The Woman Who Quit Her Desk Job and Rode 1,000 Miles on Horseback Instead

This story, “Journey of the Out of doors Life Woman,” appeared within the July 1973 situation of Out of doors Life, when Hardy was 80 years previous.

On a September morning in 1914 a 21-year-old woman from Spokane, Washington, put her horse into what tons of of onlookers considered a considerably hazardous climb. Gladys Hardy was tackling the ascent of 37 steps that led as much as the door of the capitol constructing at Salem, Oregon.

On the high of the steps Oregon’s Governor Oswald West and Salem’s Mayor B. L. Steeves waited as an official welcoming delegation, decked out of their finest bib and tucker, together with derby hats. Movement-picture cameramen have been readily available to document the climb in that day’s model of the newsreel. Due to the unsure footing of the rain-wet steps, the horse wore rubber “boots” that had been specifically made by a saddle firm.

The horse went up slowly and punctiliously, step-by-step, steadied and inspired by his rider. On the high, on the broad strategy to the capitol, Gladys climbed out of the saddle and shook arms with the Governor and Mayor.

“That was enjoyable,” she advised the 2 officers with a smile. “Need to strive a trip?” she requested the Governor.

Oregon’s chief govt lengthened the stirrups, swung into the saddle, and reined Goldie, the horse, by means of the door and down the size of the capitol hall. When it was time to depart, Gladys selected to not threat descending these 37 steps. As a substitute, the horse was led into the passenger elevator and brought to floor stage, inflicting Governor West to remark that as far as he knew Goldie was the primary horse within the historical past of Oregon to trip the capitol elevator.

Gladys Hardy was halfway on a horseback trip by herself from Spokane, Washington, to San Francisco, California. She was attracting quite a lot of consideration, partly as a result of she was making the journey beneath the title of the Out of doors Life  Woman.

Born at Divide, Colorado, in December 1892, Gladys remembers taking part in hooky from faculty to wander alone within the woods. Her first pet was a burro that she rode into hidden nooks and canyons at each alternative.

Early in 1914 she was working within the Northern Pacific Railroad workplace at Spokane, and he or she had wearied of the routine. When male fellow staff dared the younger girl to undertake a solitary horseback trip to San Francisco, she determined to take the dare. She had been keen on horses and using all her life, and the thought of the lengthy, solo trip appealed to her.

Gladys raffled off a piano to purchase a horse, promoting tickets that ranged in worth from a penny to $2. She remembers {that a} 29¢ ticket gained the piano. She purchased Goldie, a mild buckskin, and the lads who had dared her to make the trip chipped in and gave her a saddle and the remainder of the gear she would wish.

In search of earnings to pay her manner, Gladys wrote to J. A. McGuire, the writer of Out of doors Life in Denver. This publication was then in its lusty youth, having been based in 1898, proclaiming itself “A Journal of the West” and that includes articles about vary using, Wes tern hearth lookouts, and such typical tales as one titled, “The Tragedy of Sitting Bull.”

Gladys Hardy requested McGuire if he would authorize her to solicit subscriptions to Out of doors Life as she rode. McGuire will need to have seen the promotion prospects of the proposal, for he was fast to offer it his blessing.

Gladys rode away from the workplace of the Spokane Chronicle on June 16, 1914. Between her and San Francisco lay greater than 1,000 miles of street and lonely mountain path. Luckily, little or no of the street was paved. Paved highways meant harmful going for horse and rider, and her solely mishap of the journey would come at Portland, when Goldie slipped on rain-slick pavement and fell on his rider and broke her leg, leading to a delay of a number of weeks.

Earlier than she left Spokane, Gladys made a wager along with her fellow staff. They gave her $10, which she sealed in an envelope. Her facet of the wager was that she would trip into San Francisco with that envelope unopened. The percentages gave the impression to be in opposition to her, for she began the lengthy trip to San Francisco with precisely 50¢ in her pocket.

However the Out of doors Life subscription enterprise proved to be surprisingly brisk. By the point the horsewoman rode into San Francisco on a wet night in November, she had offered greater than 1,000 subscriptions. She had augmented her earnings by using in parades and rodeos and for newsreels, and when she led Goldie off the ‘Frisco ferry that closing evening, the envelope nonetheless rested in her pocket with its $10 invoice intact.

By then Gladys Hardy had ridden by means of sufficient wild and exquisite nation, had sufficient thrilling adventures, and met sufficient attention-grabbing and pleasant folks to final any outdoor-minded younger girl a lifetime.

The trip up the steps of the capitol at Salem was one of many highlights of the journey. Earlier than she left, Gladys offered Governor West with a complimentary subscription to Out of doors Life, and he or she nonetheless cherishes what the Governor stated when he accepted it.

“When the work of state will get oppressive and every thing appears unappealing, it drives away the cares to delve into {a magazine} which tells of the outside,” he advised her. “That life is the true life.” A lot of Gladys’s trip was by means of mountains, on roads that have been little greater than cattle trails, or on tough corduroy utilized by heavy logging wagons (this was lengthy earlier than the day of logging vans) with crude pole bridges. Greater than as soon as Gladys needed to cowl holes in these bridges with lengths of pole in order that her horse may cross.

However now, as an aged girl, she nonetheless remembers these mountain woods as probably the most lovely nation she has ever seen. Bushes, ferns, and moss grew so thick that in lots of locations the solar not often touched the bottom. Springs broke out from beneath rock ledges, feeding crystal-clear streams.

“I believe my horse dabbled in each creek we got here to on that journey,” she says in the present day.

Typically the Out of doors Life Woman turned enchanted by the cool dampness and fantastic thing about this rain forest, and he or she dismounted and walked in order that she may higher savor the solitude and silence of the place. She and Goldie got here to know each other so properly that if he loped forward as she walked, he would come again at her name.

Gladys rode in horse races at a roundup alongside the best way and in addition spent two days in Seattle taking within the Golden Potlatch, a celebration that she says originated when the primary boatloads of gold have been introduced in from Alaska.

Some days Gladys rode 60 miles. Between Tacoma and Centralia, Washington, she was retracing her manner after she’d taken a improper street. The horsewoman was using in thick woods simply earlier than midnight and was about able to camp for the evening when she heard a workforce and wagon coming.

At first, the driving force thought the flashlight-carrying determine was a holdup man, and he whipped up his workforce. However when he noticed he was coping with a lone woman, he pulled up, and Gladys was invited to a close-by ranch for the evening. This type of expertise was pretty widespread on the journey. Repeatedly the Out of doors Life Woman was entertained within the houses of ranch households. She completed the journey with excessive reward for the friendliness and hospitality of the folks she had met.

There have been nights, nevertheless, when issues didn’t work out so properly. As soon as she slept in a grimy small-town lodge that had no locks on the doorways. She camped with forest rangers and stayed with sheepherders of their camps. At one level she overtook a bunch of transients who have been climbing from place to put in search of work. A lot of them have been carrying bedrolls on their backs. Gladys loaded as most of the bedrolls onto Goldie as she may, after which walked with the lads.

She traveled with this group for a number of days, sharing the meals she had in her saddlebags, consuming beans, and ingesting espresso out of tin cans.

“They handled me like a sister,” Gladys says.

On a lonely path close to the highest of Saddle Mountain she got here throughout a grave that had a picket headboard with an inscription revealing that the person buried there had been killed by a bear in 1892.

One morning, close to the city of Shasta in northern California, she stopped at a small nation faculty and was invited to offer a chat to the children. Within the midst of it the kids instantly jumped to their ft, and certainly one of them shouted, “Look! The mountain is blowing its high!”

The announcement proved true — the teenager will need to have meant Lassen Peak, which some months earlier had begun a interval of volcanic unrest that might final till 1921. Gladys has by no means forgotten the spectacle.

Close to Winters, California, she was proven what was reputed to be the most important rose bush on the earth. Its trunk was 42 inches round, and the highest measured 44 by 56 ft. In Portland the Out of doors Life Woman was the visitor of the Portland and Oakland baseball groups. Gladys rode her horse onto the diamond and offered each member of each groups subscriptions to Out of doors Life.

At Willows, California, she was entertained at a neighborhood duck membership and invited to go alongside on a duck shoot. She loved the hunt immensely however admits that she killed no geese.

Gladys had higher luck with deer. She had by no means performed any deer searching however had at all times thought that it sounded thrilling, and the urge grew after she met a pair of prospectors within the city of Canyonville, Oregon. The boys had are available in for provides and have been packing their mules and preparing to depart when Gladys encountered them. Because the prospectors have been going her manner, the three left city collectively, with the lads on foot, main the mules. Gladys may have traveled sooner alone, however her companions invited her to stick with them till midday and be a part of them for a venison dinner.

They discovered a great spot for the midday hearth, and the younger girl unsaddled Goldie after which introduced water from a close-by stream whereas one prospector unpacked cooking gear and the opposite lower dry wooden and. obtained a fireplace going. The Out of doors Life Woman remembers that dinner as an impressive meal, and the searching tales the 2 males advised across the hearth additional whetted her urge for food for deer searching.

Gladys was to get the prospect a lot before she anticipated. Within the early afternoon she pushed on and left the 2 prospectors behind. Ten miles in need of her scheduled cease she heard a horse coming behind her at a quick clip, and he or she pulled up.

The rider was a younger girl about Gladys’s age who launched herself as Mamie Clements. Miss Clements had simply accomplished a trip of 235 miles by herself from Eureka, California, to her residence, and now she was getting back from a deer hunt on her father’s homestead on the head of Cow Creek, about 25 miles away, the place she had killed a great buck.

The 2 women struck up a friendship on the spot, and when Gladys expressed eager curiosity in deer searching, Mamie invited her on a hunt. Three days later, on a cool October morning, Gladys was a part of a searching occasion that was headed for the Cow Creek nation. Mamie’s father Jess Clements, her brother Blake, and a searching companion of theirs named Miller drove the grub wagon with meals and outfit as the 2 women adopted on horseback.

The hunt was a energetic one. The primary day they noticed various does and fawns, and two or three bucks that have been out of vary. The second morning they tied their horses and began up a steep mountain on foot. Virtually without delay the hunters jumped 4 bucks inside straightforward taking pictures distance.

The others waited for Gladys to shoot first, however she missed her likelihood. In a sudden seizure of buck fever she dropped her gun and stood shouting, “Have a look at ’em go! Have a look at ’em go!”

The subsequent day, nevertheless, Gladys redeemed herself by dropping a two-point buck. She and Mamie rode again to Mamie’s residence by themselves, however earlier than they obtained there a black bear challenged them within the street. It was too darkish for correct taking pictures, however Gladys fired a few photographs from her .38 handgun within the bear’s course, and it cleared out.

Virtually on the finish of her lengthy trip Gladys encountered sudden difficulties. Close to Sacramento a bridge was out, and he or she put her horse into the stream to ford it. Goldie was rapidly trapped in quicksand. However simply then two younger males got here alongside on bikes. They obtained a loop of her reins across the saddlehorn, and with the horse floundering and the 2 bikers pulling, Goldie was hauled free.

On the wet evening of November the Out of doors Life Woman rode her horse ashore on the Ferry Constructing in San Francisco. She had ridden greater than 1,000 miles in 5 months, with mny prolonged stopovers. She had made good on the dare she had taken at Spokane again within the spring, and he or she had additionally gained a $10 wager. Out of doors Life subscription cash and the opposite cash she had earned alongside the best way had paid the prices of the journey.

After the numerous weeks within the solitude of woods and mountains, Goldie confirmed a powerful dislike for the crowds and visitors noises of San Francisco. And the ferry trip had performed nothing to calm him down. Gladys remembers that danced his manner totally across the Ferry Constructing.

To complicate issues, Gladys had acquired two massive canine alongside the best way — an Alaskan Husky and a Russian wolfhound. She employed the primary expressmen she noticed to place the canine into his wagon after which Gladys began up Mark Avenue on her solution to the San Francisco Chronicle workplace, using within the wagon with the horse tied on the tailgate. She was afraid to strive using the animal within the visitors and on pavement made slippery by the rain, for he had no rubber sneakers now.

Gladys had gone only some blocks when Goldie reared again, broke free, and bolted. Mounted policemen gave chase and caught the horse six blocks away. The officers led Goldie again, and Gladys climbed into the saddle and rode the remainder of the best way, with the spooky horse strolling on his hind legs a lot of the time.

By now the Out of doors Life Woman’s plans had grown extra bold. She determined to trip on to Los Angeles, and from there head east throughout the continent to New York Metropolis and New England. She had begun the journey in Washington, on the excessive northwest nook of the nation. She would finish it in Maine, on the far northeast nook.

She made the trip to Los Angeles uneventfully, however then a completely unexpected impediment arose: a extreme outbreak of hoof-and-mouth illness swept California, and a strict quarantine was clamped down that banned taking any animal out of the state. The quarantine included Goldie, and at that time Gladys Hardy’s trip got here to an finish. She waited a number of months in Los Angeles. Through the trip she had met some film individuals who had invited her to look them up at Common Stu-dios. She went there and was put to work using in Westerns.

Abandoning her cross-country plans finally, within the fall of 1915, Gladys offered Goldie to the producers of the well-known silent movie, “Delivery of a Nation,” gave her Husky canine to a film cameraman, and booked passage by ship for Seattle. She was lastly going residence.

The journey included a change of ships at San Francisco as a result of the one on which she was touring was condemned as unseaworthy. The Out of doors Life Woman transferred to a lumber schooner, which ran right into a storm at sea, and for 2 days she and her wolfhound shared a bunk that was padded with pillows to maintain them from being thrown out because the schooner pitched and rolled and wallowed in large seas.

Eight days later the ship limped into port at Aberdeen, Washington, with half the deck cargo of lumber having washed overboard.

By that point the Out of doors Life Woman had seen an excessive amount of journey to return to a routine desk job.

In July of 1919, Gladys says, “the lure of silent locations” drew her right into a summer time job as a fire-tower lookout within the mountains of the Colville Forest in western Washington. Forest rangers constructed her a cushty cabin, full with a fire, at an elevation of seven,000 ft. A packer took her in with a five-horse packtrain that carried her outfit.

The rangers replenished her woodpile as typically as vital that summer time, sheepmen saved her in mutton, and he or she packed her ingesting water on horseback from a spring that lay half a mile down a really steep path. Gladys manned a tower all through the hearth season, by herself, on responsibility from dawn till after sundown, day after day. It was a foul hearth yr, and through July and August she reported greater than 50 blazes. Earlier than she went out within the fall she joined a celebration of rangers on a deer hunt and killed a great buck.

Two years later, in 1921, the love of journey referred to as Gladys to Arizona, the place she spent most of a yr on a cattle ranch on the head of Camp and Cave creeks, 50 miles northwest of Phoenix.

She rode with the ranch arms, roped calves, did her share of branding at roundup time, hunted, and — most of all — reveled in what she calls “the liberty of using alone.”

In the present day the Out of doors Life Woman, now Mrs. Gladys Thompson, an 80-year-old widow, lives by herself in a small cottage at Beaumont, California, with 4 canine for firm. A nurse and a housekeeper are available in each few days, and pals make frequent calls. Her son Dick Murray was a flier in World Conflict II and is now an airline jet pilot. He has three youngsters and lives in San Antonio, Texas, however Gladys says she will be able to’t take the climate there for causes of well being.

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Suffering from eyesight failure so extreme that she will be able to kind a letter solely with nice issue, Gladys not too long ago wrote Out of doors Life a letter that contained a short account of her lengthy trip in 1914, together with some pictures. Gladys expressed the hope that we’d need to retell her story for the advantage of in the present day’s readers. We’ve got advised it right here.

“The most effective reminiscences of my life are of the folks I met on that trip and of the unspoiled, lovely nation I noticed,” she advised us.