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I was so happy to find this book, Horses of the West, by the superb photographer Jeanne Thwaites, from 1971, because it’s out of print AND because that’s my big sister, Roberta Gregory, on her Morgan mare, in the center of this photo, between two noted local horsewomen, Sid Spencer and Anne Westerman.

Sid and Anne were sisters. Anne raised her Welsh ponies off of Carpenter Canyon Road and the little fellows were unintimidated by Sid’s Herefords, some of them as big as the ponies, at roundup time. [Welsh ponies used to haul carloads of coal out of mines, so they’re tough little beasties.] Anne taught locally for many years, including a stint at the one-room Santa Manuela School, now in Arroyo Grande’s Heritage Square. P.J. Hemmi, lynched at fifteen in 1886 from the Arroyo Grande PCRR trestle, also attended a previous version of that school, which burned. Lumber from that school was salvaged to build “our” 1901 schoolhouse. That was a long, long, long time, of course, before Anne’s tenure there.

Sid was a widow who raised cattle and her Morgans in Lopez Canyon. At roundup time, it was an all-woman occasion: Anne, Sid, Sheila Varian and her foundation stud, Bay-Abi, who was both beautiful and beautifully trained at working with cattle, and a host of young women, including Roberta. They were, I think, undogmatic and unaware feminists, because they had absolutely nothing to prove to any man, didn’t give a damn what men thought of them, and didn’t need them or their advice. They roped, branded, nutted, fell off and got knocked silly, survived rollovers, broke horses, and, more often, broke bones. Mature horsepeople are about as arthritic as NFL veterans.

They were wonderful.

By the way, Dad and some friends once went dove hunting on Alex Madonna’s land, adjacent to Sid’s, and they wandered onto her property. They were dismayed when she threw down on them with a 30-30 carbine and suggested that everybody just relax until the sheriff got there. Everybody relaxed. Sort of. Sid was quiet, soft-spoken, but very direct. She was a force of nature.