| Graduation Year | Class of 1977 |
| Date of Passing | Mar 23, 2021 |
| About | Eulogy for Linda Marie Herbst April 10, 2021 I think the last time you all saw me speak in public was at our 1977 Graduation from Shoshoni High School and I was very emotional—I’ll try not to repeat that today as I walk through Linda’s life. We began life with our picture on the front page of the Riverton Ranger as the first twins born in Fremont County 1959. Linda laid there calm and innocent in contrast to me who was crying, screaming and probably hungry. Twins were not expected! I don’t remember a lot of our “baby” years. I do remember mom & dad telling me of times that I had somehow thrown Linda out of our play pen and that Linda once threw her glass milk bottle at me. Mom reminded me this week of a time that Linda and I had tied a string around Frank’s neck and was pulling it choking him all the while Frank was smiling like he was having fun. We lived in the duplex in Shoshoni with Grandma Herbst until mom & dad bought the farm at Star Route, now known as 91 Herbst Road. We have pictures of Linda and I in grandma’s yard hunting Easter eggs, skinny dipping in our plastic swimming pool and mingling with the cowboys for lunch after a branding or trailing cows to the mountains for the summer. Dad would walk Linda and I up to the Yellowstone Drug Store most nights after a hard days work to buy us ice cream cones and visit with Mr. Palmer. I get lots of compliments on a picture of this that hangs in my office. Linda would always argue with me which twin was her. There was a sand “castle” north of grandma’s that we would climb around on with the Varah kids and Jimmy Fuller. Varah’s owned the grocery store across from grandma’s duplex. Linda and I liked to go grocery shopping with mom as we would get a pick of one candy treat each. How things have changed---i.e. Walmart and the big box stores. When dad and mom bought the farm in 1962, I remember being out there with Linda exploring the rooms Uncle Ray was adding on. There was one of our brandings south of the Dry Farm and somehow I stayed locked up in the truck cab, hysterical, crying & scared whereas Linda was out on the ground cool as a cucumber and fearless. I kinda remember “first grade” roundup before we started 1st Grade. Linda drew the best card & got in Mrs. Riggs class. I ended up with the disciplinarian, Mrs. Taylor. Poor Linda---the early days of getting on the school bus, she and I would sit in the front right, first row bench and before I knew it she had thrown up her soft boiled egg on the pretty matched dress mom dressed us in until the 4th grade when we each chose what we wore, Linda always aced me in report card grades-I was busier socializing, getting report card negatives for talking too much & not paying attention. I’ve told friends through the years that Linda complicated my life by always being so nice to mom and dad and doing everything they wanted, being the good sweet daughter, while I was the rebel always pushing the edge. Living on a ranch we started riding & working at an early age. The first pony Linda, Frank and I had was a little pinto mare named “Midget”. Once we got comfortable with her, we learned to use mom’s fly swatter to gain more speed running victory laps around the farm house. We grew out of Midget pony and dad bought a bay mare pony a few hands taller, from Jack Hammond. My brother Frank named her “Birds nest”. I think he had found a bird nest on the ground in our yard prior to that. Sis, Frank & I rode her around the house but by now we had spurs on our boots and we would hang our spurs under her belly to make her buck. Birds nest first year carrying Frank up the canyon to Birdseye pass, Frank shook his gas can of rocks to keep the cattle moving through the brush and she bucked him off. Linda and I graduated to a welsh pony, named Buzz that dad had bought from Wendell Hutchinson. Shortly thereafter I moved to a big girl horse named Barcin, a Three Bars bred horse we got from Jack Meese at Lander. Linda soon after moved on to a full grown Appaloosa she spotted on the side of the road herding sheep. She made dad stop & offer to buy the horse. Deal was made and she named the big old horse “Fancy Pants”. They were a very close team all through high school and college breaks. He was unfortunately struck down by lighting one summer while turned out in Woods Basin. Around this same time dad bought a classic Ford 8n series tractor. Linda and I would take turns driving it up and down the farm and canal roads. It had a 20 mph governor and a dial handle speed gadget. I got grounded from driving it with my legs on the steering wheel, laid back stretched out. Not law abiding Linda! She would use that tractor to halter train her 4-H show steers, pulling them up and down the road. We were dad’s right hand men, Irrigating, moving cattle, & stacking hay. Once the parentals let us drive to go set water i.e. irrigate crops, Linda & I would go check tubes at least every 2 hours just to be able to go for a ride. Summers branding and trailing cattle with the Herbst cousins, the Hughes, the Harringtons and the Maces left Frank, Linda and I with a lot of good memories. It was tough getting up at 3am to saddle and get to the herd as the sun was coming up but being done by noon and before the heat of the day was a big benefit Besides actively helping on the ranch, Linda oversaw all the cats that dad didn’t mind feeding as the ranch rarely had mice. She had one big black and white cat named Timmy that she loved! He lived a good long life and was there for her after the accident. Linda also raised and showed numerous Hereford market steers for 4-H at the Fremont County Fair. She always had a hard time selling them at the fair auction as she didn’t want to give them up. Linda also helped raise numerous bumb calves, but a special one was Henrietta who lived a good long life. Linda could always walk up to her and Henrietta would raise her head high so Linda could scratch her neck. Mom reminded me this week when Henrietta had her first calf, Henrietta licked her calf first then turned and gave Linda a big lick on her face! Our grade school through high school years, Linda and I would get to entertain numerous of our girlfriend’s at slumber parties with us being fed well by mom and we attempted to sleep in sleeping bags in the basement. High school weekends would find Linda and I in Peggy Jarvis Blaha’s lime green Galaxy Ford with black pin striping dragging main or holding court in the back row of the West or the Knight drive in movie theatres. In college our fun was with the other GDI girls in McEntire Hall at U of Wyo in Laramie, WY. Several are still life long friends of Linda’s and mine. When Peggy joined us our Sophomore year, the pin was pulled from the hand grenade. Attending Wyo Cowboy football games on fall Saturdays and Basketball games was one of Linda’s favorite pass times. As Liz Philp said upon hearing of Linda’s death—"the Cowboys and Cowgirls just lost their number one fan” One winter storm found Linda and I with Peggy again in that lime green Galaxy Ford spinning donuts in a big parking lot with lots of snow and ice on the cement. We laughed so hard over that incident. Another time for Halloween 6 of us McEntire Hall gals including Linda, dressed up as a Coors Lite 6 pack. We wore brown tights, turtle necks and had the Coors label from posters we got at the liquor store. Our screw top hats were tin foil pie pans. We even made a foil wrapped handle that we clinged to as a 6 pack when we would enter different parties. As the night went on the 6 pack became loosely organized. I couldn’t find any pictures of that event! When Linda’s accident happened December 17, 1979, I rode the Greyhound bus to Casper to meet mom and dad. They took me to see her in ICU. I fainted when I first saw her as she was unconscious and sitting in one of those wheel chairs with a table—just like Grandma Herbst sat in at the Fremont Manor. I told mom and dad I was not going back to school without Linda. They insisted I go back, that there was nothing I could do to help Linda. I’m glad they talked me into that. Linda re joined me at UW August 1980 where we rented our first apartment to live off campus. We didn’t see each other much after she graduated from UW in 1983. When I started going to Cheyenne Frontier Days in 2003-first w/ the Texas Sonny Burgess band I managed and later with the rope horses starting in 2007, I would see Linda. I told Sonny on the phone the day after Linda’s death, that he was the reason she and I became close again. She would always come to the CFD rodeo grounds to save me or some of the other cowboy’s stalls when they were coming in. She would also get cookie treats out of my trailer manger and feed her 2 favorite horses of mine—Boo and Cat Daddy extra treats. Then when I started rescuing animals in 2009 we bonded even further. In July 2010 When I bought my horse property at Whitesboro TX, I needed someone to come pet/house sit until I could find a permanent Small Animal Ranch Manager. Linda rode back w/ me from Cheyenne and assumed that role into 2011. She loved all my animals and she relished doing a detailed job on feeding them, emptying litter boxes, grooming them and taking my dogs for an “arena run”---i.e. driving the gator down to the arena with the dogs barking and running along with her. She especially took loving care of my Boo horse after he survived salmonella poisoning that resulted in founder. She would make the arena run 3-4 times per day to put him on the “vibe plate” to get his hoof blood to circulate better. She spent differing time periods at my ranch through the holidays 2019. Covid 19 and her respiratory issues prevented her from being there this past year. The day she died, 3 of my close girlfriends from work came to my home near the office. They said they knew Linda loved the opportunity to come down and take care of my animals just like they were hers. That she was probably happiest tho to see me pulling out on Sunday night and not returning till Friday night and had the animals all to herself. After her first round of duty in 2010, she was upset about having to leave the animals and go home. I asked her “Why don’t you go volunteer at the local animal shelter?” She informed me it would be too heartbreaking seeing all those animals without homes and she would hate getting attached to any that would get adopted out. I swear she got in my phone contacts at some time and hacked some of my numbers cuz I’ve had a dozen or more people tell me “I’m gonna miss Linda’s texts checking on my horse, how I roped, checking on my cat or dog etc etc” LOL. Glad we could share friends. My last conversation with her was Monday before her death. Unfortunately “our” favorite dog, Bubbzy got killed in an accident Sunday night and she wanted to know what the accident was. I had to tell her that the younger 3 dogs went pack mentality on Bubzzy and he didn’t survive. She was heart broken as was I. On my social media posts of his death, she posted “Bubbzy, I will see you again. I will see you at the Rainbow Bridge”. That has been my only consolation in her death—knowing that all our pets, animals in our lives were there to greet her and bring her together with so many people we have lost in our past including Dad and Frank. I want to especially thank her friends from her church in Cheyenne for being such loving, good friends to her. They went above and beyond especially after her death to help mom and I. Thank you for attending and letting me share these memories of my sister, Linda. |
