Beautiful Day at the JY Ranch

Yesterday I drove with Jeanne (Cannon) to Jackson, Wyoming, where she met up with two of her good friends from Rapid City, S.D., who she got to know while she and Joe were on their mission. They have been home a year and so it was a fun reunion for these ladies to see each other again and for Jeanne to get caught up on the latest happenings in the mission. Midge and Ramona are both in their early 80's and loved to help the missionaries. You could tell that their feelings of love for Jeanne were as strong as hers for them.

We met them in Wilson, had lunch together, and then drove to the Laurance Rockefeller Nature Preserve--part of Grand Teton National Park. Laurance's father John D. Rockefeller, Jr., had purchased several ranches in the area back in the early 30's and donated 33,000 acres to the park in 1949. The Rockefellers retained around 3,000 acres around Phelps Lake as a family retreat. This land, known as the JY Ranch, was passed down to Laurance who eventually transfered 2,000 acres to the park, and later the remaining 1000 acres where the family had built numerous cabins. So the buildings were relocated to the meadows south of Phelps lake where they are today, and the land where they had been was restored to it's natural state.

I loved this statement on the wall of the visitors center and I think there is a lot of truth to it.

This visit for Midge (in blue) was a trip down Memory Lane as she relived her younger days and years in Jackson when she was the cook for the Laurance and Mary Rockefeller family. She worked for them in New York City and then accompanied them and cooked for them when they would come to Jackson for family vacations. The ladies stayed in the cabin pictured below and Jeanne and I enjoyed a pleasant afternoon there with them in a very beautiful setting.

Midge had some interesting stories to tell about her life with the Rockefeller family. She got teary-eyed several times as she reminisced and you could feel the respect and love she felt for them and that they must have had for her.

I really enjoyed the day. The ride through Swan Valley and on up to the Teton area was spectacular--so green with lots of wild flowers in bloom. One of the quotes in a booklet about the Preserve said: "Laurance S. Rockefeller found refuge at the JY Ranch and he believed in the power of nature to restore and sustain the human spirit. . . . By creating this preserve, he hoped to enrich our lives and inspire us to become better stewards of the land."

I like to think that I am doing a bit of that here along the banks of the Snake River--protecting our little stretch in its natural beauty from being further developed. That was one of our goals when we put in the pond and the windbreak. I love it here in my little "nature preserve."