Ralph Moody Day -- Oberlin event celebrates author with local experiences.

Ralph Moody wrote autobiographical books about his life with horses and cattle, through the good days and the bad times, in Northwest Kansas and Southwest Nebraska. (Decatur County Museum)

By Connie Jo Discoe

Regional Editor

CEDAR BLUFFS -- A former grade school teacher said her fifth graders would have really enjoyed listening to Ralph Moody's stories. And adults enjoy Moody's books because of the history lessons available in them.

The retired teacher, Mary Henzel of Oberlin, said she enjoyed Moody's stories, "because they gave me a history of this area I wouldn't have had."

Mary, a resident of the Oberlin area for just six years, is a member of the Oberlin Arts and Humanities Commission, which -- with the Oberlin Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Decatur County Museum -- plans the second "Ralph Moody Day," Sunday, April 25, at the Gateway Civic Center in Oberlin.

Moody's stories start on a Colorado ranch in a book called "Little Britches: Father and I were Ranchers." His tales continue in Cedar Bluffs, Oberlin and McCook in "The Dry Divide" and "Horse of a Different Color."

After "Little Britches," Moody's life continued without his father, who died in 1910, and is told in books called "Man of the Family," "The Fields of Home," The Home Ranch, "Mary Emma & Company" and "Shaking the Nickel Bush."

A book reviewer from Kansas City, wrote this review of "Little Britches" in 2000, "I read this book after my 9-year-old son finished it for school. The lessons and values that Ralph Moody learned growing up are so good and true -- even if sometimes they were learned the hard way. Mr. Moody's book teaches wonderful values like responsibility, respect, honesty, hard work and commitment, and support of the family."

Many reviewers -- like retired teacher Mary Henzel -- think Moody's books are best read out loud.

Mary said Moody's books helped her learn Northwest Kansas history after she and her husband moved from Oklahoma to the Oberlin area six years ago.

"Dry Divide" starts in 1919 in McCook, where Ralph gets kicked off the train he'd hopped in St. Joseph, Mo., hoping to make it to the roundup in Littleton, Colo. He's down to his last dime.

In McCook, he's recruited for a harvest crew and rides southwest to the Kansas line and into Cedar Bluffs. Moody writes, "The main street was a single block long, the buildings all peak-roofed and clapboard-sided, but a few had square false fronts. At the far end, there was a bank, little more than twenty feet square, the windows painted in big letters, "FIRST STATE BANK."

"Horse of a Different Color" starts: "My first sight of Beaver Valley, lying just south of the Nebraska boundary in western Kansas, was on July 4, 1919."

Not long after he's hired as a harvest hand, Moody won the confidence of Cedar Bluffs banker, Bones Kennedy. "Without asking my age, he lent me money after harvest to buy horses and equipment and go into the grain hauling business," Moody writes.

He continues, "By the end of the hauling season, I owned 37 tough mustang horses, harnesses for them, 14 stout grain wagons, a good saddle and an old Maxwell touring car that would go forty miles an hour with a little coaxing. I didn't owe a penny ... "

Moody also met George Miner, whose farm was "on the low bench that skirted the north side of Beaver Valley, one of the best in Decatur County, and his herd of nearly pure-blooded Hereford cattle was unquestionably the best." George accompanies Moody throughout "Horse of a Different Color."

Storyteller and Ralph Moody historian John Stansfield of Monument, Colo., will retell Moody's tales during Oberlin's Ralph Moody Day.

The celebration also will include:

* Chuck wagon lunch, cooked and served by Larry Hannon of Garden City;

* An early-Oberlin historical/pictorial presentation by Sharleen Wurm of the Decatur County Museum.

* Wagon rides and roping activities for children.

The day begins with the lunch at 12:15 p.m., on the cement slab east of the Gateway. Stansfield will speak at 2 p.m., followed by Wurm, in Morgan Theater.

Tickets will be available on site. Prices are $6 for Oberlin Arts and Humanities season ticket holders; and $10 for individuals and $25 for families (parents and their children through high school).

Ticket prices include the lunch and program.

Reservations are encouraged.

For details and reservations, call: Mary, (785) 475-3329; Connie, (785) 475-2400; or Ella (785) 475-3557.