Frasier Family History | Davies Quarter Horses

Pioneer Ancestry:

Frasier Family: Scottish heritage from the Clan Lord Lovat.

In covered wagons, Merlue's great grandparents, Wm. and Cynthia Frasier, traveled in 1885, to their homestead in the sand hills in Southwestern Nebraska near Benkelman Nebraska.

There were buffalo wallows, Indian arrows and pottery, and other signs on the homestead that not long ago, there had been unbridled open spaces where the Indians, buffalo and wild life roamed.

Her great grandparents (Frasiers) began with a one-room dug out, later an above ground sod home. Land was donated on the homestead for the Sleepy Hollow Church.

Family members attended a one-room school house, and rode to school by horse. Merlue later attended the same school district as her grandparents, father and uncles and aunts attended. She is proud to have an old school desk that her father carved his initials.

Merlue's grandparents were successful corn farmers and cattle ranchers, and her grandmother raised hundreds of chickens and was an avid gardener, especially with roses. They also had many good teams that were used for farming and putting up hay on the Frasier ranch.

Merlue's parents and Merlue and her sisters were raised on the homestead ranch with farming and ranching their livelihood. Later the "good quarter horses" came into the picture--"good quarter horses" for ranch work, rodeos, and racing.

Merlue learned the life of "ranching" and the love of "good quarter horses" in riding the pastures checking the cattle, windmills, roundups, doctoring cattle, brandings, and receiving and selling cattle.

Merlue learned to drive when she was nine years old. Grandpa Claude and her Dad, Merle, would be in the back of a truck, caking cattle as she "steered" verily able to peer over the steering wheel.

She would go with her Mom and Dad on the hay rack pulled by a team of horses to hay cattle.

Frasier Family Photos

Wm. Frasier and C.O. Frasier Sr


Grandpa and Grandma Frasier, small child is Wm. (Mart) Frasier	Grandpa Claude Frasier in Idaho Springs

Wilber, Merle, Ena, Kenneth, Claude, C.O., Virginia, and Alma Frasier


Powder horn: 1831	Mining Equipment: from Vulture Mines, Wickenburg, Arizona 1851	Ore Cart: from Vulture Mines, Wickenburg, Arizona 1851

Powder horn was given to Merle O. Frasier by his grandfather Wm. Frasier. There is an etching of an Indian with a powder horn gun shooting a deer. There are pine trees, a huge ship with sails and a "whale". It truly tells a story


Old flintlock gun given to Merle by Grandpa Claude Frasier	Grandma Frasier's wooden butter bowl


Beth Frasier's wooden sled she had as a child	School Bell: 1875 made in Ohio	Roy Barnes handtooled saddle

Roy Barnes handtooled saddle given to Merlue by Merle and Beth Frasier. Her sisters Dianne and Jackie each received a handtooled saddle also.


Grandma Frasier's antique washing machine	Arrowheads from the Frasier Ranch

A Legacy of the Past

Spear Lazy F Ranch

Memories of Days Long Gone

The Old Windmill

I stop and listen to the old windmill
Hear it wail it's lonesome tune
So oft I've paused like this before
At noon time bright, or light of moon

It's constant vigil, it always keeps
A sentinel in this lonely land
Where time forgets the passing years
In this endless land of sage and sand

I lie me down in it's meagre shade
With eyes half closed to an azure sky
My thirst now quenched by it's water cold
I rest content, as a hawk sails by

I nearly doze, then a gentle breeze
And the old windmill, with an eerie sigh
In a mystic way, it seemed to say
'I've seen history passing by'

I've been through winter blasts, and cold
Seen summer droughts, with land parched dry
I've heard the music of gentle rains in spring
Making the whole world bloom under sunny skies

I saw the homesteader plow his new ground sod
Watched while he sowed his grain
Watched the railroad men lay their long slim rails
I saw the Ironhorse pull the first westbound train
I've watched bands of Indians, in feathers bright
Ride their ponies through the purple sage
Watched buffalo herds in the millions roam
And then there came the Stage

I saw the long trail herds of the Longhorn steers
Heard the cowboys yell and ride
Watched his campfire glow in his prairie home
Heard his Night Guard song at night

Then the wind, it died, and all was quiet
I reached for my hat to go
The OLD WINDMILL silenced it's prairie song
And the rest of "IT'S STORY" untold

-Written by R.C. McCurley Jr.


Horses and windmill of the Spear Lazy F Ranch	Longhorn cattle of Spear Lazy F Ranch	Spear Lazy F horses at windmill


Windmill of the Spear Lazy F Ranch	Double-decker cattle trucks waiting to load out cattle at the Spear Lazy F Ranch	Double-decker cattle trucks at the Spear Lazy F Ranch

A symbolic ending of the love and life of the homestead ranch where
Merle, Beth, Merlue, Dianne and Jackie Frasier lived.


District 70 school house that Merlue, Dianne and Jackie attended	Sod school that Grandpa and Grandma Frasier attended

Later a frame school was built to replace the sod school. That school was attended by Merle and his brothers and sisters and later attended by Merlue, Dianne and Jackie.

Grandpa and Grandma Frasier's Barn

Grandpa and Grandma Frasier's many teams of horses


Merlue, Beth, Jackie, and Dianne on horses	Merlue, Dianne, and Jackie

Mom 1936 on Ginger	Dad 1936 on a Frasier horse


Merle roping on Ol' Billy at North Platte Nebraska	Merlue on Ol' Tom at Colorado State Unversity Rodeo

Merlue on Roanie, American Royal Rodeo	Merlue waiting to make a barrel run