Raising purebred Shorthorn cattle and Thoroughbred horses was the late Mary Bell Cooksley’s lifelong passion. Making her livelihood on land homesteaded by her ancestors in the early 1800s, Cooksley’s background in agriculture and rural life gave her the strength to raise six children and continue running her family’s cattle business after her husband’s death. She was 91 when she passed away in October of 2011.
I was born and raised on French Table, which was homesteaded by my grandfather and his brother. They called it French Table because my grandfather was from Belgium and spoke French, and no one could understand those crazy French people.
I could not tolerate the idea that I couldn’t vote, so I waited until five weeks after women’s suffrage was voted into law [in the fall of 1920] to arrive in this world.
I learned to read tracks. If you wanted to ride to school with someone, you had to read the track to see if they had already passed you or not. We learned things that were useful.
A lot of my younger years, I was enamored with a large dark chestnut, probably a Standardbred, we called Joe. My cousin, Joe Bell, used to open him up on the half-mile past French Table and see how big a string he could measure. The longest he got was 25 feet. He could rack as fast as a horse could gallop, and the only way I could ride him was to tie a knot in the rein and slip it over the saddle horn to take the resistance off my arms. He was a magnificent horse; I did so covet riding him.
I went to Nebraska University, “Cow College,” we called it. I had won a scholarship to Nebraska Wesleyan for being top of the class, but my folks wouldn’t let me go to college at 15. So, I stayed out a year and [future husband] Leo talked me into going to his school. I graduated in 1942.
Country kids can go to college and associate with kids [from the city], who think country folks are less because they don’t have street skills. But survival skills are resources country-raised kids don’t realize they have.
“Horses were a tool — a way of life. You didn’t get anything done if you didn’t use your horses.”
Leo was in ROTC and graduated with a commission as a second lieutenant in the Army. He did his first year of active duty at Fort Robinson, [which was] one of four remount stations in the country. There, Bud Parker, who had been part of the station for years, gave me cues on posture and communication with the horse. The years at Fort Robinson did the most to structure my skills.
We applied for a remount Thoroughbred stallion. [Leo and I] started out to have a business with Quarter Horses, but we found the Thoroughbred to be superior in many ways. At one time, we had seven Thoroughbred stallions and 75 mares. Today, we still have one stallion and we breed only when we need more young horses.
We have a brand that goes back 100 years. It was the brand that I inherited. My husband and I purchased the herd of cattle from my parents after my father’s death in 1973. My father created the standards of his Shorthorn cattle by carefully selecting his bloodlines, and the same bull sired [both] the cow and the bull he started with.
A surge of people came to see if they could get some of our genetics [in case] we dispersed the herd. My mother had people call to ask when the dispersal sale was, and she’d reply, “We’ve spent 50 years building this herd, why would I sell it?”
It is not a life to be enjoyed unless you are making it better for somebody else. My father had a saying, “The good you do for your fellow man is the rent you pay for the time on Earth you had.” It’s not what’s in it for me. I don’t think there’s too much wrong with that attitude.
I’m selfish. I cannot imagine a life without livestock. We [livestock producers] are now less than 1 percent of the population. I don’t know how long it will take this nation to find out what was the gospel truth in the “Cross of God” speech in 1896, when [William Jennings] Bryan said, “Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic. But destroy my farms and grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country.”
My son, Kevin, says that as long as there is a Cooksley Clear Creek Farm, there will be Thoroughbred horses here. The [horses and cattle] have been a reward in itself because we have had repeat customers come here for breeding stock for three or four generations.
Editors note: Mary Bell Cooksley was laid to rest within view of the purebred Shorthorn bulls she raised. Her son, Kevin Cooksley, says, “We will keep the ranch and livestock operation going — as she would have wanted it.”
This article was originally published in the January 2012 issue of Western Horseman.
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