Home on the Range

In 1901 Charles Hemry, a Wyoming sheepman, brought his bride, Sedda, to their less than palatial residence in the Big Horn Mountains. She was not discouraged. According to her daughter, Kathleen Hemry of Casper, Wyoming, Sedda “always made everything nice,” and soon she had brightened the curving walls of the sheep wagon with wallpaper and hung lace-trimmed curtains, pictures, and a hand-painted plate alongside the Remington and the Winchester.

The six-by-eleven-foot interior was worked out as economically as a yacht’s, with a bed at one end, a stove at the other, benches along the sides, and a table board stowed under the bed.

Here Sedda stands at the door with a trapped coyote in the foreground; in the inset, baby Wyoma sleeps in the cozy home she joined in 1902. “People came from afar to see the fancy sheep wagon,” says Kathleen Hemry, whose father took these pictures in 1902. We thank both her and her neighbor Charlene Davis, who sent us the photos.

We continue to ask our readers to send unusual and previously unpublished old photographs to Carla Davidson at American Heritage Publishing Co., 10 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10020. Please send a copy of any irreplaceable material, include return postage, and do not mail glass negatives. AMERICAN HERITAGE will pay $50.00 for each one that is run.