A Tenderfoot Bride: Tales from an Old Ranch

Clarice E. Richards of Dayton, Ohio, was a tenderfoot when in 1900 she moved to a ranch in Elbert County, Colorado, east of Pikes Peak. She was the bride of Jarvis Richards, a former Congregational minister from Vermont. It was an unlikely place for these two cultured easterners to land, but Clarice, possessing curiosity and a lively sense of humor, became thoroughly westernized as she witnessed ＂the ebb of the tide of the wild, lawless days,＂ succeeded by the more pastoral eras of the sheepman and farmer. Her memoir, A Tenderfoot Bride, was first published in 1920 and praised for its charm and verisimilitude, qualities that have increased in value with time. Maxine Benson’s introduction expands on the ranching and political activities of the close-knit Richards family and on a well-publicized courtroom trial in 1902 pitting Jarvis against a neighboring rancher.

Maxine Benson, an authority on Colorado history, is the author of Martha Maxwell: Rocky Mountain Naturalist (Nebraska 1986).