By ED PECK
Special to the Herald Times
M
olly sued to divorce Mr. Bert S. Rink in September 1924, charging non-support. She kept the ranch and the royalties. The court proceedings were interrupted when Mr. Rink’s redhead girlfriend showed up in court. Molly exhibited her less than kindly feelings toward the girlfriend with her trademarked language. Peace was brought about only after the bailiff convinced the redhead to exit. The year 1927 brought Molly a new husband, Paul Woodmansee, and a new well, Midwest’s No. 4-SD. The well brought in about 1,000 barrels a day, one of the area’s richest. Paul brought in a new baby daughter, Pauline May (born 1928). Her daughter, Pauline lived a long life and later donated some news clippings and pictures to the Museum of Northwest Colorado.
Molly did not start out as a rough independent rancher in Moffat County. She described herself as a frail 90-pound woman when she arrived in the Meeker area from Indiana. She and her husband, Bert S. Rink first appeared in the Meeker Herald in 1902 when they bought some town property from John Kincher. The White River Museum has a picture of the house they later built on the southwest corner of Third and Market. They spent some time upriver managing the Windemere Lodge and ranch for W.L. Parrotte. Bert also worked as a butcher in Meeker. There was a son listed as James F. Rink, adopted in the 1910 Meeker Census. He died in 1921, serving in the U.S. Navy in the new Panama Canal Zone, which the U.S. controlled. You might remember that finishing the canal was Teddy Roosevelt’s pet project. Sometime after 1912, the Rink family moved to the Axial Basin. The homestead is recorded in December 1921. Ranch life must have agreed with Molly. Her health improved and she could and did a man’s share of the work.
Molly did have a softer side. She hosted several extravagant parties with musicians and a victrola player. She opened her home to a wedding party for a friend and offered a meal to passing cowboys in need. Sam Love of Axial remembered her giving him hard candy as a child of 7 or 8. His Dad drove their cattle to his forest grazing permit. The cattle drive put them close to Molly Rink’s ranch halfway between Thornburg and Craig. This short, stout lady did everything herself although she was wealthy. She fed Sam’s crew and sat down to play poker with them, I am sure while using “I god” while betting.
If you want to know more about this colorful Western character, stop by the White River Museum and read the Rocky Mountain News feature. Dan at the Museum of Northwest Colorado in Craig has even more clippings. Thank you, Dan for suggesting this story.
Editor’s Note: In Part 1 of the Molly Rink story, we inadvertently failed to remove a paragraph from the previous week’s article about the attempted bank robbery. We apologize for any confusion!
Correction: In my Halloween story last week, I made at least one mistake. Don Hoerl did not surrender voluntarily. His arrest was a product of good police work. Our sheriff’s department, in their investigation, discovered Hoerl had previously been in Idaho and assumed that he might go back to hide out. Alerts were sent directly to certain Idaho county sheriffs to be on the look out for Hoerl and his truck. After eluding the authorities for two weeks, on Aug. 29, 1973, his truck was spotted in St. Maries, Idaho. Officer Vincent R. Jones ran the license plate number. He pulled Hoerl over and arrested him for the murder of Eleanor Jones. Don was armed, but did not put up a fight. He also did not fight extradition to Colorado and signed a confession.
