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Excerpts from Abe Peña's  popular publications

All material used with the kind permission of the author, given to me personally.

from RANCHING

“The Berryhills—Cattle Ranchers

Ranchers Adrian Berryhill and his wife Gladdus Tietjen Berryhill were our neighbors in the Ambrosio Lake area north of Grants, New Mexico. They had two daughters, Linda and Ann Lee. They were primarily cattle ranchers, and also bred fine horses. We were sheep ranchers and raised some cattle.

The Ambrosio Lake country was excellent for wintering livestock, and the “mountains” were better for summer grazing. The Berryhills had a grazing permit from the Forest Service in the Zuni Mountains, where they summered some of their cattle, and we also had a permit further east in the Zunis, where we pastured some of our sheep and, later, some cattle.

From the 1930 – 40s, when the Forest Service acquired forest lands in the area and permits were awarded to applicant ranchers, the Berryhills trailed their cattle to summer range some fifty miles, and trailed them back in the fall. We crossed some of the Berryhill land when we trekked our sheep and, later, cattle some sixty miles to the Zunis. In the late 1960s, we began to truck the cattle back and forth. Roads and cattle trucks had improved over time.

Henry Andrews, a cattle rancher in the Prewitt area now retired and living in Grants, told me, “The Berryhills were hard workers. One time, Adrian moved over 100 mother cows and calves on foot from one ranch to another. If there was a job to do, they just did it,” adding, “and his brother Duane was one of the best cowboys in the country, especially when gathering cattle in brush and broken country.”

During the uranium boom from the 1950s to the 1980s, Adrian staked a lot of claims in the ore-rich Ambrosio Lake area that became good producers. He, along with Maxie Anderson, Ellis McPhaul, B. C. Ringer, and others, were founders of Ranchers Exploration Company, which he served as president for several years.

Adrian and Gladdus, who had worked so hard on their ranch over the years, made a lot of money from uranium leases and royalties. In the opinion of neighbors and those who knew them well, it couldn't have happened to a nicer couple. Nabor Márquez, their neighbor from San Mateo, once told me, “They're just fine, fine neighbors.”

I recall one time riding up to their ranchhouse to see Adrian. The house was up on a hillside overlooking the Ambrosio Lake plain. Gladdus was home and invited me in to show her remodeled kitchen and custom-made cupboards. I remember her excitedly saying, “Look at these drawers, Abe, they ride in and out on rollers that don't make any noise.” She ran the drawer quietly in and out with her index finger, her face beaming with pleasure, concluding, “With the old cupboards, I sometimes had to use my knee to yank them open!”

Gladdus, an attractive lady with hazel eyes and beautiful brown hair, had been a teacher in San Mateo when she first started working, and was being courted by Adrian, a tall, handsome man with slightly humped shoulders, always smiling, with a pleasant face. She played a big part in the life of my younger brother Fermín and the life of the Peña family. Fermín had a speech impediment and had been kept out of school.

She came to my mother and father and suggested Fermín go to school, where she could give him special instruction. By the end of the school year, Fermín had learned to speak, and graduated with honors with the rest of the eighth grade class that spring. The Peña family has never forgotten “Miss Tietjen” and her love for Fermín and the rest of the people of San Mateo, especially the young people.

Both of their daughters died in crushing automobile accidents. Linda missed a curve on highway 117 coming to Grants from the ranch, and rolled over. Ann Lee was hit head-on by an ore truck on the dusty Ambrosio Lake road on her way to High School in Grants. Those were sad days for Adrian and Gladdus and for our entire community, who mourned them.

Adrian's younger brother Duane, with fair skin, blue eyes, blond hair, standing tall and straight, ranched north of the village of Bluewater. Duane married Nelda Elkins, who was teaching home economics at Grants Union High School. Nelda and I were schoolmates at New Mexico A & M in Las Cruces in the 1940s.

Nelda was one of the first girls in school to have a car of her own. It was Fleetline Chevy, and I roade to school with her from time to time. She got a degree in Home Economics and decided to become a teacher like Gladdus Tietjen Berryhill, her aunt.

They raised four daughters and a son, Nelda Rae, Ina May, Glenda Kay, Duwana Gay, and Wallace Jay. The daughters have three children each, for a total of twelve grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Wallace, who runs the ranch, is single at age 34 and the question is, “Is he the last to bear the name Berryhill?”

The berryhills' mother, Annie May, and their father, Wallace Berryhill, came from Seminole, Texas to Tatum, New Mexico, where Duane was born in 1918. They moved from Tatum to the Ambrosio Lake country that same year. They had three daughters, Edna, who married Jeff Tietjen; Velma, who married Buck Wilcoxson; and Thelma, who died at age 9.

The Berryhills were the finest of neighbors. About 1968, my father got a call from Duane that they had penned a Peña ranch cow in the corral at his ranch near Bluewater. Dad told him he'd pick it up that same day, and loaded the portable stock rack on his pickup and took off to the Berryhill ranch.

Duane and his ranch hands helped him load the cow, and he took off north towards the Peña Ranch on a little-used ranch road that crossed Navajo country. At a bend on the road, he had to climb a small hill, and, as the truck came almost to a stop, he shifted to low gear, released the clutch, pressed the accelerator, the truck jumped forward, and he lost both the rack and the cow!

When he stopped and looked back, he saw the cow and the rack standing smartly in the middle of the road, and his tailgate down! Apparently, when they loaded the cow at the loading chute, the tailgate hooks were left unhooked, and, when he lunged forward, the tailgate dropped down and the rack and cow both slid back as clean as a whistle!

He drove on to the Peña ranch to get some help. With a little smile, he said to me, “You're not going to believe this, son. I lost a cow and the cow rack at the Berryhill ranch,” and he burst out laughing. “I came home because I was ashamed to go back to their ranch for help after the stupid thing I did!” Years later, we still laughed when we thought of the incident.

Max Miller was the adopted son of John Miller, living in the Ramah country south of us, who some people believed was actually Billy the Kid. Max cowboyed for Adrian Berryhill, and Duane says, “Bert Roundy, who was also working for Adrian at that time, and I were trying to take Max back to the ranch after several days in town. Max had a few drinks too many, and didn't want to get in the truck, saying, “Leave me alone, I'm the son of Billy the Kid!”

The Berryhills were and are beef cattle people through and through, and have a fine sense of humor. Duane had a bumper sticker on his bumper that said, “Support beef, run over a chicken!” They were members of the New Mexico Cattle Growers Association as well as the New Mexico Farm and Livestock Bureau.

Adrian and Gladdus purchased a home and stables in Scottsdale, Arizona in the 1960s, where they raised quarter horses and lived part of the year. Adrian passed away in 1974 and Gladdus in 1987. Nelda passed away in 1974 at the young age of 49. Duane lives in Grants, where, until recently, he walked several miles a day to keep in condition. A year or so ago, he had his larynx removed and now speaks through an artificial larynx. He was always a man of action, and, in his golden years, wants to be outdoors. I see him walking on the prairie on the east side of Grants from time to time.

Duane and his companion, Tommie Shepherd, who he met on Saint Patrick's Day, are very happy in retirement, and drive to the ranch north of Bluewater frequently. Like the true cowboy of the west, Duane is happiest when looking after his cattle.”