Valentines Babies

*This posting is really more just for journaling purposes, but of course, feel free to read!*

This past Valentines was especially different for me. Of course Nathan spoiled me with all the nice things, and vice versa, and we enjoyed a nice night out without the kids, but in our family, we have many Valentines Birthdays. This year, my cousin Karl turned 29, Nathan's Grandma turned 80, and my grandpa would have been 84. My Grandpa Max Bigler Smith passed away in August of 2006, literally right after we had an amazing family reunion, celebrating my Grandma's 80th birthday, with almost every family member in tow. It had been almost a month straight that my Grandparents had hosted family members, and we had so much fun in the time we were all together, which was about a week. It's hard NOT to think about my Grandpa being here, and going to Gunstock Ranch almost daily. (A ranch that he owned and founded). I often feel sad that this experience is happening for us now, and not when he was around. That sure would have been fun. There are so many things that I loved about my Grandpa, but the quality I loved the most, is he ALWAYS made you feel like you were his FAVORITE! Sweetest, most loving, 3rd generation cowboy. The last Sunday he was alive ( I say alive because it was the last conscious Sunday alive) many of us family members were in the congregation attending their home ward, when he got up to share his testimony. How I cherish those words and his testimony even more than ever, since that was the last time I got to hear it in this life. He stood up and told each one of us how much he loved us, and felt like the luckiest man in the world to have the greatest family. He said he was SO proud of his ancestry, and of his posterity. He shared his love for the gospel and the truth he has found in it. Man I feel lucky to have been there that day! Later that night at home, my grandpa and I had a little bit of quality time, and I asked him all about my genealogy. I wanted to know how many siblings he had, and this answer was so my grandpa, he said, my parents always said they had 9 boys, and each one of them had a sister. And no, he wasn't one of 18, he was one of 10! He fell right smack in the middle. He told me all about his grandpa Lot Smith ( who was really good friends with Brigham Young) and how he was the youngest member of the Mormon Batallion. I learned all about his history, and how he had 7 wives, and 52 children. My great grandpa was the final, and was actually born after he was shot and killed by an Indian. These stories are fascinating to me! Anyway, I don't want to bore you with our family history. More just express how much I miss him, and how much I thought of him on Valentines Day. I can feel him in spirit EVERY TIME I go to that ranch! I am grateful my Grandma is still alive, and that I get to bring her great grandchildren to her almost weekly, and I get to spend time with her. Here is a fun article that was written about him in the local paper, The Star Bulletin. It was titled with the picture above, to the Max, and then said under that At 79 years of age, rancher Max Smith is still chasing and roping cattle.

For Max Bigler Smith, it wasn't the first time he rode a hourse that he remembers as significant, but rather the first time he ran one. "I was 4 years old the first time I loped a hrose, and I still remember."

Now, at 79, Smith is still running on horse power. Whether it be on the 4,000 acre Gunstock Ranch that he has operated for 23 years or at local rodeo events, the Paniolo Hall of Fame cowboy continues to chase down cattle on his purebred quarter horses.

Born in the small town of Central, AZ., Smith is a third-generation rancher who remembers when horses were the main mode of transportation.

"I used to ride a horse to school. I'd turn it loose and it would go home. I usually ode to school because I had to take the milk cows to pasture, and then turn them loose."

Getting around hasn't changed that much for Smith. "I usually ride for a reason: Go get cows. Go get horses. Go check this. Go check that." Without hesitation he says, "It beats wealking".

After all those years of riding, it's no surprise that the cowboy is still quite a horseman. At the Paniolo Hall of Fame Rodeo Event in October, Smith placed second in the Penning and Sorting competition, which involves separating two specific calves from a herd and getting them into a pen.

When asked when he planned on retiring from competing, Smith replied, "Well, when I was roping, people kept asking me, 'When are you gonna quit?' and I'd say, 'When I don't think I can beat ya.' I guess that will be the same with penning and sorting."

Smith did retire from being Hawaii state veterinarian in 1994 after holding the position for 19 years. Before that, he served for 10 years as state meat inspector, a job secured after responding to a trade publication as while living in his home state of Arizona.

*a job he told my Grandma and family that he was taking for 2 years, and then they would go back. I'm sure you know now whether they actually did!*

Since moving to the islands, Smith and his wife of 55 years, Rita, have raised six children. They have 24 grandchildren and have made Hawaii their home.


The couple lives in Kailua, and Smith makes the long haul to Laie in his cavernous 350 Ford v8 disel engine truck every day. "People ask me, 'Why don't I stay on the ranch?' and I tell them, 'Because I want to live with my wife!"


A typical day at the ranch includes booming orders at ranch hands while overseeing the feeling of 300 head of cattle and 60 horses; taking inventory and locating wayward livestock; checking for broken water troughs, fences and gates; following up on equipment repairs; saddle-breaking juvenile horses; coaxing reluctant cattle into chutes; tending to ailing animals; and more feeing--abbreviated with relaxed moments of sitting in his favorite lanai chair back at the barn.


"I'm glad I'm still doin' it" he says. "I can't do it like I used to. I guess it's better than the alternative..."

Which is? "Death," he says with a mischievous smile.
this picture was so typical of my Grandpa's boots. He loved those boots, and never wanted to get new ones, just wanted to tape them back together! Gotta love that!

I hold a priceless picture...a picture that I hope my twins will cherish dearly in their older age. Just a few hours after him getting home from the ranch, and a half hour before collapsing due to a stroke, my mom took pictures of the twins with my grandparents. How lucky am I, that I hold the last and final picture of him in his living state of his mortal life.