by B.J. Beauchamp
The Spanish word “salida” means “exit” in English. I’ve noticed Target stores in Los Angeles utilize it on their doors – one side reads “Exit” and the other side “Salida” which makes me nostalgic whenever I shop there because “Salida” is a recurring theme in my family’s history.
Firstly, Salida was a small farming community north of Modesto, California where my maternal grandfather, Porfirio lived briefly with his aunt, uncle and cousin, Maria. My grandfather left his home in Guanajuato, Mexico in 1919 to go live with his Salida relatives. After two weeks in the United States, 16-year old Porfirio got homesick and went back to Mexico, where his mother, Sóstenes, persuaded him to return north for a better life.
Shortly after returning to California my grandfather got word that the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad (DRGW) was hiring. So, he left California for a place called Minturn, Colorado. Working for the railroad Porfirio, who now would be known as Pete, befriended a co-worker named Moises from New Mexico who had several children, but it was his daughter, Adelina, that caught his eye. Within a short time he would ask Moises for Adelina’s hand in marriage. My grandparents wed in 1926.
Later, Moises and his wife, Ascension, moved their family back to New Mexico. A few years later Pete and Adelina visited her parents there and discovered that the town’s general store was for sale. Pete took a leave of absence from the railroad, and then he and Adelina bought the store and a 138 acre farm. The farm prospered and at one time there were over a hundred pigs, rabbits, and chickens. There were also four riding horses, and two gigantic Clydesdales named Jessie and Barley.
These stalwart work horses were used to till the ground, pull the hay wagon and bring large barrels of water from the river to use at the house as back then there being no running water or indoor plumbing.
Pete also became the town’s sheriff and once threw his own brother-in law and son in the pokey. Their crimes are not known to me, but I figure they couldn’t have been too serious…most likely due to disturbing the peace or too much merry making.
Then the Great Depression hit. I’m not sure exactly what happened but to this day the maternal side of the family can never say enough good things about my grandpa Pete. I’m told he helped many during this dark period.
In 1945 Pete went back to work for the DRGW and moved his family, oddly enough, to another Salida, this one in Colorado in the heart of the Rockies. The cows, pigs, chickens and horses were given to Moises and Ascension. Working as a track supervisor meant Pete would work Wednesday through Sunday away from home. He sometimes would jump a freight train heading thru Salida rather than wait for the next passenger train if it meant he got to spend a half day more with the family.
My grandmother Adelina died in 1951 shortly after giving birth to her ninth child. My Mom and her siblings often spent summers on the New Mexico farm which is the where she got to know Jessie and Barley. I think all the kids at one time stood on the gentle giants’ backs.
I didn’t get to meet the horses as the great-grandparents sold the farm and moved to Salt Lake City in 1959. I did, however, get to meet my great-grandparents when I was about two. Great-grandpa Moises would die shortly thereafter at 86 in 1965. Great-grandma Ascension would follow a few years later in 1969 at the age of 85.
I remember my parents taking my sister and me to the train station in Minturn to pick up my Grandfather. I still can recall all of the sights and sounds and my Grandfather’s house being warm and smelling of his aftershave mingled with the aroma wafting up from the pot of coffee on the stove. My Mom still has his coffee pot. There was always coffee ready for anyone wanting a cup.
My Grandfather was always dressed in a suit, and wore a fedora style hat (outdoors only, of course) – a very dashing figure. There was always a gleam of mischief in his eyes. By that time my Grandfather was also a professional card player, so he never played with amateurs. But he would play slapjack with the grandkids. We’d always win — he always let us win, and then he would then pay up with a silver dollar.
My own father has never said much about people in general, and he’s not easily impressed, but when it comes to Grandpa Pete, his father-in-law, it’s always in high esteem. No one else has ever been given such praise.
Fast forward to the early 1990s and my cousin, Jeff, (son of my mom’s brother Leo) married and he and his bride, Stephanie, came to California for their honeymoon. During their visit I took them to San Diego for a day at SeaWorld. The water park was/is owned by Anheuser-Busch whose trademark beer wagon is drawn by Clydesdales. At SeaWorld there is a stable where the famous equines are sometimes kept, and on that day the horses were there and being readied to be hitched up to the rig. I began to tell the tale of the family horses and just as I said “Jessie”, Jeff completed it by saying “and Barley.” He then excitedly told his bride, “See… I wasn’t lying about there being a Jessie and Barley!”
As big as you think those horses are, think again, because when you stand next to a Clydesdale, it is an entirely different kind of big – it’s massive. One wrong move and you could be injured. To groom a Clydesdale you need a ladder, and watch your feet as they weigh over 1,200 pounds (can go up to 2,000). It certainly put all of the stories I’d heard about the horses into perspective.
It is a tale told over and over in my family, so it was only fitting that when I wrote a Western screenplay and novel it would include a couple of Clydesdales named Jessie and Barley. They don’t get a big starring role, but important none the less.
Grandpa Pete continued to work for the railroad until his death at the age of 67 in 1970. It wasn’t until some years later that the family found out that not only did my grandfather take care of his immediate family, and help his wife’s family during the Depression, but from the time he came north he always sent money to his mother. Sóstenes passed away at the age of 105 in 1971.
My Grandfather’s cousin, Maria, who lives in Modesto, California will turn 100 this year. My mother talks to her from time to time. Maria still lives on her own, in the house she shared with her husband, Frank, and her daughter lives across the street.
My maternal grandparents are buried side-by-side in Salida, Colorado and are surrounded by 15 mountains over 14,000 feet. My paternal grandmother's ashes were distributed out there as well – another side of my family.
After 1984, the DRGW would be sold and merged into another railroad. In Salida the train station would be torn down and the tracks ripped out. The town of Minturn now sits eerily quiet with no trains going through it.
Voyage in, voyage out… As I’m told by a loved one in moments meant to reassure (I think) “we are all on the same train.” Some of us get off earlier than others, and I find the previous generations very hard acts to follow. While I’m here on my particular voyage, they all continue to be a source of inspiration to me and in everything I write. So if you happen to come upon a Western tale that includes work horses named Jessie and Barley, that’ll be me nodding and winking to the family and heroes here and those who have disembarked from the train.
Note: Salida, CO is currently one of 20 nominated for America’s Coolest Small Towns. http://www.budgettravel.com/bt-dyn/content/article/2010/11/10/AR2010111005252.html