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No Life for a Lady
When Agnes Morley Cleaveland was born on a New Mexico cattle ranch in 1874, the term "Wild West" was a reality, not a cliché. In those days cowboys didn't know they were picturesque, horse rustlers were to be handled as seemed best on the occasion, and young ladies thought nothing of punching cows and hunting grizzlies in between school terms.
356 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1941
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 81 reviews
October 24, 2012
On a recent trip to Santa Fe, New Mexico we visited the New Mexico Museum of History. This museum impressed me for two reasons. First, it was able to take hundreds of years of history and put it together in a way that was not overwhelming with billions of factoids. Second, women are prominently displayed and recognized for their contributions to New Mexican history. This is where I met Agnes Morley Cleaveland. Agnes lived from 1875 to 1958, born and raised in the New Mexican frontier. Her claim to fame is clearly documenting frontier life in New Mexico before it was lost. Through her life experiences and that of her family members she documents travel by horse and wagon, living on the frontier with Indians, more times than not friendly Indians though close by evidence existed of not so friendly times, being sent east to be educated, what a balanced diet consisted of, the availability (or not) of medical care, the arrival of the trains, cowboys wearing 6 shooters up through the 1930s, cattle and sheep ranching, the arrival of "farmers," and so much more. It was interesting to see perception of women change from her mother's time when women needed men to take care of things to women earning respect of the men because they could ride and herd with the best of them. Reading the details one comes to understand that the wild west was anything but the Hollywood glamorization of it. Arriving back in New Mexico immediately after reading it and again surveying the country I am impressed by those who came and successfully settled, understanding why many did not succeed. It is a beautiful landscape, which the author does not fully capture in her writing since her goal is mainly to document the details of living, which attracts a unique individual. Agnes, one of those unique people, earned her place in the New Mexico Museum as a historian who knew and understand a way of life was changing and would be lost if not captured.
June 13, 2017
I picked this book up in Wall Drug Store in South Dakota while on vacation. The author was born in 1874 in New Mexico before it was a state. Her memoir tells of life growing up on a cattle ranch back in the days of true cowboys. She tells what it was really like to live and work on a cattle ranch back then, when going to get the mail happened once a week and entailed a fourteen mile horseback ride to the nearest town. She doesn't get sentimental or try to romanticize the West; in fact, she debunks some of the cowboy mythology that arose from Hollywood and popular fiction. I really enjoyed reading this book; it's nicely organized even if not strictly linear and is well-written.
April 11, 2008
Fascinating biography recorded by the author from the life story of Agnes Morley Cleveland as she told it in 1940s. Cleveland went to New Mexico in 1885? as a child in what was still the wild west. As with other stories, this real life record is to me much better than fiction.
April 10, 2009
An AMAZING account of a young woman's life in the early west. Her father dies and she, her brother, and their mother run the ranch. They find themselves becoming very good hands. And find no end of adventure. Very well written with an eye for detail. She has an ear for a good story and tells them in a delightful way.
She must have loved telling these stories too. The girls at her back east boarding school must have though she was pulling their legs. After a school mate spends the holiday at the ranch she reports, "Agnes is not given to exaggeration."
Outstanding. If you like stories of the west don't miss this one.
She must have loved telling these stories too. The girls at her back east boarding school must have though she was pulling their legs. After a school mate spends the holiday at the ranch she reports, "Agnes is not given to exaggeration."
Outstanding. If you like stories of the west don't miss this one.
April 17, 2014
Tangling lively memories with true-to-earth yarns about westerners, Agnes Morley Cleaveland brings her life on a New Mexico cattle ranch to life. She gracefully and humerously moves the reader along her trail of growing up and transforming into a cattle baron. She respectfully gives homage to her fellow westerners -- be they cattlemen, farmers, natives, outlaws, government people or tourists.
No Life for a Lady is a delightful glimps into the old west. It doesn't bog the reader down with judgements or bravado. It combines folksy dialect with a surprisingly challenging English vocabulary. It paints a realistic portrait of real wild west life styles.
No Life for a Lady is a delightful glimps into the old west. It doesn't bog the reader down with judgements or bravado. It combines folksy dialect with a surprisingly challenging English vocabulary. It paints a realistic portrait of real wild west life styles.
November 11, 2013
I love this lady, and wish I could meet her! She was an independent woman who grew up ranching with her family in New Mexico, and had the most refreshing take on women's lib that I could even imagine for someone of her era. Work needs doing? Just do it - who cares what gender you are! Loved her sense of humor and her straight perspective on a world I find fascinating. I picked up this book at a Smithsonian exhibit in Santa Fe on Cowboys and couldn't pass it up. Glad I finally read it!
February 25, 2021
Agnes Morley Cleaveland was born in 1874 and died in 1958. This is the story of her life on a cattle ranch in New Mexico. I enjoyed reading about Agnes' childhood adventures more than her mishaps as an adult, feeling a little reminiscent of those days listening to my grandparents retelling stories of their youth. The combination of freedom, courage, and livestock and the lack of Wi-Fi and scheduled extracurricular activities created a type of human that just cannot be duplicated in our era.
December 14, 2017
I loved this book. Great portrayal of life in New Mexico in the late 1800's.
Interestingly, the author describes political correctness between Indians, Mexicans and whites using the same phraseology and eye-rolling that we use today. It cracked me up.
This book would give helicopter parents a heart attack!
Interestingly, the author describes political correctness between Indians, Mexicans and whites using the same phraseology and eye-rolling that we use today. It cracked me up.
This book would give helicopter parents a heart attack!
November 7, 2017
Read this due to a recommendation from my Boss. It was an interesting read, but without a main plot. Mostly miscellaneous stories. I’m not very interested in western books, and I had a hard time reading without losing interest. Fascinating stories from her life.
Read
August 21, 2007Since I grew up on a sheep ranch much like the New Mexico ranch this author lived on I connected with her story. If you like books about the west this is a must read.
April 19, 2020
Read as part of my ongoing shelf audit. Verdict... I guess I'll figure that out as I write this review.
There is a lengthy essay in me, which I will probably never write, about growing up in the western United States and slowly becoming aware of all its conflicts, complexities, and sordid history. My understanding of westward expansion was far different when I was in fourth grade and playing Oregon Trail than it is now, and my feelings about being a person of European descent living on stolen land are, frankly, a tangled mess. Add to that the way open, wild land has been commercialized and urbanized, and the constant conflicts between different parties (over land use, water rights, wolves, just about every other thing you can imagine) and what I take away is a feeling that this part of the world is constantly in flux.
While I don't think I can ever hope to understand the totality of this part of the world that I love, I still find myself drawn to resources which capture it throughout its changeable history and give me a glimpse into others' experiences across space and time. That's why I picked this book up, for a whopping fifty cents, at my hometown library's semi-annual book sale. That, however, was almost a decade ago; but hey, at least I finally got around to it!
Agnes Morley Cleaveland's perspective is doubly interesting to me. First and foremost, as the title suggests, she's describing a life which was not at all in line with expectations for her gender at the time, at least in 'civilized society'; and second, she lived during a time of dramatic social and technological change, including the Great Depression and World War I.
It took me a little while to get a handle on the style of this book. The chapters are only roughly chronological - largely in order of the author's life, but with a tendency towards hindsight commentary, and for stories to be grouped by theme over specific sequence. It can be a bit confusing, as she refers to people with familiarity before ever introducing them, or tells of someone's death in one chapter and a time they were alive in the next. I found it helped to view each chapter as one or more vignettes, in a very literal sense: Morley Cleaveland is painting a picture of the life and world she knew, and uses a series of these miniature renderings to create a sense of the whole. Once I got accustomed to just... absorbing what she was saying, I read faster.
Stylistically, she's an excellent writer. There's a lot of dry wit to be had here, and her descriptions of people and landscapes are marvelously evocative. The tone of the book sounds very much like an oral history; I do wonder somewhat if someone else transcribed Morley Cleaveland relating these stories to an audience, because it comes off as very conversational and, at times, as if it is part of a larger conversation to which the reader is not completely privy.
As a general rule, I found the subjects addressed and stories told to be fascinating. While the 'Wild, Wild West' as we often imagine it is more an artifact of Hollywood than history, 'wild' itself isn't a misnomer. Animals were less constrained and more numerous; there were more places to be 'discovered' (to settler eyes, at least); and government regulations didn't quite reach everyone. The way of life Morley Cleaveland describes is something that couldn't really exist now, which she addresses at the close of the book. Whether or not that's for the best is up to the reader to weigh for themself.
The most notable stumbling block of this book, which I would be remiss not to mention, is Morley Cleaveland's attitude towards Native Americans. She makes it very, very clear within the first few chapters that she is... 'not sympathetic' would be putting it mildly:
Just so we're clear, pretty much every bit of that is incorrect. We've learned a great deal since Morley Cleaveland's time about the ways in which Native Americans shaped their environment, the complexities of the many, many societies across the continent, and settlements which were considerably larger than early European settlers imagined. Even knowing that this book was written in the 1940s, though, and from the perspective of someone who vastly benefited from stolen land, coming across that paragraph felt like a slap in the face, and I think future readers should know to expect it.
Warts and all, though, this felt like a valuable insight into a vastly different world which is, nonetheless, just a few generations separated from us in 2020. I'm glad I read it, but I don't think I'll be keeping it. Rather - I'm going to send it to a family friend who still ranches in the west; it reminded me of him a whole lot.
There is a lengthy essay in me, which I will probably never write, about growing up in the western United States and slowly becoming aware of all its conflicts, complexities, and sordid history. My understanding of westward expansion was far different when I was in fourth grade and playing Oregon Trail than it is now, and my feelings about being a person of European descent living on stolen land are, frankly, a tangled mess. Add to that the way open, wild land has been commercialized and urbanized, and the constant conflicts between different parties (over land use, water rights, wolves, just about every other thing you can imagine) and what I take away is a feeling that this part of the world is constantly in flux.
While I don't think I can ever hope to understand the totality of this part of the world that I love, I still find myself drawn to resources which capture it throughout its changeable history and give me a glimpse into others' experiences across space and time. That's why I picked this book up, for a whopping fifty cents, at my hometown library's semi-annual book sale. That, however, was almost a decade ago; but hey, at least I finally got around to it!
Agnes Morley Cleaveland's perspective is doubly interesting to me. First and foremost, as the title suggests, she's describing a life which was not at all in line with expectations for her gender at the time, at least in 'civilized society'; and second, she lived during a time of dramatic social and technological change, including the Great Depression and World War I.
It took me a little while to get a handle on the style of this book. The chapters are only roughly chronological - largely in order of the author's life, but with a tendency towards hindsight commentary, and for stories to be grouped by theme over specific sequence. It can be a bit confusing, as she refers to people with familiarity before ever introducing them, or tells of someone's death in one chapter and a time they were alive in the next. I found it helped to view each chapter as one or more vignettes, in a very literal sense: Morley Cleaveland is painting a picture of the life and world she knew, and uses a series of these miniature renderings to create a sense of the whole. Once I got accustomed to just... absorbing what she was saying, I read faster.
Stylistically, she's an excellent writer. There's a lot of dry wit to be had here, and her descriptions of people and landscapes are marvelously evocative. The tone of the book sounds very much like an oral history; I do wonder somewhat if someone else transcribed Morley Cleaveland relating these stories to an audience, because it comes off as very conversational and, at times, as if it is part of a larger conversation to which the reader is not completely privy.
As a general rule, I found the subjects addressed and stories told to be fascinating. While the 'Wild, Wild West' as we often imagine it is more an artifact of Hollywood than history, 'wild' itself isn't a misnomer. Animals were less constrained and more numerous; there were more places to be 'discovered' (to settler eyes, at least); and government regulations didn't quite reach everyone. The way of life Morley Cleaveland describes is something that couldn't really exist now, which she addresses at the close of the book. Whether or not that's for the best is up to the reader to weigh for themself.
The most notable stumbling block of this book, which I would be remiss not to mention, is Morley Cleaveland's attitude towards Native Americans. She makes it very, very clear within the first few chapters that she is... 'not sympathetic' would be putting it mildly:
If anyone imagines that the early settlers, by maintaining a proper attitude, could have lived in amity with the Indians, let him consider how little amity existed between the various Indian tribes themselves. From time immemorial, American Indians had lived by raiding, whether of the natural bounty of the land or the garnered resources of their neighbors. The net result at the end of thousands of years was that this continent, possessed perhaps of the greatest natural resources in the world, bore a population of less than a hundredth part of what exists upon it today, and this hundredth part lived precariously and in a state of perpetual terror.
Just so we're clear, pretty much every bit of that is incorrect. We've learned a great deal since Morley Cleaveland's time about the ways in which Native Americans shaped their environment, the complexities of the many, many societies across the continent, and settlements which were considerably larger than early European settlers imagined. Even knowing that this book was written in the 1940s, though, and from the perspective of someone who vastly benefited from stolen land, coming across that paragraph felt like a slap in the face, and I think future readers should know to expect it.
Warts and all, though, this felt like a valuable insight into a vastly different world which is, nonetheless, just a few generations separated from us in 2020. I'm glad I read it, but I don't think I'll be keeping it. Rather - I'm going to send it to a family friend who still ranches in the west; it reminded me of him a whole lot.
January 10, 2022
Great novel for before bed reading. Short and engaging stories that capture a bigone era.
April 24, 2019
This is a memoir of life in the Gila wilderness during the late 19th and early 20th centuries by a woman who lived on a ranch. It is filled with humor and honesty.
April 18, 2019
Exhiliriating!!! So different than anything I have read recently. Loved hearing about a woman riding horseback all over the New Mexico territory—8 years old and riding 20 miles alone to get the mail and bear hunting on horseback as an adult.
May 21, 2013
I grew up in a cattle ranching community in California with it's own people and own language. Cable TV put an end to that. Inside, nothing is special and unique, but outside people still have the surprise that such a thing exists. The author writes with the expectation of being able to surprise outsiders, something which is still possible today and is delightful in her book.
What is lost is how the author was able to simultaneously live in a particular world while having access to a more universal world as an educated woman (she attended Stanford). More than anything else about what she has written about, that is the thing that is most unique to her time. She writes of novelists in the western genre that got it all wrong; today, cable TV sets the interpretation of the west in a feed-back loop so if they weren't correct when the started they are correct by the time they finish.
I'm so glad she was able to put her unique world into a bottle, to exist forever, from before all of this.
What is lost is how the author was able to simultaneously live in a particular world while having access to a more universal world as an educated woman (she attended Stanford). More than anything else about what she has written about, that is the thing that is most unique to her time. She writes of novelists in the western genre that got it all wrong; today, cable TV sets the interpretation of the west in a feed-back loop so if they weren't correct when the started they are correct by the time they finish.
I'm so glad she was able to put her unique world into a bottle, to exist forever, from before all of this.
February 4, 2017
The New Mexico frontier was definitely No Life for a Lady. This is where the author grew up from the late 1880's to early 1930's. The area was arid, remote, open range for cattle and children grew up fast yet still had time to be children.
Modern parents would be horrified by the responsibilities and behavior of the Morley children. By 8 they were on horseback and not tame well-mannered horses but any available even half broke horse carrying messages between the ranch house and cowboys in camps. By 12 they were cowboys themselves. They went the 30 and more miles to get the mail alone. They found plenty of ways to get into trouble.
The book is episodic but in reasonable chronological order. The incidents run the gamut from amusing to tragic. All are in a simple no nonsense style reflecting the fact that this was life as it was and accepted as such.
This is not a book for the lover of popular cowboy tales. It debunks so much of what those are about. It is a book for those who want to meet the kind of people who made a home in the near desert country of the American Southwest.
Modern parents would be horrified by the responsibilities and behavior of the Morley children. By 8 they were on horseback and not tame well-mannered horses but any available even half broke horse carrying messages between the ranch house and cowboys in camps. By 12 they were cowboys themselves. They went the 30 and more miles to get the mail alone. They found plenty of ways to get into trouble.
The book is episodic but in reasonable chronological order. The incidents run the gamut from amusing to tragic. All are in a simple no nonsense style reflecting the fact that this was life as it was and accepted as such.
This is not a book for the lover of popular cowboy tales. It debunks so much of what those are about. It is a book for those who want to meet the kind of people who made a home in the near desert country of the American Southwest.
October 19, 2017
Book isn’t for everyone, but for someone like me who embraces the magic of the SW part of our country, you might like it.
A friend & I got back from a lovely vacation in NM a couple of weeks ago. I saw mention of the author in a Santa Fe museum & bought her book in their gift shop.
Agnes was born SSW of Albuquerque in 1874 & wrote this memoir in 1947. I loved it. I can picture her & her family on their ranch in the mesas & mountains. Enjoyed her dialogue in her Western vernacular:
“Lorny was an eerie, undersized little morsel of humanity”
“‘We was a-ridin’ along single file, Miss Agnes in the lead, when we heard a snort up on the mountain above us. We’d woke up a grizzly as big as the Missouri mule out of a nice nap, and he was comin’ down that mountain with blood in his eye a-hittin’ the ground only once’t in a while.’”
“He never became a cow puncher himself but cowpunchers liked him, even though ‘he couldn’t ride a mountain-side without holding to a tree’”
A friend & I got back from a lovely vacation in NM a couple of weeks ago. I saw mention of the author in a Santa Fe museum & bought her book in their gift shop.
Agnes was born SSW of Albuquerque in 1874 & wrote this memoir in 1947. I loved it. I can picture her & her family on their ranch in the mesas & mountains. Enjoyed her dialogue in her Western vernacular:
“Lorny was an eerie, undersized little morsel of humanity”
“‘We was a-ridin’ along single file, Miss Agnes in the lead, when we heard a snort up on the mountain above us. We’d woke up a grizzly as big as the Missouri mule out of a nice nap, and he was comin’ down that mountain with blood in his eye a-hittin’ the ground only once’t in a while.’”
“He never became a cow puncher himself but cowpunchers liked him, even though ‘he couldn’t ride a mountain-side without holding to a tree’”
July 31, 2013
Being a New Mexico Native, this book had some personal impact as we get the opportunity to learn a little more about the history and culture of the area in which we live. Written about the late 1800's Agnes Morley Cleaveland (author), writes in a challenging form where she tells and writes stories of varied experiences that happen to her over her life. We the reader get to experience many things we are familiar with and learn new things that occurred during their time period.
I had a devil of a time getting into this book. It was a challenge for me. The content is good, but maybe it was the way it was written that made it SO HARD for me. I usually don't have such troubles with this type of read. Would recommend if you want to know more about NM history and culture.
I had a devil of a time getting into this book. It was a challenge for me. The content is good, but maybe it was the way it was written that made it SO HARD for me. I usually don't have such troubles with this type of read. Would recommend if you want to know more about NM history and culture.
April 2, 2012
The author was born on a New Mexico cattle ranch in 1874 and originally wrote this book in 1941. (Since 2012 is the centennial year for NM statehood, my book club is reading 3 books about various aspects of NM history.)
She tells many stories about her life in rural NM in a charming way and finishes the book by talking about how things have changed since she was a girl. The book gives a flavor of life as it was really lived in the late 19th century.
"Authentic, well written, and, in many passages, downright charming...Nothing quite like it has come out of the Southwest..." wrote the Herald Tribune Books.
K.
She tells many stories about her life in rural NM in a charming way and finishes the book by talking about how things have changed since she was a girl. The book gives a flavor of life as it was really lived in the late 19th century.
"Authentic, well written, and, in many passages, downright charming...Nothing quite like it has come out of the Southwest..." wrote the Herald Tribune Books.
K.
February 11, 2013
This book is about a woman who lived and thrived in the back country of New Mexico in the mid-1800s. The story starts when she is just a young girl and takes the reader all the way until around the time she's in her 60s or so (doesn't really say explicitly). They are cattle ranchers and lived by the code of the land. Agnes Morley Cleaveland is a wonderful writer and tells stories and yarns with the best of them. It's all true, too :) This book was a gift so I had no idea how enjoyable it would be. I recommend it! The spoiler alert? There's no sex, no violence, just interesting, and often amazing, living with neighbors, community, and tourists.
June 27, 2013
If you want to know what life was like living in New Mexico Territory in the late 1800's while raising a cattle ranch... read this book.
This book is a collection of memories and stories from the author's life about just that. Some stories were more entertaining than others, but I found them all very interesting. Definitely learned a thing or two about "cowpunching" and Navajo culture. Very interesting read!
It was interesting how she ended it. Government has changed a lot in regards to cattle raising and land ownership, and as she realized this, she decided to write her memories of what life was like when she was a girl when there wasn't so much government influence.
This book is a collection of memories and stories from the author's life about just that. Some stories were more entertaining than others, but I found them all very interesting. Definitely learned a thing or two about "cowpunching" and Navajo culture. Very interesting read!
It was interesting how she ended it. Government has changed a lot in regards to cattle raising and land ownership, and as she realized this, she decided to write her memories of what life was like when she was a girl when there wasn't so much government influence.
February 17, 2015
This is a collection of short chapters about the early life of the author who was basically raised with her brother and sister on a ranch in Datil, New Mexico. Starting in 1884 until around 1935 Agnes Morley Cleaveland tells about her growing up years. She became a seasoned cowboy and lived a life on the ranch with the other cowboys on her mother's ranch. With her story are countless stories of life on the ranch, people who came in and out of her life, and the growth of the area, from horses and wagons and buggies, to the first of the cars to come to the area. Her story is a fascinating read about early New Mexico and ranching, even more so for me, as I know Datil and the area.
October 31, 2008
Born in 1874 on a primitive cattle ranch in what was to become New Mexico, Agnes Morley Cleaveland lived the reality of the "Wild West." With her you learn to ride almost before you can walk, deal with outlaws, hunt grizzlies, and watch the many changes she regrets: the invasion of the country by writers and tourists, theatrical changes in cowboys, and government encroachment. Most of all you will enjoy the adventures this
fatherless girl, her brother, and her widowed mother have as they all learn to handle the ranch that William Raymond Morley left them after he was shot.
fatherless girl, her brother, and her widowed mother have as they all learn to handle the ranch that William Raymond Morley left them after he was shot.
May 24, 2010
It's not Agnes Morley Cleaveland's fault that it took me over six months to finish this book. Bedside reading projects are fated to be long-term because I am lucky to read two paragraphs before my eyes close. Cleaveland's style is warm, dry, and droll in this memoir of cattle herding on the New Mexico open range in the early 20th century. For those who like women's stories of frontier life, I recommend this selection as a more sophisticated, disciplined, and modern read than Isabella Bird's
A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains
.
August 7, 2014
This book was excellent. I think the author was a feminest, but the run-ins with that are brief.
It tells of cowboys, and cattle ranches, and a girls place in all of this. It tells of Agnes Morley Cleaveland's growing up living on a cattle ranch.
However, it also tells of the decline of cattle ranching. The end of the book is rather sad because of this, but for the most part it is incredibly funny. I do reccomend this book for others to read.
It tells of cowboys, and cattle ranches, and a girls place in all of this. It tells of Agnes Morley Cleaveland's growing up living on a cattle ranch.
However, it also tells of the decline of cattle ranching. The end of the book is rather sad because of this, but for the most part it is incredibly funny. I do reccomend this book for others to read.
December 4, 2014
This autobiography of life on a New Mexico cattle spread during the years 1880 to 1940 was fascinating.
It was filled with incredible adventures and sprinkled with insights that could apply to today's cultural and political landscape. Along the way origins of idioms still in use today came to light. The author would have been a contemporary of my grandmother (although in different states). I wondered what my grandmother's story would have been, had she written it down.
It was filled with incredible adventures and sprinkled with insights that could apply to today's cultural and political landscape. Along the way origins of idioms still in use today came to light. The author would have been a contemporary of my grandmother (although in different states). I wondered what my grandmother's story would have been, had she written it down.
April 10, 2014
How many times do you get to step back in time and see the world as it was before you were born? Agnes Morley Cleaveland does just that in such a way as you are transported. This is one of the best journals and documentaries I've ever had the pleasure to read. Thank goodness it's been preserved and shared with the world. A time and place that will never be again has been immortalized through her writings.
August 15, 2010
This is the book I'm reading not No Place for a Lady. I clicked on the wrong book. This, so far, is a fascinating read. It started to bog down for me - mostly vignettes about life in the west 1880-1900 style, so I've loaned it to Larry to read while I indulge in some mysteries and one I borrowed from L's son-in-law. I'll finish this book later.
October 28, 2012
Bought this at the Gateway Arch on a highschool band trip. It's a very real look at the life and role of a girl growing up on a ranch with her single mother, younger sister and brother. I enjoy the stories she tells and the lack of an idyllic tone which some historical stories about the Old West have. To a certain extent, it's a very egalitarian viewpoint!
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