The Hired Man on Horseback

By Peter Gordon, Historian —

A great love story and literary dynasty that almost didn’t materialize was chronicled by May Davison Rhodes, of Apalachin, N.Y., in her story of her life and collaboration with Eugene Manlove Rhodes – her “Loco Cowboy.”

It took Gene Rhodes, a young “Western Poet,” three months to reply to a note from May Davison Purple of Apalachin, a recently widowed woman with two young children, and who was suffering from diphtheria. May tells her story in The “Hired Man on Horseback”, just reissued with over 100 photos, and available at The Riverow Bookshop in Owego, and from Amazon.com.

May’s great-grandson, Gerald “Jerry” Rhodes, whose Owego family roots date back to 1820, writes the following in his forward to the book: My favorite among her (May’s) insights, “It wasn’t so comfortable at times, being married to a genius, more like snuggling up to a volcano that unexpectedly poured hot ashes, stones and lava on your bewildered head, and when this had ceased, you could still hear rumblings and groanings that retched his soul. Then there were long peaceful times when you forget all that. And in any state, he was the most fascinating man I ever met.

“Anything but boring, and yes, interesting and surprising! The partnership they forged led to a prolific output of stories and poems. The reader will find in this love story: Majestic scenery in the mountains and plains of the Southwest. Hard work, and an accurate picture and complete vindication of the American cowboy.

That true cowboy was a hero to be defended at all costs! In the 1920’s and 1930’s this team made Gene Rhodes into a leading literary figure. Renowned writers, publishers, and scholars visited Gene and May in New Mexico, California, and in Apalachin, New York. Gene and May’s collaboration produced novels, several of which were turned into movies, short stories published in major magazines (over 60 in The Saturday Evening Post), essays, and poems – elegant and loving whenever Gene wrote to May. Late in their life together May brought up his first story, The Hour and the Man.

“Gene (revealed) reflectively, ‘If I hadn’t met you, I should probably never have written any stories. I was about to engage in a life of outlawry. It looked very attractive,’ he mused.”

The collaboration suffered most from Gene’s obsession with baseball, as May revealed, “Four things were uppermost in Gene’s mind in those days: (1) baseball; (2) baseball; (3) baseball; (4) his literary work. It was soon an accepted fact that the story-writing would be done only from the time when baseball stopped in the fall until it started in the spring.”

May’s obituary in the March 20, 1957 Alamogordo (New Mexico) Daily News describes her as “– the beloved ‘Saint May’ who inspired, cajoled and threatened her husband, the late Eugene Manlove Rhodes, into writing the books and stories that have become a folk epic of the Old West.”