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Millville man's love or horses lives on in his family By
Sharalyn Hartwell
Life for the late Don Jessop of Millville revolved around horses. They were not just animals, they were a way of life. According to Millville Memories: A History of Millville, Utah, from 1850 to 1990, horses were an important part of the farming life in early Millville and the Jessop name was synonymous with them. "I think it's something you have to grow up with to really appreciate," said Don's widow, Dortha. "It is born and bred in you." Don's passion came from his father, Lester Jessop, who was well-known for breaking, training and trading horses, according to Millville Memories. "I appreciated his love for them, but I never got involved with them," said Dortha. When they married in 1949, she didn't "know a thing about horses." She sat in a saddle only two times throughout their marriage. "I felt bad because I didn"t appreciate them the way Don did," Dortha said. "It was his life." Don rode saddle broncs and calf roped in rodeos. He worked on several ranches with the horses and cattle and on round-ups. But at age 27, Don"s interaction with horses forever changed. While Don was working for a livestock feed lot in Ogden, he became paralyzed from the chest down. He was on the roof of a hay-chopping shed getting a pipe. As he went to throw the pipe to the ground, it hit an electrical wire and electrocuted him. The shock knocked Don off the building and he broke his neck when he landed. After the accident, rarely was a complaint heard from Don. Dortha said he "just went on with life." "The boys (their two sons, Craig and Mont) just kept us both going," she said. "If you're faced with a certain situation, you just do it. I don't know how else to explain it." However, this situation did not bridle Don's affection for horses. Don and Dortha built a cement walk from the house to the barn so he could be near the horses. Don was determined to have his sons ride horses and taught them at ages 4 and 5. They started with Shetland ponies and gradually worked up to full-size horses, Dortha said. After the boys "crawled on" the horse, Mont said, Don would take the horse's rope and hold it in his hand while the boys rode in a circle around him. From his wheelchair, he explained to them the correct way to hold the reins and how to balance their feet inside the stirrups. "He told us what we were doing wrong and what to do differently," Mont said. Don also taught his sons how to groom, shoe and break horses, Dortha said. Mont said he remembers at first holding the horse's foot while his father shoed it and then eventually doing the whole process. The boys and their horses entered the fair in Logan every year and always won blue ribbons, Dortha said. Don drove them there and watched their events, she said. One of Don's friends made hand controls so Don could drive his car. He got more enjoyment "out of that than anything," Dortha said, and went for a drive every day. "To be able to get in and go made him feel free of the wheelchair," she said. Don often took Mont with him on his drives. They would visit the ranches where he used to work and Mont became more immersed in the cowboy way of life. Mont said he set up ranches and corrals in the corner of the living room with his toys when he was young. "And if mother touched it, she got holy heck," he said with a chuckle. Mont said he embraced his horsemen heritage primarily because of the "great influence" of his father's passion, which was evident when Don frequently recounted stories about "horses that had been dead for 40 years." "I"m sure he woke up in the middle of the night thinking about horses. Dad's life was horses," he said. "If he heard about a good horse in Elko, he would drive down there just to look at it." Mont was in rodeo for many years. Don rarely missed one of his rodeos and often watched him practice. "It brought a lot of joy to Don to see Mont rope in the rodeos," Dortha said. "He still enjoyed the horses through the boys." "I'm sure he rode and roped and cowboyed through me," Mont said. While bed-ridden the last year of his life, Don "lived to watch a rodeo" on television, Mont said. "He never really viewed himself as 70, but the age he was when he got hurt," he said. "He really believed that he could ride that horse (on television) if he wasn"t stuck in bed." When Don died in January 1999, his passion for horses did not dismount. It stayed firmly in the saddle through Mont. And now the Jessop-horse legacy rides on through Mont's son, Carson.
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