There she began working with George Chamberlain, a powerful attorney.

A quick learner with a talent for the technical terms of the law, Chamberlain took her under his wing and gave her responsibilities not usually afforded to stenographers.

When Chamberlain was elected to the Multnomah County district attorney’s office in 1900, he took her with him. There, she enhanced her legal knowledge by helping draft indictments.

At the ripe old age of 25, Shelton joined Chamberlain in Salem when he was elected governor.  Chamberlain served two tenures in the governor’s office, and at some point Shelton was promoted from stenographer to his personal secretary.

In 1909, Chamberlain was elected to represent Oregon in the U.S. Senate. His term as governor would end March 1, but all freshmen senators were slated to be sown in March 4 in Washington D.C. If Chamberlin stayed through the end of February, he'd be sworn in late and all the other members of the freshman senate class would have seniority over him. That would never, ever do.

Ordinarily, the incoming governor would have assumed his post a few days early, but Frank W. Benson was too ill to step up to the plate. At that time, Oregon law stated in the event of the chief executive’s death the Secretary of State should become governor. In the absence of the governor— whether due to illness, travel out of state, etc.— his private secretary would become acting head of state.

And Chamberlin's private secretary was Carrie Shelton, who had started using the name Caralyn to sound more professional.

At 9:15 a.m. on the morning of Saturday, Feb. 27, 1909, Shelton assumed the role of the acting governor — becoming the nation’s first female governor. For a weekend, a woman who couldn’t legally cast a ballot possessed the power to issue pardons, veto bills and sign executive orders.

For 48 hours and 55 minutes, Carrie Shelton was the acting head of Oregon's government. Although she couldn't legally cast a ballot (it would be a few more years before women had the right to vote in Oregon) she held the power to issue pardons, veto bills and sign executive orders.

She did none of those things, but how sad she is never mentioned on lists of historical women in America.

She was quoted as saying, "I want to fill the governor's shoes, and he really has a small foot. I fear the principal trouble will be in trying to fill his hat." What a sense of humor!

The following Monday, at a few minutes past ten in the morning, her time in office was over. Benson was formally sworn in as governor.

Headlines across the state had a heyday with the news, though.

“Oregon Has Today a Woman Governor” read the headline of the Daily Capital Journal (Salem)  on February 27, 1909 with a subhead that stated, "Mrs. C. B. Shelton First Woman to Govern Any State."

"Has Three Governors In Three Days," the front page of The Daily Capital Journal stated on March 1, 1909. "Oregon Holds The World's Record For Changing Rulers. Secretary of State Benson is today the third governor that Oregon has had in the last three days."

Not long after being relieved of her duties as acting governor, Shelton boarded a train bound for Washington, D.C., joining now-Sen. Chamberlain once again as his personal secretary. She oversaw his staff of clerks. By 1914, she also served in the role of the clerk to the Senate Committee on Military Affairs, of which Chamberlain was the ranking member. Shelton remained with Chamberlain when he joined the United States Shipping Board in 1921, serving as his personal secretary until he resigned in 1923. He returned to private law in the D.C. area and Shelton continued working alongside Chamberlain through the death of his wife, Sallie, in 1925. When Chamberlain suffered from a paralytic stroke at age 72, Carrie remained with him.

Shelton and Chamberlain wed in Norfolk, Virginia on July 12, 1926. George Chamberlain died after a brief illness on July 9, 1928, three days shy of the couple’s second wedding anniversary.

Carrie returned home to Oregon. She lived out her remaining years between Union County and Salem. She died on Feb. 3, 1936, at age 59 and her memorable moments as the first female governor in America were all but forgotten.

USA Today Bestselling Author Shanna Hatfield grew up on a farm where her childhood brimmed with sunshine, hay fever, and an ongoing supply of learning experiences.

Shanna creates character-driven romances with realistic heroes and heroines. Her historical westerns have been described as “reminiscent of the era captured by Bonanza and The Virginian” while her contemporary works have been called “laugh-out-loud funny, and a little heart-pumping sexy without being explicit in any way.”

When this award-winning author isn’t writing or testing out new recipes (she loves to bake!), Shanna hangs out at home in the Pacific Northwest with her beloved husband, better known as Captain Cavedweller.

Connect with her on her website.