Ruby Bledso, 90, has always been close with family, whether it’s her daughter’s family in the Bonney Lake duplex connected to her home or her immediate family growing up.

As a child, it wasn’t a hard thing to do. Bledso was packed in with eight siblings, the third youngest of children.

But they had plenty of room to spread out. Bledso spent her childhood on ranches and farms on the Kansas plains, describing them in ways reminiscent of old western movies.

Bledso was born into life on a horse and cattle ranch. Her father had a reservoir with two large windmills pumping water, and because of this the property was used by cowboys as a rest stop during long cattle drives.

“They would stay the night and sometimes my mother would feed the cowboys if there were not too many at one time,” she said. “I remember one rancher got mad at her because she wouldn’t feed him. He rode in and asked for something to eat, but she wasn’t feeling well and she sent him back to the place where they would sleep, quite unhappy I think.”

When she turned 7 years old, Bledso’s family left the ranch to move to a farm in Protection, Kan., just outside Dodge City. There they raised milking cows, horses, pigs, chickens and other livestock, as well as growing and harvesting corn and alfalfa.

“Thank goodness our school was so close to us, because we had a lot of chores to do every day,” she said.

Every day before going to school, the family would wake up at 4:30 a.m. Two of the girls would feed and milk the cows while the other three would make the beds or help cook breakfast.

“Each of us cooked from the time we were knee-high to a grasshopper,” Bledso said.

If it was wintertime, they tapped the cows’ noses to break the frozen mucus and allow them to breathe. The boys would help load cattle feed onto the conveyor to the silos. After school, their mother would put on a pot of soup or other snack before they resumed their help by pumping water and gathering and packaging eggs. The girls learned to cook and sew, and some of her sisters developed into talented seamstresses, Bledso said.

Even the children’s free time was dominated by pastoral activities. Bledso and her siblings practiced and perfected their agricultural skills in their local 4-H club. To make money, they raised watermelons, Sand Hill plums and assorted vegetables to sell in town. And if Bledso wanted to visit a friend in town, she would mount a saddle and ride the five miles on horseback.

Despite, or perhaps because of, having such a large family, everyone got on wonderfully, she said.

Bledso credited her lifestyle and upbringing for giving her a tolerance and appreciation of people from all backgrounds.

“Around the ranch I would hire cowboys to carry me around,” she said. “Especially one colored man who broke broncos for my daddy. I would ride around on his shoulders and it would be a great time. He just adored us kids. And one colored lady, Mrs. Colmes, would help my mother around the house and I would play with her children, even though I didn’t like to share my dolls. I learned to love colored people and I developed a great respect for them because they were good workers and played with us kids.”

Times wouldn’t always be good. Bledso remembered vividly a dispute her father had with their neighbor over a fence separating their properties. In true western fashion, the neighbor pulled a revolver on Bledso’s father as the argument escalated.

“I remember the trial he had vividly,” she said. “He was a troublesome man. One night, his daughter came to our house after she had had an argument with her father. I can’t remember what it was about, but I do remember that she had beautiful long dark hair. No, you don’t forget things like that.”

When Bledso was in seventh grade in the early ‘30s, an unfortunate turn of events struck her household. The dry Kansas climate was always subject to prairie fires, and Bledso remembered how neighbors would fight the flames off with wet gunny sacks. One fire burned down the family house.

With America’s plains entrenched in the dust storms of the Dust Bowl era, her family opted to sell the property, sell the livestock and move to Washington state in search of work and greener pastures.

There, in Granger, Zillah, Kalama River, Seattle and Des Moines, she finished her education, met and married two husbands and adopted her daughter Laura. But she still remembers her life back on the ranch with her siblings, of whom she is the last survivor.

“I miss them terribly,” she said. “It’s not easy being alone.”

But she is not alone. She has the company of her daughter and her daughter’s family, and the continued spirit of family that began on the golden plains of Kansas.