Paisley: A place of generations

   Many are black and white, and it’s not unusual for the color shots to be yellowing with age.
   Those photographs reflect a sense of continuity. Paisley, a community of about 250 people, is a place of generations. It is a place of ranching families that settled this city along the Chewaucan River in the shadow of the Warner Mountains more than a century ago.

The O’Learys

 

 

   The photos at the home of John and Mary O’Leary include his parents, sons and grandchildren. Ranching families part of area’s fabric 

   One of those sons, Mike, a third generation Paisley-area rancher, lives and works in Clover Flat, 10 miles south of Paisley on property originally settled by his grandparents Jerry and Mary O’Leary. 

   Jerry was 17 when he traveled from Ireland to New York and then to Lake County, first living and working in Plush until he saved enough money to buy his own land. 

   Mike, 47, grew up working along side his grandfather and father, John, who several years ago ceded the ranch’s management to his son. And today, Mike is often assisted by his children, 18-year-old Megan, 15-year-old Jack and 13-year old Tess. 

   As one of three sons — his brothers are Dennis and Jerry — Mike sees his duty as the ranch’s caretaker, “Just trying to keep it going. Keep up with the changes because it is changing.” 

   His wife, Mary Flynn O’Leary, is from a Lake County ranching family and was raised in nearby Plush. 

   The Morgans 

   Brenda Morgan lives off Clover Flat Road about seven miles south of Paisley. She’s a fourth-generation Paisley-area rancher whose pedigree dates back to 1871. Her great-grandfather, Orange Morgan, died in 1889 when a rope tied to a horse became entangled with his spur. The panicked horse dragged him to death. 

   Brenda was “half-raised” by Orange’s son, Vancil Orange Zachery, “Voz,” and his wife Cora Belle Morgan. Voz refused to use a tractor, preferring horse teams. “You could hear him holler and curse those horses from a mile away,” Brenda laughs. 

   Her parents, Grover and Alice, divorced when she was in second grade so she spent the school year with her mom in Bend and summers on the ranch with her father, Grover. 

   There’s was a complicated relationship, one she describes while thumbing through family photos. 

   “He would not have won the father of the year award, but he taught me a lot,” Brenda says. “He didn’t bathe regularly, drank too much, chewed tobacco, always drove a rattletrap pickup … but he was so good to me. He never said, ‘I love you,’ but there was never a moment’s doubt. 

   “I lived from vacation to vacation. I lived to play with animals and work with horses,” she explains. “This was my home. This is where my heart is.” 

   Brenda, who recently turned 60, worked at Mount Hood Community College until she retired to the ranch. 

   She and her husband, Jim Baldwin, use her father’s “13” brand, a reflection of her love for her father. The ranch is in Avery Canyon, which served as the primary travel route between the Chewaucan Valley and Bly. 

   The Villagranas 

   Joe Villagrana doesn’t fit the mold, but he might someday. 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Only 33, Joe has managed the J-Spear Ranch, owned by Tom Shaw of Klamath Falls, for 1-1/2 years. The job was a homecoming for Joe, who was raised in nearby Adel and worked on ranches while attending Paisley and North Lake High schools. 

   The J-Spear was known for decades as the Jones Ranch. Joe moved there with his wife Emma and their three children, J.T., 11, Jonathan, 8, and Ella, 4. 

   He took the reigns of a Bly area ranch at age 22. 

   “From there every place just got bigger. You learn to walk into a place and take it over. We try to bring in new ideas. Younger guys want to be progressive, to not be afraid to try new ideas.” 

   He uses computers to inventory his cattle, collect rainfall data and record how bulls perform. But he disdains four wheelers, insisting, “Anytime we can do cow work, we do it horseback. You’re in the cows. They don’t get worked up.” 

   The Withers 

   Among Paisley’s oldest ranching families are the Withers. John Allen Withers came first, arriving in 1871. 

   “He spent a winter here and liked the place,” says his great-grandson, Alan. John Allen eventually convinced his father, Peter, to join him. They started with a few hundred sheep and 160 acres and quickly grew. 

   At the peak, the family had 2,500 sheep, but ranchers were going broke raising them. 

   “They weren’t bringing in any money at all,” Alan says. The family completed the transition to cattle in 1952. 

   The photos on the walls of Alan and his wife Ginger’s house show generations of past and current Witherses. For several years Alan’s father, Vancil, operated the ranch with his brothers, John and Louis “Red.” 

   He eventually bought them out and formed a corporation with Alan, Ginger, their son, 49-year-old Dan, and daughter-in-law, Betty. 

   For several years Alan, 78, was a commercial pilot. He studied to become an aircraft maintenance engineer. He flew and worked at other ranches because “we weren’t making enough money for me to stay here.” 

 

   Alan and Dan are secure about the ranch’s future. Matt, Dan and Betty’s son, Matt, is a buckaroo for the ZX while their daughter, Dana, also is involved in ranching. 

   “We’re more environmentally concerned than the old-timers were,” Alan says. “We think more about the land and making it sustainable.” 

   The ZX Ranch 

   Everything about the legendary ZX Ranch is big. It spreads over 1.5 million acres, typically has 11,000 cows and calves and 500 bulls, and produces 100,000 round-bails of grass hay a year. 

   It’s so large that Mark Williams, the ZX’s cow boss who lives at the south end of the ranch in Paisley, admits, “It wasn’t until a few years ago I made it clear to the north end.” 

   The 53-year-old Williams is no newcomer. After working on other ranches, he started as a ZX cowboy March 11, 1979, and has stayed through four ownership changes. 

   Mark and his wife, Debbie, have two daughters. Their photo display includes shots of them and daughters, Katie Williamson, 23, and Rachel Cooper, 28, both ZX buckaroos. 

   Mark grew up cowboying. His father, Albert, raised racehorses in Salem, “but I tended to drift toward cows.” He left home the day after graduating from high school. “I was ready to go,” he says. “I was going cowboying.” 

   The Murphys 

   Michael Murphy left Ireland in 1914. To get his U.S. citizenship, he enlisted in the Army during World War I and was sent overseas. It was 1915 when he joined relatives and other Irish in Lake County. 

   Michael herded sheep, eventually buying his own ranch and, with his brothers grazed 2,500 sheep. Like others, the Murphys switched to cattle, with Michael’s son, Ed, gradually building the herd. 

   Martin, Ed’s son, has upped the cattle ante on lease and family owned lands, including the home ranch just outside of Paisley. 

   Photos of Martin and his family fill an album and decorate the walls of the ranch house where he and his wife, Jan, live. She helps with ranch chores while their son, Brady, 26, oversees the hay operations. 

   Martin worked as logger after graduating from Paisley High in 1968, often helping his father at night. “I knew that’s what I wanted to do,” he says of ranching. 

   Martin runs the cattle side of the ranch, but his real pleasure is training and selling horses for ranch work. He prefers quarter horses “big and stout enough to do anything on the ranch,” he says. 

   Martin and his father have gradually changed ranching operations including, somewhat reluctantly, haying methods. 

   “We were the last ones to be haying with horses,” he admits. 

   Although he’s only 58, he’s seen and experienced other inevitable changes.