Ellen Reid Smith brought to my attention the cowgirls of old in an incredibly inspiring book, Cowgirl Smarts, How to Rope a Kick-Ass Life.
The book was given to me by an old cowgirl friend of mine on a long-awaited and well-deserved camping trip. We were sitting by the campfire watching the embers die down as we finished our long conversation about the ups and downs, the ins and outs of our lives.
I was at a crossroads in my life and I needed something or someone to give me something to hold on to. I needed to be inspired, but more importantly, I needed to be fired up.
“Here’s a book right up your alley,” my friend said, read it in bed, it’ll wake you up. She handed me Cowgirl Smarts, How to rope a Kick Ass Life. Well, it did more than wake me up. velocity.
From the moment I picked up that book, I knew my life had reached a turning point. The wall of Jericho fell around me. All my answers were in the palm of my hand in black and white with the written words of Ellen Reid Smith. I read it cover to cover. I didn’t want the book to end. I wanted to read more and more.
To inspire and guide me throughout my life, I have read a library of self-help, inspirational, and motivational books from the greatest minds of our time. I got a lot out of those books, but they never grabbed me by the scruff like Cowgirl Smarts, How to Rope a Kick Ass Life.
It is not only brilliantly written, it is captivating, innovative, motivational, inspiring and true.
Ellen Reid Smith writes about a group of individual pioneer cowgirls who, against all odds, with their cowgirl intelligence, broke barriers and succeeded in their quests. They had nothing but their intense desire, their passion, and their will to weather many storms in an era when women had no rights and were subservient to cowboys.
Ellen then goes into detail about the lessons learned from each cowgirl so we can grasp the same principles and move on.
These trailblazing women, just to mention a few for purposes of recognition and to put their names before you, include Elizabeth Johnson Williams, Bertha Kaepernick Blanchett, Wilhemenia Mathews, Adele Von Ohl Parker, Fanny Seabride, Prairie Rose Henderson, Dora Rhodes Waldrop, Lucille Mulhall, Fox Hastings.
Why did they affect me the way they did? I think it’s because they acted and elbowed their way on our behalf. They made the impossible possible. They did it so that we don’t have barriers.
The question now is who is going to write about us? Having said that, then who will take our place? We have more at our disposal than any of these cowgirls could have imagined. They would be riding high on the crest of a wave with their kidneys between their teeth in this age.
If Ellen Reid Smith wrote about us, what would she write? Do we have enough material between us to put into a book to ignite the women of the future? What is our purpose? What are we going to do with our God-given intensity?
Maybe we should work on that stuff and hope our names carry over into the next century for another cowgirl to pick them up while leaving a burning campfire.
Ellen Reid Smith, by researching and sharing the stories of the pioneering cowgirls of the Wild West, has given me more than I could have possibly imagined. She thought me how not to be stopped. Thanks Elena, I owe you one.
