FANNIE SPERRY (Part 2)

In Miles City Fannie added the Montana State Ladies' Bucking Horse Championship to her laurels, and the Steeles formed their Powder River Wild West Show, with which they barnstormed Montana enroute back to the Sperry ranch. One of the stops in this march was at Roundup in August, 1914.

Their lives continued to unfold in small and large rodeos, but in August, 1916, they made their most easterly journey to the New York Stampede, held on Long Island. Fannie took a third in the ladies' relay, but the production was an economic disappointment, and the performers, paid according to admission receipts, made very little.

It was in New York later that the press invented the term, "cowgirls," which rankled women participants for, since they had nothing to do with cattle, wished to be called horsewomen.

While returning to Montana they managed to compete in big rodeos in Chicago, Milwaukee, and Kansas City. In Chicago Fannie took first in bronc riding and appeared for the only time in her career with Buffalo Bill, who passed away the following year.

Annie Oakley had joined Cody's show in 1885 and performed for 17 years. Thus, the two sharpshooters were not quite contemporaries and never were joined in a competition, though Fannie's niece, Viola, was firm in her conviction that her aunt was the better shooter. Annie was well-known for tricks staged on horseback, and the picture, "She Rarely Missed," shows Fannie engaged in one. Bill tossed glass balls into the air, and his wife smoked them with rifle shots.

1917 witnessed The Steeles' final travels to major rodeos, and for several years they were content to ply Montana with their small company. "Champion Cowgirl" shows 30-year-old Fannie in action at the Gilman, MT Stampede. Few women were so bold as to straddle steers, but, according to a photo caption at the time, she out-performed most of the men.

One wonders if there is any critter Fannie Sperry would have refused to ride. In her relay race days, she had a contract stipulating that she try her luck with either a bull or a bison. The entrepreneur decided to drop that clause, but it's a safe wager that Miss Sperry, all 5'7" and 120 ponds of her, would have climbed on a rhinoceros – and probably without extra pay.

In 1919 they bought a ranch southeast of Helena and continued in the rodeo routine, but Bill's health declined, and Fannie's final professional gig was in Bozeman in 1925. At that time, they switched ranches again, the new one on Arristra Creek near Lincoln, and became outfitters for hunting trips.

Fannie was 38 and still hopeful of a child. During the couple's discussion of their failure, Bill stated bluntly that their barrenness was not his fault, that his previous marriage had yielded a son. She was stunned by this first admission of a previous wife and dumbfounded at news of his paternity, but it was not in this woman's constitution to react by other than acceptance and the will to carry on.

With the cat out of the bag, Bill's son, Ivan, and grandson, Vannie, became parts of the Steele's lives and visited from time to time.

The rodeo star continued in her work as a guide for forty years, twenty-five of them following Bill's death by stroke in 1940. One fine day Ivan arrived to talk business, and the business was yet another shock; that secretive Bill had willed two-thirds of the property to his son, which arrangement forced Fannie to sell her ranch to him in 1952. In 1965 she received a letter from him stating he had sold the ranch, and the one that had earned the money to buy it abruptly was homeless.

The poor lady accepted stoically that final blow and prepared to vacate her property. Her nieces and nephews moved the legendary cowgirl, along with her favorite horses, to the Sleeping Giant Ranch, their deceased parents', Carrie and Joe Hilger's home.

The family went to considerable lengths for the comfort of their illustrious, dispossessed aunt. The place never had had an indoor toilet, so certainly one had to be installed. Where, though, would be most convenient? The Subcommittee on Toilets hit upon an ingenious location: smack in the living room, next to the large fireplace, and unobstructed by any sort of enclosure. When we saw this creative bathroom, we wondered if others might find it an efficient interior design.

Fannie enjoyed her home conveniences until she was 87, when she entered a convalescent home in Helena.

One can imagine the woman surrounded by quiet inactivity and disintegration, all the while amusing herself with memories of the wild rides she had taken, the places she had been, the many challenges confronted and overcome. This remarkable lady always overshadows her modest stature. She was admitted to the National Rodeo Cowboy Hall of Fame in 1975, the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame in 1978, and the Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame in 2009.

In reading of her life, we found several quotations appropriate to closing our story of Fannie Sperry.

"If there is a horse in the zodiac then I am sure I must have been born under its sign, for the horse has shaped and determined my whole way of life."

"I have never tired of rodeo in my life. I hope there's an arena in Heaven ... that's where you'll find me ... Fannie Sperry Steele."

"I can leave the range, since I've had a full share of life on it. I can quit the ranch, the ranch house and my souvenirs; but I hate like hell to leave my pintos behind."

We wish Fannie good-bye with the painting based on one of the last photos of her, contemplating the range she loved so well. In 1983 she passed away at age 95 in Helena.