My parents bought the original Frank O. Swanson 80 arce farm from Uncle Ben Swanson about 1957 when I was eleven or twelve.
I remember on my eleventh birthday that my Dad bought me a horse. It was tied up the fence by the back door at the Tipton farm when I came home from school. She was a perky quarter horse I named Queenie. She was jet black with one white stocking on the back left leg. I rode her after school every day. She was a little onery and always wanted to go back to the correl after I had her out for a while. Noone really taught me how to ride or manage a horse.
My sister, Nancy, was mostly inside doing lady things like cooking, cleaning and playing the piano. My brother Alan had to pitch in and help with the farm work and milking of the cows.
I learned how to saddle Queenie up and take her out for a ride. The neighbors a half mile away were real horseman. Joe and Gary Howard especially knew their way around horses. They gave me some hints how to manage the horse, but she was a little spoiled. They were always busy farming too.
Sometimes my cousins, Pam and Corky, came out to ride my horse. Pam was really in love with horses. She drew pictures of them and read books about them. She couldn’t wait to get on a ride. I would get on the front in the saddle and then one of them would ride on the back. Queenie was none to comfortable with this arrangement and would reach her head around to take a nip. I could handle her pretty well. We didn’t really let them ride much alone.