Ruth-Less: A Ruth Parton Story

By Scott Robertson

Ruth Parton is a part of the local history that no-one seems to know about, largely because her extraordinary abilities were displayed on the road. She literally gave up family, friends, and a home to be a successful horsewoman. Her direct descendants have provided old family ranch journals, as well as artifacts and archives of her life. The rodeo life had just begun, and initially the women competed with the men. Ruth was acknowledged as the World Champion Relay Racer from 1914 thru 1917. By the 1930’s thoroughbred horse racing was growing at established tracks on the west coast. Ruth Parton excelled at that sport as well, winning 45 races at Longacre’s in 1945 and 26 wins with a horse named Cyclonic. Ruth was the first woman to be issued a Thourobred Trainers license. She was Native American. Her lifetime included the woman’s right to vote, Prohibition, World War One, the Great Depression, the repeal of Prohibition, and World War Two. She was inducted into the Cowgirl Hall of Fame in 1988 and the Thoroughbred Racing Hall of Fame in 2019. Both forms of horse racing have evolved over time, but Ruth Parton was at the ground level beginning of what is truly an American sport today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Dec 8, 2020
• ISBN: 9781665509367

Book preview

© 2020 Scott Robertson. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse  12/03/2020

ISBN: 978-1-6655-0937-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-0936-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020923625

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Epilogue

PROLOGUE

Ruth Parton was an extraordinary person in an extraordinary time, whether you want to apply physical sporting prowess, intelligence, political correctness, media relations, or any other of life’s many challenges or skills. The author has traveled the world extensively, and worked in foreign countries with non-Americans including working on an Indy car team for seven seasons. I have worked with some of the worlds most talented and brave individuals under constant stress, financial burdens, and media pressure, in dangerous conditions, away from home, on the road so to speak. It is a lonely life, in a crowd of people. I can state unequivocally that in my sixty three years no one I have ever known can hold a candle to Ruth Parton. Just an unbelievably extraordinary woman.

Ruth’s direct descendents provided several hundred pounds of dusty, mouse eaten records dating back to the 1880’s. The author has poured over them trying to determine what some of the entries mean. Some of the material is in Ruth’s own hand.

Public records were also scrutinized, such as census data, both United States and Indian, which do not match the old ranch records. Several public records have the wrong names, dates, and ages. In addition, the public records for things like birth certificates or marriage licenses do not go back to the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The newspaper searches did provide a host of stories, most in the sports section, some in the society pages.

Again, the names and dates don’t always jibe. Ruth was a master at manipulating the media, and learning from her mistakes, to spin her image. What struck me as I researched newspaper stories in history, was that Ruth’s lineage encompassed the American Revolution, the Civil War, the Transcontinental Railroad, Prohibition, World War One, the Women’s Right to Vote, the Wall Street crash of ’29, the Great Depression, the repeal of Prohibition, and World War Two. All of her newspaper stories were surrounded with these historic benchmarks.

As you read the newspaper stories you would never guess that Ruth had any native blood. The further back you go, the reasons become obvious. Being an Indian in America was not popular when you were born within twenty years of the Battle at Little Big Horn. Ruth was a slight woman, five foot tall and one hundred pounds. She was a petite and attractive woman. She was well educated, and well spoken. In the newsman’s vernacular of the day she makes good copy.

Her horsemanship was remarkable, and at the turn of the 19th century, wild west shows such as Wild Bill Cody or Annie Oakley were considered celebrities. Barnum and Bailey had western horse shows under their circus big top that traveled from town to town. All of these promotions had sensational media. Ruth’s lineage has always included livestock, both cattle and horses. The Parton’s provided horses to the United States Cavalry from before the Civil War. As most of this was in what are today the central Washington and Oregon regions, as well as south western Canada, it is doubtful that Ruth had less than 10% to 25% native blood quorum. The question is which tribe?

As an example of how this story is written, the author will relate a story that, as much of Ruth’s life, is simply lost to history. As Ruth very carefully coifed and manipulated her public presence, in that way it helps to explain her mysteries. The author makes no explanation for racial or gender biased remarks. That simply is the world that Ruth lived in.

In the census data reviewed, both United States and Indian, the facts change from time to time; birthdates, names, family members, etc all out of the family farm home. Indeed Ruth’s headstone date of birth does not match the 1900 Census that shows her as a four year old Parton girl. Today, that mystery is lost to history. What is the truth? How do you really know? Again, in the author’s lifetime, he has learned that nobody can control who their parents were, or what circumstances they were born into. As I wrestled with how to tell this story, and how to reference it, I have decided just to right the story as I think Ruth would have wanted it written.

There are a multitude of native tribes in the Pacific Northwest. Her blood quorum could be Pendleton, Umatilla, Yakama, Tulalip, Spokane, Colville, Wasco, Willamette, Canadian, or other natives. The Author will simply state that Ruth is 20% Yakama based on what he has witnessed. Who really knows? Does it matter? This book is fiction based on the best available information, and the stories passed down to her granddaughters and great grandson.

The Civil War had ended just thirty years before Ruth was born. President Lincoln had just been re-elected and then assassinated at a public theatre. Abraham Lincoln drafted the Emancipation Proclamation, which not only freed the slaves, but also made that political firecracker an official condition of the War which began over the South seceding from the United States.

The underlying history of that war is the irony that the founding of the United States was based on an economy that required slaves, and that the freedom was based on a monarchy that allowed indenturing one’s own children as servants. The lowest people on the food chain suffer abuses they cannot work their way out of. In 1776 one out of four Americans was owned by another American.

Most of the Indian treaties in the west were done in the late 1850’s. The North was aware that eventually they would be at war with the South. The reasons are varied, but generally the United States did not want the tribes assisting the Rebels, or have to fight two battles on two fronts at the same time. The Yakama’s were forced to give up 13 million acres, most of central Washington State today, and live on 1.4 million poor acres, or face total annihilation.

The Yakama Treaty of 1855 was an executive order that was negotiated between Governor Isaac Stevens and Chief Kamiakin. It was a take it or leave it deal. This deal negotiated on behalf of the president had to be ratified by Congress. Kamiakin understood that the whites would not begin settling on his lands for two years, to allow the Yakama’s to relocate to their reservation. Two weeks was more accurate. Kamiakin felt that the whites had not kept their end of the bargain, which was their reputation, and the Yakama War of 1855 soon followed, ten years prior to President Lincoln’s assassination.

Ruth’s grandparents and their parents provided Calvary horses to the United States up to the time of the Civil War. Their ranch was located on the Yakama Indian Reservation.

Colonel George Custer may have very well been on a Parton horse when he was in the Union Calvary. Some twenty years after President Lincoln was shot by John Booth there was an Indian War in the west at Little Big Horn near the current Wyoming Montana border. This was ten years before Ruth was born. By this time Mr. Custer was a General of the Seventh Calvary. History does not divulge where his horse came from.

History does divulge that the Seventh Calvary was wiped out. Following that military debacle General Custer’s wife began a speaking tour across the nation. She traveled from town to town on the recently completed transcontinental railroad. At that time it was considered bad form for a white woman to travel by herself. She engaged a young lady to accompany her named Roza. Roza’s story is lost to history; her age, her race, where she was from. The author could research Mrs. Custer and see if he could garner any information, and possibly a picture, but this is not Mrs. Custer’s story.

It is safe to assume that Roza is not Native American. Since it was twenty years after the Civil War, the author has deemed that Roza is African American. She is the daughter of former slaves from Africa, and is twenty years old, give or take. This assumption is based on the reality that servant work like this was what was available for a single black woman in 1890.

The railroad had just been extended to the Yakima Valley along the Yakima River canyon. Roza had to pee; real, real, real bad! If the train had a public toilet it would be considered bad form for a colored to use the bathroom.

Roza asked the conductor what she should do. We have to take on water at a siding for the steam a mile or so on. There is an outhouse at the siding he replied. The train came to a stop in about five minutes, and Roza disembarked and answered natures call. Today a state highway navigates the opposite side of the Yakima River. There is an irrigation canal that feeds a countywide system called the Roza in which water is diverted from Lake Roza behind the Roza Dam. The water tower and outhouse are lost to history along with Roza’s last name.

So the author has taken some liberties that cannot be defended. So what? This book is fiction based on real events or real circumstances of a time that most Americans today cannot comprehend. The average American today considers hot running water, air conditioning, and an I-phone to be minimum standards of living. Food availability is taken for granted, akin to the air that we breathe. None of those luxuries existed on Ruth’s tenth birthday, except the air.

So grab a snack and a drink, relax, and open your mind to being an Indian woman making her own way in the world with horses in the early 1900’s in the United States. This story’s beginning is pre-Ruth a bit, because the circumstances that made Ruth what she is are necessary to understand this remarkable woman.

Thanks to Gratia, Susan, and Curtis; Ruth’s direct descendents that are all involved with horses today, and reside on the Parton Ranch.

CHAPTER ONE

T HE LEWIS AND CLARK SURVEYING expedition arrived at the Five Mile Falls in 1805. For perspective this is thirty years following the American Revolution and the formation of the United States of America. This site today is named Biggs Junction and is the intersection of Interstate 84 in Oregon, and Highway 97 to Washington. The ferry crossing the Columbia River would be operated by Ruth’s predecessors.

Page%201.jpg

The United States had just completed the Louisiana Purchase with France that extended the U.S. border west towards the Rocky Mountains. The Unites States was concerned about other nations claiming any part of the continent, but there were no settlers or communities out west, just millions of Indians. France, England, Russia, and Japan already had a minor,