From Gary Tietjen, Ernst Albert Tietjen: Missionary and Colonizer (Bountiful, Utah: Family History Publishers, 1992), 293–308
Joseph Tietjen was born in 1875 in Santaquin, Utah. He was nineteen when Ernest moved to Bluewater. He had grown up with Navajo boys as his closest friends. His wife wrote that “He was a cattle man and never farmed. I don’t think he could have planted a hill of corn.” We have seen previously that he got a start in ranching by gathering the remnant of the 7HL herds which Ernest had purchased. Within a few years he had built his herd to 3000 head. Perhaps he was the only one who knew how many he had; he was not a record-keeper and not even his wife knew just what his business deals were. The Cattle Kings preceding him did not own a lot of the land they grazed on, but they “controlled” it, either with a Winchester in the hands of hired gunslingers (e.g. the V+T outfit to the south and the Hash Knife outfit to the west) or by virtue of owning the water or the adjoining land. The really large cattle outfits disappeared in the 1890’s, driven out by drouth. Joe was operating towards the end of the “open range” era, and he preferred the Texas longhorns which were then on their way out, soon to be replaced by herefords.
Much of Joe’s operation was the system of “shares” in which he let other ranchers or “poquiteros” take some of his cattle on “partidos.” He visited these people from time to time during the year. Among them were Ed Sargent, John Tucker, Whettenburg, and several Navajos. In consequence of his close friendship with the Navajos, he enlisted their natural vigilance to keep him informed of what was going on in his country when he was not in the area. His headquarters were in the red sandstone cliffs which parallel Route 66 beginning at Haystack Mountain. From there he ranged 50 miles north to Chaco Canyon. Using his Ramah connections, he ran cattle south of Ramah nearly to Quemado. He entertained at his table a long string of friends: bankers, doctors, lawyers, county agents, Spanish neighbors, and Navajos.
The relaxed way in which Joe, and many other ranchers, did business is illustrated by a story related by his son: “That was the first year I remember selling any cattle. We had 1000 to 1500 big steers. We kids and Navajos herded them in the day and penned them at night. There were coal black ones, spotted, and everything you can think of. McNurny bought them for thirty dollars apiece. He was a special friend of Dad’s. There was no forfeit. His word was as good as his bond. In October we started with the steers to Bluewater. About the county line Doc Cantrell, L.R. Goehring, and Bill Turner came by in a car. Dad asked them where they were going, and they said, ‘Hell Joe, don’t you know hunting season opens tomorrow?’ Dad unsaddled, hid his saddle in the rocks, and told us to pick it up on the way back. He told us to go on, that he’d send Almy to help us. My brothers and I and the Navajos went on while Dad talked. Hunting wasn’t so good on Mt. Taylor for deer, so they came back and caught a train to Old Mexico. McNurney hadn’t settled up with my uncle [Almy], so when Dad got back, he went up to Montana to collect the $30,000. Probably McNurney wanted to force him to visit.”
Joe’s stature was impressive—a very solid six foot seven inches. His sister June called him “a true Viking”, but his height became a matter for joking. One outlaw stole a horse from him and years later related the matter to Joe’s son, Jeff: “I was riding along when a fellow rode up beside me. He was the biggest man I ever saw. He said, ‘Get off. That is my horse you are riding.’ Without another word he took the horse and left me out there on the range to walk home.” Another cowhand, small but cocky, opened his eyes wide in disbelief when he saw Joe: “Good hell almighty”, he exclaimed, “Ten feet of timber without limb nor woodpecker hole!”
Joe was not only tall, but he was athletic. He loved horse racing and foot racing with the Navajos, who were very competitive physically. His daughter Gladdus told of a challenge by a certain Navajo. A number of Indians lined up to race with them and removed their moccasins. To their chagrin he gathered up the moccasins and won the race carrying them. An exhilirating winter sport he shared with the Navajos and with his Scandinavian ancestors was taking a sweat bath in a little sweathouse, then running in the snow, stripped to the waist. They would run about a mile and a half, rolling in the snow every hundred yards or so. An old Navajo, Kee Yazzie Pino, verified the rigorous training with the snow: “My father threw me in the snow during the winter when the snow got deep. He would take my clothes off and roll me in the snow. Then he would drag me to the fire and the water would drip down from my body. From there on I started to take snow baths … You would almost choke when you shoveled the snow over your body … If you do these things, it makes you tough … You can survive anything if you take snow baths when you are young.” Did the Indians or the Scandinavians originate it?
The Indians had a game of which they were particularly fond: rabbit chasing. This was done on the great open flat north of Prewitt, New Mexico. Jeff Tietjen, six years old at the time, described it:
“We chased jackrabbits on Sunday. There were 300 or 400 Indians after one rabbit, each with a cedar club about two feet long. It was supposed to make it rain. They would all holler like dogs when they got after a rabbit. If your horse fell down, you might be run over. By then I was a good rider and mounted on a good enough horse I could often head the rabbit and turn him into the crowd if he was too fast for the Navajos.”
Horseracing was something the Navajos, as well as white men, lived for: it took place whenever riders got together—in their first spare moment. In general, gambling on the races was irresistible to Indian and White Man alike. Joe had lots of horses and he ran them in herds separated by colors: bays, blacks, grays, duns, and sorrels. Like most cattlemen, he was a good roper. Allen Nielson said he practiced on Freddie Nielson and on the chickens and turkeys until he got very good at it. At that time the roping contest involved branding the calf as well. He won one such contest in 45 seconds on his horse Floss.
A description of Joe Tietjen was related by L.R. Goehring, Gallup Banker and hunting partner.
“I first met Joe Tietjen right after I came to Gallup in 1915. I was an officer in the bank and often consulted him about loans in his section and he always gave me information that could be absolutely relied upon. He was a good friend of mine. I always considered Joe a successful cattleman even though there were no pasture fences and he had to run his cattle on the open range where he was bound to have some losses. Of course his cattle strayed and at roundups he sometimes brought in steers that were five, six, or seven years old. He was the strongest man I ever saw. I have seen him take hold of the rear bumper of a Ford car and raise it up out of the mud so that brush could be placed under the hind wheels. Once on a hunting trip we got stuck in a mud hole near Bluewater. Joe hitched a rope to the car but couldn’t budge it with his horse, so he went to Bluewater and got a block and tackle. We sank a post in front of the car and hitched a rope to it and three of us pulled on the rope but couldn’t budge it. Joe took hold of the rope by himself and jerked the car forward about two feet so we got out without further trouble. Joe was the best sort of hunting partner and I went hunting with him several times on Mt. Taylor. He was always congenial in camp and was a good shot … Joe killed a nice big buck about a mile from camp and brought it in on his shoulder without dressing it first, whistling as he walked along.”
On the Fourth of July, 1898, Joe married Maud Hunt. She was under five feet tall and could easily walk under his arm. Her family, with 96 milk cows, had “thrown in with” Tom Bryan and Tom Herrington, his partner, who were driving a herd of cattle from the San Juan River to Bluewater. From a previous trip to Bluewater, Bryan had acquired a horse from Joe which he called “Jim Tietjen.” According to Maud,
“That evening the kids were going to play a joke on Tom Bryan. The kids turned all the other horses loose except old Jim Tietjen. They took him up the canyon and tied him up, making it look like his rope had been broken. He was a mean horse and no one dared to ride him. The kids were going to see if Tom Bryan would ride him after the other horses. Next morning when we woke up, all the horses and the cattle were gone. We climbed a high bluff and with some strong glasses I had we saw the cattle stringing along.”
Now that the joke had backfired, Maud, without the knowledge of the men, got Paul Herrington to saddle “Jim Tietjen”, and she rode after the cattle without incident. Overtaking the herd, she drove them to camp: “When I got back, everyone was excited. I guess I was the first one that had ever rode him, but I had grown up on a horse and had ridden since I was three years old.” At Bluewater they turned the cattle over to Joe and she supposed she would never see him again. Her family lived near Thoreau, however, and he came to board with them, and a romance developed. Their seven children were prominent in the ranching business: Josephine Elkins, Fat, Embert, Ina Elkins, Jeff, and Gladdus Berryhill.
Lorena Cluff, a refugee from the 1912 Revolution in Mexico who later became his sister-in-law related another side of Joe:
“It was there in our Sacrament Meeting that I saw Uncle Joe Tietjen, and he played a great part in my life. He was a real tall man, almost 7 feet tall, and he was a cattleman, but he was really a very nice man and very interested in young folks … He gave a wonderful talk …”
Joe’s interest and influence with young people was related to Ina Elkins by Frihoff Peter Nielson. While Frihoff was growing up in Bluewater, he was somewhat alienated from his father, a common occurrence in a day when fathers were stern disciplinarians, more particularly those from the old countries. He said that Joe would come every week to help him hitch up his team to drive his mother to San Rafael where she sold milk, butter, and vegetables. When Frihoff was about 12, he and Al Tietjen were uncontrollable. Allen Nielson has recorded one incident: Frihoff’s parents
“went up to worship with Joe and Maud Tietjen in Pintada. [After awhile Frihoff] had heard all he wanted to hear, and was anxious to get home, but his folks seemed to be enjoying visiting too long. He waited in the wagon for a while and then decided to take action. They had a good fire going in the stove and he climbed on the roof and put a bucket over the stovepipe and then ran back to the wagon. Soon the door flew open and smoke poured out of the house. He got away with it then, but when they discovered the bucket over the stove pipe, they knew the guilty kid!”
Frihoff told Ina that Joe would take him and Al up to his cattle camp, have them gather cattle, run mustangs, make jerky, and learn to cook. He nicknamed Frihoff “Frijoles”, taught him the gospel and not to hate his father. He made him really work.
Joe was strict about how they treated their horses and would not allow cursing. With the others, Frihoff learned to get up at four a.m. and feed the horses. His biggest fear was that he would find a rattlesnake in the gunnysack “morrals” he had to fill with oats and put over the horses’ heads. Frihoff wanted to go to school in St. Johns, Arizona, but his father would not send him. He earned enough working to go and Joe paid him the rest in cattle that he kept for him and gave back to him when Frihoff returned. He told him he had better make good and that he wanted to see his certificate when he got back and that he’d better not hear of any little tricks. When Joe died, Frihoff said that a part of him was buried with him; he felt like the end of the world had come.
Lorena Cluff Tietjen related that
“Uncle Joe and Aunt Maud invited me to go with them … up to Crownpoint to a big Indian pow-wow they had up there … They had their big Indian dinner, dancing, horse racing, and things … we had three days of it … But Uncle Joe, never once did he ever come and join in with us nor we ever seen him. And I said to Aunt Maud, ‘Where is Uncle Joe?’ and she said, ‘Well, come here and I’ll show ya.’ I went down with her, and down in a little wickiup they had built out of brush, there sat Uncle Joe with all these Indian men talking to him. They were telling him all the trouble they were having with the government because the government men; when they would want to buy their cattle or their horses or their sheep, they would always try to cheat them out of it. The government men didn’t play fair with them at all. And they was wanting to know what they could do about it and how they could work it. Uncle Joe was just like a father to them, to all the Indian tribe. And when he died they said, ‘We lost our father and our best friend.’
“At one time when I was to Uncle Joe’s … they had been having trouble with some of the Indians. There was one of the Indian men that had an exceptionally large herd of sheep and goats. They had just come in on Uncle Joe’s land because it had been an awful dry spring and there wasn’t any feed outside for the sheep and so they just opened up and put them on the pasture land. When your Uncle Joe came home (he had been gone about two or three weeks) … and saw the sheep in there, he sent for this old man and his wife to come down; he told the little kids to come down and help him drive the sheep up and put them in the corral. Then he told the little boy and girl that was herding these sheep to go down and tell their mother and father to come up, he wanted to see them. And so they came up there. He told Aunt Maud before this, ‘Now you fix dinner because I’m going to give them something to eat.’ Aunt Maud says, ‘You mean you’re going to feed them after they ate up all your pasture land like that?’, and he says, ‘Oh, sure, that’s what I’m going to do.’
“So when this man and his wife come and his two little children and he’d taken the sheep—they didn’t know just what to expect. They acted kind of timid cause they knew they hadn’t done right because Joe had always been very good to them. He went out and met them at the gate and shook hands with them and told them to come in. They came in and sat down at the table and he talked with them about doing that and how that isn’t what a good neighbor and a good friend would do that way. If people are good to you, then you be good to them … he talked to them … just like a father to his children would talk. This old man and this woman sat there and listened. They didn’t say anything.
“Then he told Aunt Maud to bring some dinner in … So when they got through eating, this man came over to Uncle Joe and took his hand and put his arm up onto his shoulder. Uncle Joe was such a big old tall man and he was such a little man, and he said to him ‘You know you’re just like a father to all us Indians. You’re trying to help us to find the ways of the white people and not to be wanting to steal … I want to thank you and to tell you that I love and appreciate you being such a good father to me and to my children … That was the way Uncle Joe did all the time. He never became angry with them … he just tried to show them how they could live a better life … There’s good white people and bad white people and he wanted them to be like the good white people. And when Uncle Joe died all the Indian people had a funeral their own selves and they wept because of Uncle Joe’s kindness and love that he had for the Indian people.
“There was one time when I was working away from home because we had no one to support our family but just me and my older sister, and at nights I would stay at Aunt Maud’s place. When Uncle Joe would come home from being out with his cattle, he always brought his bedroll and put it on the floor because he was so long that there was no bed big enough for him; she slept up on the bed there. I could hear him and her laughing and talking and making their plans: what he was going to do, how he was working the cattle, and what he thought he ought to do, and Aunt Maud would tell him what she thought she ought to do and how the children was getting along and how she should meet these problems of hers too, and they were very congenial together. I never seen a man and wife that was so congenial together as those two were … to me they were a wonderful couple. And Aunt Maud was a very nice woman, always willing to help everyone, I don’t care who it was. The Indians would come for her to go help them with their children, the white people would come and get her to go help with theirs, and when I had children she was really good to come help me too. She was a woman who was never too busy that she couldn’t help other people.
“[My husband, Amos Tietjen] had to go to the service, he got his call during World War I, he had to go. We had two children. Uncle Joe, when he would come into town, with his cattle right close so he could leave them, [would] always come down and visit with Amos and I … This morning he told us, ‘Amos, you’ve got your call and you’ve got to go to the service?’ And he said, ‘Yes, I have.’ He said, ‘Well, that’s too bad, Amos, but I want to tell you something. I want you and Irena to come and look out of the window … ‘Do you see that big cloud there? It’s covering up the sun; it’s going to rain. Big old black cloud.’ Amos said, ‘Yes sir, I see it. I’ve got to get some work done before it rains.’ He said, ‘Well, I’m going to tell you, that’s just like this Army … It looks awful dark and cloudy and misty to both of you, but just remember it won’t be long until that sun will be shining … That’s the way it will be with your life. If you try to live the gospel like you ought to … the Lord will bless you. Terrible cloud … You have to be separated to go into the Service; why, it’ll soon pass over.’”
A vital part of life for Joe and Maud was the annual fall trip to the San Juan country to can fruit. Two wagons and teams were taken. Jeff Tietjen described it from the viewpoint of a six-year-old boy:
“Dad went as far as Ojo Alamo, 40 miles from the river, then Mom drove one four horse team and Josephine drove the other two-horse team. Embert and I herded the workhorses. The Indians were all our friends. Mom would send Embert and I ahead to some point and we would build up some coals for cooking. Part of our job was to pour water on the oak wheels in the morning so the wood would swell up again. At night we greased the wheels after we hobbled the horses. There was just a certain distance you could pull the wheels off by the top, then smear the axle with grease on a stick. We kept one horse staked and the others hobbled. The rule was to drive through every hard-bottomed mud hole along the way.
“Mom worked us like saddle horses bringing in fruit. Dad brought back another team, but Mom had put up too much fruit and honey and barrels of cider, so Dad had to buy another wagon and team from the discontinued mail route. When we got into sandy country Dad took one of the four horse teams but Embert drove otherwise. Dad scouted for cattle and visited along. Everything was rosy as long as Dad was there and everybody sang and shouted and it was a picnic on the way back. When we met anybody or any Indians, we stopped and talked.”
Joe was idolized by his sons, but there were matters of discipline. At the ranch, Joe acquired a small herd of sheep. According to a son: “If we hit our horse over the head or didn’t do just right, we got so many days of herding sheep.”
Around the campfire in those times the conversation would sooner or later turn to the subject of who had seen the latest ghost. It was partly in fun but for the most part the men were in dead earnest; as his son remembered it, Joe was a ringleader in the stories. One such story involved an earlier day in Savoyeta Canyon near Ramah. Joe and Tom McNeil were riding “double” when this man in a buggy passed them, then, just as they were about to overtake him, he would “evaporate” into thin air. This happened several times. Joe was so curious he tried to push Tom McNeil off so he could catch up the guy, but Tom was so scared he could not be dislodged.
There were also serious times. Two men came from Texas who were said to be “on the dodge.” One of them, in typical western movie style, later became the sheriff of McKinley County; he hired one of the Grants train robbers for a deputy. Prior to this, the two of them were overheard in a saloon in San Rafael, discussing plans to kill Joe Tietjen that night. Word was sent to Joe, who was working in Bluewater Canyon. Joe met the pair near Milton Harding’s place and called their hand. He took their guns and told them to leave the country. They did not leave, and six months later Maud got word of another plot. She sent word to Joe who saddled up and went to find them. This time Joe was more convincing and they did not stop that night until they were across the Arizona line nor did they return until after he was dead.
On another occasion a sheep man tried to appropriate a part of Joe’s range. He would not listen to reason, so Joe roped him and drug him across the waist-deep Casamira Lake; by then he saw things in a different light.
In October 1897, Bronco Bill, Red Pipkin, Bill Johnson, Doug Perry, Two-fingered Jack and others robbed the train in Grants, escaping with over $80,000 in gold, silver and cash. Pipkin was part of the family Joe had known in Ramah. This gang was associated with the Ketchums and with Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch that operated around Alma, New Mexico, from time to time. Before the train reached Grants, Joe Tietjen and Louis Kirk, at Chavez, had seen two of the outlaws in front of the station, but they were waved away with a rifle and could do nothing about the robbery.
At 8 p.m. the train stopped on the west end of Grants. The outlaws forced the engineer, Henry Abel, to disconnect the other cars and drive to the stockyards several miles east and took the loot from one of the cars; the engine they turned loose to go its way. The outlaws then headed toward the malpais. At a place known as the Hole in the Rock, the malpais narrows to a width of perhaps a mile and a half, then opens up into about a township of land that can be grazed by cattle. At this point the gang split up to confuse their pursuers. The Navajo Scout, Jeff King, was trailing, but when the gang reached the malpais, further trailing was nearly impossible, and the loot was never recovered.
This bunch also robbed the Wells Fargo safe on a train near Belen of $20,000 and headed west with sheriff Vigil of Los Lunas in pursuit. Bronco had shaken Red Pipkin on this job because “he talked too much and boasted about things they had done.” Sheriff Bursum of Socorro went south to head them off in that direction. Unfortunately Vigil, his deputies, and some Indian trackers caught up with them on the Alamosa Creek where “one of the hardest fights in Western outlawry” took place. The Indians had located their camp just at dark one evening and wanted to go in during the night and try to get their guns and horses, but the sheriff would not allow it. When the outlaws started after their horses next morning, the posse, on a ridge above the men, attacked, trying to get between them and their saddles and Winchesters, but the outlaws reached them first. Kid Johnson killed one of the Indians, but was seriously wounded twice. Johnson then shot the sheriff between the eyes and Bronco killed one of the posse and one of the Indian trackers. He was hit, but managed to half drag and half carry Johnson out of dry creek bed and into cover. The loot he managed to hold onto as well. The seven-member posse had had enough and left.
It was left to the famous lawman, Jeff Milton, and the head of the Arizona Rangers, George Scarborough, to pursue Bronco and Johnson all over central Arizona. They finally caught up with them at the Double Circles Horse Camp. When Bronco rode in, one of the lawmen shot him, shattering his arm. Johnson and Pipkin saw the action from the trail above the camp and started shelling the lawmen. The tree behind which Johnson took refuge was not wide enough and he was shot in the hip and died in great pain that night. Pipkin’s horse was shot out from under him and he escaped on foot. He was later apprehended in Utah when he came down with the mumps. Bronco Bill spent time in the penitentiary in Santa Fe and Pipkin served his time in Yuma. It is quite possible that Ernest was acquainted with Milton since he worked undercover for both the 7HL and Acoma Land and Cattle Co. Both Jeff and Fat Tietjen were acquainted with Red Pipkin who spent a lot of time looking for the loot from the Grants robbery; he claimed they had buried it under a juniper tree.
The close friendship that Joe Tietjen had developed with Amanda, his father’s third wife, often caused him to think of her after she died at Ramah. It was probably Lorena who recorded an incident Joe told her about during a time when Amanda’s youngest daughter was desperately ill and the whole family was praying for her:
“One day when Joseph Tietjen was up in the Pintada Valley riding, he saw Aunt Amanda and her two daughters, Sarah and Permelia [who were also dead]. Sarah was very light complected with her hair hanging over her shoulders; she was short and quite plump. Permelia was tall and had an olive complexion. When he saw them, he said he immediately dismounted and stood waiting for them. Aunt Amanda came up and said: ‘Joe, you go and tell your mother that Ivy will get well.’ She talked to me quite awhile, and among other things she told me that I must be a better man. ‘Joe’, she said, ‘your time is short here and you must make good use of your time; you must be more attentive to your meetings and paying your tithing.’
“As soon as she left, I mounted my horse and rode a distance of twelve miles to Bluewater to tell my mother what Aunt Amanda had said … After that, Ivy commenced rapidly to get well and has lived to become a mother in Israel. I went on a mission to Old Mexico and was counselor in the Bishopric for six years. I have done the best that I can in my weak way to make good use of my time. I have always done all in my power to befriend the widows, orphans, and the homeless, and help all in need.”
Joe undertook a mission to Mexico in 1910. He contracted malaria and had to return after nine months and was never really well after that. While there he was influential with the people because he would first help them with their cattle, then sit down with them and talk about the gospel. In 1918, after the outbreak of the World War I, he was required to go to Crownpoint to register for the draft despite the fact that he was 43 years of age. On the way, the group got stuck and saw a flash flood coming. To get the car out in time, he lifted the back end of the car out of the mud and in doing so, he twisted an intestine. When he got home, he got sicker and was sent to Albuquerque by train where he was operated on for locked bowels but continued to sink. He died on September 20th of gangrene. The Berryhill family came to New Mexico the day of his funeral and ever afterward remembered the great crowds of Navajos who were mourning his death.
Maud struggled on, but without him life seemed empty and bitter. Alma took over the ranch, but the winter was a severe one with deep snow and he was killed in January in an accident. They could not get the Navajos to work when there had been two deaths so close together. When the snow melted in March, the whole country was a bog with the cattle in bad shape. Maud said they lost 1500 head of JET cattle. She tried to salvage the hides that were worth $10 but without much success. Maud decided she could not handle the far-flung ranches and according to Mark Elkins, she sold 1500 head of cattle, most of it from the Pueblo Bonito Ranch, to a Mr. Woods. She also sold 560 head of horses to Bill Miller and another 172 head to the OIO cattle company. She kept 25 head of milk cows and a few horses, then bought 100 head of polled herefords. In 1921 economic conditions left nearly all the cattlemen in bankruptcy and while the Tietjen family came off better than most, they were nearly broke. They gathered a few remnants, however, and managed to stay in the business.
Embert, the oldest son, had been born deaf and was sick quite a bit. Maud got a correspondence course and taught him to read lips. When Embert was 22 he was kicked by a mule and died. Maud struggled to give her children a musical education and was fortunate to find Bertha Elkins, a neighboring ranch woman, who taught all of the children to play some kind of instrument. By providing room and board, she hired a teacher to teach the children occasionally. A little later she moved to Snowflake during the winter to put the children in the Snowflake Academy or sent them there to board. She was a woman of considerable fortitude. Mark Elkins, later her son-in-law and business partner, said that “Mrs. Tietjen rode some good horses as she did lots of riding.” Her life running a ranch as a young widow took guts. The fact that some people took advantage of her situation made her somewhat like a desert cactus: no one walked on Maud without hearing about it. She was a practical nurse and was the first one to offer help during illness. Allen Nielson wrote of her:
“For those, as Longfellow wrote, who ‘left footprints in the sands of time’, Maud would certainly qualify. The spirit of survival was very strong … If there was any one within the area that could assess and diagnose an illness, Maud was highest on the list. She also was one to give not only medical knowledge but determination to face up to life’s problems.” When the patient recovered, however, she demanded model behavior. After she left the ranch and moved to Bluewater she taught Primary for some 30 years.