Friday is finally here and that means another Friday Find from Stockmen's Memorial Foundation's Bert Sheppard Library and Archives for your reading pleasure. This week, I thought I would shift my focus toward the lovely women in ranching and choose the hat of Ms. Neva Bateman.
Neva Bateman was born in 1911 in the small west-central town of Edson, Alberta. She would be an only child and that meant her father wouldn't waste much time putting her to work on their homestead.
Over the years, Bateman would learn much in the way of horses and ranching – a passion that would continue well into her eighties. She would ultimately keep with the times, trading in her workhorses for a small Fordson tractor. She kept two interests near and dear to her – her democratic politics and riding saddle horse.
If ever you saw Bateman riding or driving about, she wouldn't be hard to miss with her signature jean jacket and her distinguished, dark, worn cowboy hat being the point of convergence.
Neva Bateman died at the tender age of 92. If you have any other information about Bateman, please reach out to the library as it would love to add to her short biography.
The Stockmen's Memorial Library is located at the Cochrane RancheHouse and is a treasure trove of information on the region's Western roots. For more details on the library or for its hours of operation, go to www.smflibrary.ca
