True story

Once upon a time there was a girl who was born into a very wealthy family. Very wealthy.

Her father was a hard working rancher who came from a line of wealthy land owners. He was larger than life.

Of course he expected his daughter to marry a man who held his same work ethic, and love for the land.

But she was drawn to the social life and loved to run in the high class social circles that were popping up everywhere in this new western frontier.

Her wealth afforded her way of life and her friends were many.

And she did not care for her father's way of life.

It is no surprise that this wealthy young daughter, with her high class style and extroverted nature, met the man of her desires.

But he was not a land owner, nor did his wealth match that of hers.

It was his dashing good looks, sense of style, and popularity that drew her to him and the two fell madly...no, tragically... in love.

As you might have guessed, the father was not pleased with his daughter's suitor. He viewed the young man with scepticism and mistrust.

On his death bed he pleaded with his daughter to promise that she would never marry the young man. Never.

She looked her father in the eye and swore to him to that she would carry out his wishes and swallowed her guilt.

Yet her guilt was not because she felt that she had loved the wrong man.

Her guilt swelled from the fact that she had already secretly eloped with her lover just several months before!

Yes, she was now regretting her choices. How could she possible tell her father the truth?

So she and her lover lived apart and kept their union a secret until her father passed away and the two finally were able to reveal their union.

They inherited land and wealth and all of the responsibilities that come from receiving them.

They had a daughter.

They built a summer home in a fertile valley and traveled there often.

Yet it was doomed from the start...as often happens when affairs of the heart are birthed in sorrid passion and secrecy. How could they possibly survive?

As time went on, they spent much of their lives apart. (Many say it was because of her unresolved guilt.)

The husband took over the land and became what his father-in-law had always wished her suitor to be: an obsessed, hard working land owner.

Yet, she could not stay away from the fashionable social circles that she and her lover had once visited together.

As their only daughter grew she rarely saw her father. Her mother wished more for her than living a rancher's life and trained her in the ways of high class society.

So of course, there was much elation when her daughter was married off to a wealthy Baron.

Though it too, was a doomed affair.

Upon learning that her father was deathly ill, alone, without her mother's care, the daughter who was a million miles away, collapsed into a nervous breakdown and was admitted to an asylum.

When the father passed the irony was cruel: he was buried next to his father-in-law, the man who had at one time no faith or belief in his character or motives.

Shortly after hearing of her father's death, one night the daughter went wandering in the asylum and jumped out of a window to her death.

Leaving the mother alone...the mother who was once a daughter of a wealthy land owner that ran head long into a life of passion, secrecy, vanity, and tragedy.


I visit their summer home often when the sun is out and I have a moment to wander, for it still stands in the center of town as a historical landmark. I discovered the antiqued rod iron fences (above) in the first week I moved here over four years ago. No one has disturbed their comfortable position leaning up against the side porch. No one has carted them off. I often wonder at their age. The rust has grown into a beautifully aged patina and the grass has grown up between the iron posts. Time just passes.

I meet many people who have no idea that this historical landmark was the first home in this beautiful valley, that it carries with it such a colorful history. (They also have no idea that our town is named after that dashing young man who married into wealth.) I have been inside of it a few times and it looks and feels like a home that was built over 100 years ago: wooden planked floors, creaky stairs cases, antique light fixtures, wrap around porches. Whether I visit inside or outside I often wished the fences and walls could speak.

Maybe they would tell me that they are not surprised that life is not much different...that people still marry for passion, lie to their parents, loose themselves in wealth, succomb to vanity, jump out of windows. They would affirm my belief that though humanity is capable of great good, we are all capable at times of royally messing things up.