Roy Rogers was born Leonard Franklin Slye
on November 5, 1911 in Cincinnati, Ohio. After an early life of moving around the surrounding area, his parents
settled back near Cincinnati in 1918 and his father, Andy, found a job in a
shoe factory in Portsmouth. Roy joined his father at the shoe factory after he
quit high school. Eventually tiring of their factory jobs, the family followed
Roy’s sister, Mary, to California by the spring of 1930.
Now, you may wonder, WHY am I writing
about Roy Rogers? Family lore, of course. Several cousins remember that my grandfather,
Garth Beckington, hauled Trigger, Roy’s famous horse, to rodeos. Or, maybe it
was just “horses.” This was supposed to
have occurred around 1940. My grandparents lived on a dairy farm near Ann Arbor,
Michigan in Washtenaw County.
In the late 30s and early 40s, Roy was
doing a lot of traveling with his horse or horses to rodeos and shows across
the United States. In one year alone, he performed in all but four of the
States. He was extremely popular and Trigger was a main attraction. Trigger
could perform more than 50 tricks. It should be noted that there was more than
one Trigger. There was a Trigger, Jr. and a Little Trigger and others. They
were so similar in looks that you had to be an expert to tell them apart. By
1952, Trigger was transported in a specially built tractor-trailer-van worth
about $25,000. That would be about $240,000 in 2015 dollars. Some experts argue
that the original Trigger did not travel and perform at these rodeos.
“Roy
Rogers: A biography, Radio History, Television Career Chronicle, Discography,
Filmography, Comicography, Merchandising and Advertising History, Collectibles
Description, Bibliography and Index” by Robert W. Phillips, 1995, is a book
that tells you everything you could ever want to know about Roy Rogers and his life
and career. I didn’t read every word but I especially enjoyed the information about
his family. He had two marriages before Dale Evans (some suggest a third). Dale
had three previous marriages. She had a son, Thomas Fox, when she was about 18
that not many people knew about. With Dale’s son and Roy’s biological son and adopted
daughter from an earlier marriage, and other children they adopted together,
they had a full house. Roy and Dale lost children through the years from
various causes, so they suffered a lot of tragedy along the way as well as
great success. Roy Rogers died on July 6, 1998.
But, did my grandfather haul horses for
Roy Rogers?
I talked to a young lady at the Rodeo Association
in Colorado Springs, Colorado. She said until the 1890s most of the horses and
other livestock were transported by railroad to shows and rodeos. Rodeos grew
out of the Wild West Shows that were popular at the time. Eventually, the shows
and performers contracted with large local ranchers/farmers in the areas they
were performing for both the use of livestock and transportation to move the
equipment and livestock. Roy Rogers was what they called a “contract
performer.” In other words, he signed
contracts to perform and had to show up. He probably used local livestock and
transportation whenever possible. I
suppose my grandfather might have been called upon to take horses from one rodeo
to another in Michigan, since they were about 40 miles from Detroit and not far
from Lansing or Toledo, Ohio. My grandfather was not a large farmer, so from
that standpoint it is hard to believe he was involved. Maybe he helped someone
else out at the last minute. Maybe he
provided something like hay for the horses.
We will probably never know exactly what
services, if any, Garth provided.
This is one of those family stories which
will most certainly live on in some of his grandchildren’s memories, but never
have confirmation.
