Etchart

Etchart & Etcheverry’s Families

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Colorado Shepherds – The Etchart Ranch, 1934

It began in a small town in the corner of France, part of a land peninsula extending into Spain, in a lush valley with a town at its center -- St. Etienne de Baigorry. It began in the Basque country, the low Pyrenees looming above, cuckoo birds adding their sounds. It was a set of journeys, to a new country and a different way of life.

It was an act of courage, coming to a place with a different language and different customs.

Machterenia, the Etcheverry home in Baigorry, abandoned after WWII But some of that courage was bolstered by deception. “They told me everyone spoke French in America,” one of them related years later.

Etchart & Etcheverry’s Families

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This story is of two families who first spoke Basque, then French and Spanish. From these two families three brothers and two sisters came to the drylands of Colorado and started a new life, raising sheep. The three Etchart brothers grew up in the village of Osses, an hour walk from the town of St. Etienne de Baigorry. The Etcheverry’s (Etcheberria and Etcheberry are other forms of the family’s name) lived a few miles the other way, up in the hills and in the last house before the Spanish border, a place known for its smuggling – Maison Machterenea. That house was surrounded by Chestnut and apple trees, a kilometer or so from the current family house – Maison Chincońea. There were four Etcheverry’s – Guillaume, Martin (who herded from 1906-1922 before returning to the Basque country), Catherine, and Jeannette – of which the two sister’s figure in this journey to a new life, sisters who married brothers – Etchart brothers.

The first to make the crossing was the oldest Etchart, Miguel (born 6/23/1864); he immigrated in 1882 to Los Angeles, and then came up to Las Animas, Colorado in 1893.

He was followed by his younger brothers Juan and Jean.

They came to a land that was the opposite of the green valley in which they were raised. They came to the dry lands, the prairies, an open range in the days of the cattlevs.-sheep wars. This new place was not just a world away. It was in the past, before the time when homesteaders would arrive only to be driven away by the unrelenting climate of cold winters and hot summers. This new land was dominated by scarce grass, some canyons and cedars, those scraggly trees that Etchart Ranch – 16 miles south of Las Animas could survive in an arid region.

It was a land that would make the son of one of those Basques cry when he first saw it: “my dad said it was desolate but I never imagined this.” There were rattlesnakes, tarantulas, antelope, road runners, prairie dogs, and powerful storms – lightning storms.

One of the “sheep wagons”, Etchart Ranch, during the Depression

Etchart & Etcheverry’s Families

Page 3 Onto that vastness, where from the highest rise the Spanish Peaks could be seen over a hundred miles to the west, flowed the little bit of water the parched lands did not claim for itself – the Purgatory “River” and Muddy “Creek”. It was a land of dinosaur trackways, Indian arrowheads, and tears. It was the place of the lost souls – Las Animas. It would become home to several sheep ranches.

Dinosaur tracks, a few miles from the old Etchart Ranch, with Juan Etchart’s great grandson, Danyon Joseph Anderson; windmill on ranch.

The second brother, Juan Etchart (born March 8, 1871), arrived and did what he was allowed to do – herd sheep. He worked hard, earning the money that would enable him to take the next step. He became rich by their standards, a land owner with several thousand sheep. He sent for a wife, a woman fifteen years his junior – Catherine Etcheverry (born September 2, 1886). They married and worked out on the range. They had two children – Michael and Catherine.

Then lightning struck, hitting the pole holding up the shepherd’s tent in which they were waiting out the storm. The helper was killed instantly but Juan Etchart fought for his life in the hospital, losing that battle on September 19, 1912.

His young wife remarried, to another Basque, the ranch continuing to prosper.

Catherine’s ranch not only employed other Basque shepherds, she had a housekeeper.

Then, a second “lightning bolt” hit -- Catherine died in childbirth on September 5, 1920.

The two orphaned children, Mike, 9, and Catherine, 8, were sent to live with their younger double cousins – Elizabeth and Carol Joseph – and their Aunt Jeannette Etcheverry and Uncle Jean Etchart, a man who would change his name to that of his dead brother -- Juan. (Four years later the two children were sent to live with Miguel Etchart.)

The two Etchart families continued to work, selling wool, mutton, and lamb in order to buy the “open range” they had been using for years. The financial records tell a story of decades of Basques coming and going, working with the sheep. The ranch prospered.

Etchart & Etcheverry’s Families

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Elizabeth at pump, Juan before lightning strike, Catherine before third childbirth with children -Michael and Catherine The ranch headquarters, sixteen miles away in the town of Las Animas, was a sod house that had been stuccoed over, a house that kept growing a room at a time as the needs arose. It was a place run by the uncle/father who couldn’t read, all business transactions being carried out by his making his mark, a distinct cross.

The orphaned Mike Etchart (left), now grown became a proud father, with his wife, Gertrude, and their two oldest children – Michael Jr. and Jennifer with his two double cousins – Elizabeth and Carol – in 1949.

Etchart & Etcheverry’s Families

Page 5 As Catherine was “coming of age”, months before her 21st birthday, she unexpectedly died on January 30, 1933.

Uncle Jean’s life was the ranch. He first trained his son, Carol Joseph, to run it. Part of the ranch became Carol’s. The remaining part stayed in the hands of Jean and his wife, Jeannette, with the day-to-day management work being taken over by their daughter – Elizabeth. Jeannette died in 1960, her husband in 1962.

Neither Carol nor Elizabeth married, both dying of cancer -- 1996 and 2002.

Catherine (left) before her death in 1933.

But the story was no longer that of the land, as the ranch was lost to the cattle business with only the sod house remaining in the family. Yet, the story that would continue into further generations came through the only Etchart/Etcheverry survivor – the boy orphaned at 9: Mike Etchart. Mike was sent into the Pacific during WWII, returning home to father three children – Michael, Jennifer, and Patrick. His letters reveal him as a man who cared, a generous soul. He died of cancer on June 4, 1981.

Part Sod, Part Adobe – the Old Etchart Sheep Ranch Headquarters

Etchart & Etcheverry’s Families

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Mike left three children and seven grandchildren, with his middle child, Jennifer Etchart Anderson, a member of the Colorado Euskal Etxea Club, a woman fascinated by the Old Country and the storms those who left it came to face.

Compiled by: Jennifer Anderson 137 El Dorado Lane Colorado Springs, CO 80919 The latest generation: Juan Etchart’s greatgrandchildren -- Davin Etchart Anderson running the last leg of the Triathalon, with his sister, Kajsa Elizabeth Anderson who is in the third year of Dental School.

Catherine Etcheverry’s granddaughter, Jennifer Etchart Anderson, with husband Dave