The program at that farm and a handful
of others in the 1950's saved the group of horses that could
trace to Homer Davenport's importation of 1906 from near certain
extinction. Three Cravers were a part of Craver Farms -- Charles
C. Craver Jr., his wife Bertha, and his son Charles III.
In the Craver family the father as always
known as Chuck and the son as Charles. In an effort to simplify
this story, we shall follow that tradition to tell about the
senior members of the Craver trio, Chuck and Bertha.
They met at the Kansas City train depot.
Bertha was bidding a tearful farewell to her family as she boarded
the train to begin her education of the University of Missouri.
Chuck, a junior at the university, was
touched by the family parting. Once he and Bertha were both
on board he introduced himself to help smooth the miles between
Kansas City and Columbia.
After he received his bachelor of arts
degree in law, Chuck asked for Bertha's hand in marriage. Bertha
by now had her own degree in education but was especially attracted
to the arts, starring in numerous productions on campus as well
as in Kansas City theater groups.
Dr. Paul A. Johnstone insisted, quite
wisely says Bertha, that his daughter spend at least one year
on her own before marriage. So she taught school for one year
in north Kansas City.
So, the daughter of Bertha Nugent Johnstone
married the son of Anna Leota "Otie" Detweiller Craver in 1925.
The bride was 23, the groom was 26.
Chuck worked in his father's real estate
firm, Craver and Sons, during the giddy land boom in Florida
before the Crush of '29. He and Bertha spent 1926 in the raw
new community of Ft. Pearce.
Because of Bertha's theatrical credentials,
she was asked to establish a theater group in Ft. Pearce. She
did and led the town, which included 400 transplanted Kansas
city residents, to second place in declamation in the State
of Florida contest.
Following their time in Florida, the
Cravers went back to Kansas City to the difficult real estate
market of the Depression. In 1927, after Charles was born, they
moved to a subdivision where Chuck sold houses with one-acre
tracts.
There they became neighbors of Harry
"Pop" Boyer. Boyer worked for Skelly Oil, but more importantly
was the son of a livery owner. Soon "Pop" had a barn on his
one acre with a horse or two, and young Charles began assuming
residence there almost as much as at home.
Perhaps it was because he had gone to
Culver Military Academy in Culver, Ind., and had been a member
of the Black Horse Troop for two years that Chuck was more than
receptive to Charles' love of horses. Bertha explained the special
bond between Charles and his father this way:
"Charles has
always been a good son, but there was something more to
his relationship with his father. Charles was 2 when I was
sick with uremic poisoning and bedfast. Chuck took over
all the care of Charles at that time. He held him, loved
him, and cared for him. Both gained a l?ster from it."
When Pop suggested that a nice Arab-Welsh
pony from the pony ring at the park could be boarded at his
barn for the winter for feed, the chestnut-pinto Jerry entered
their lives. As Christmas approached, however, it became evident
that just a winter pony was not sufficient. Bertha arranged
for all the relatives to buy a horsy gift for Charles, because
his father had bought Jerry for him.
The whole clan gathered in one basement
around the tree for the big surprise.
"I
called Pop when we were ready to open presents."
Bertha recalled. "He brought Jerry over with his $12.50
custom-made Rhodes saddle and bridle.
"We all
expected Charles to whoop and holler when he saw Jerry.
He didn't. He walked over to that pony, buried his face
on his neck and began to cry. So we all cried."
Charles remembers it was the best
Christmas ever.
Although Chuck had been a commissioned
Army officer in World War I, the loss of hearing in one ear
kept him from serving in the armed forces during World War II.
Friends in the Navy Bond Department in
Washington D.C. arranged for a visiting General on a bond drive
in Kansas City to have dinner with the Cravers in 1942. They
were then told to report to Washington in two days. Chuck sold
bonds for the duration of the war and stayed on until his retirement
from the U.S. Treasury in 1963.
Because the state of Virginia ranked
44th in the nation in terms of the quality of their high schools
in 1942, Charles was sent to Culver Military Academy, his father's
alma mater. Unfortunately for the horse-mad Charles, family
finances could not afford the extra $500 required to participate
in the Black Horse Troop.
Once in college at Swarthmore, after
a summer of horses with Pop Boyer, the horseless Charles read
an ad for Arabians and the whole family was off to C. A. West's
farm near Pittsburg for the first time.
Charles really doesn't know whether it
was the beautiful farms, Jerry's purported Arabian background,
or the inherent generosity of his father, but when they left
the farm the Cravers owned a new foal, Indekerage #4652 (Indrage
x Kerak).
The Cravers were still living in a cramped
Washington war-time apartment at that time and had no place
to keep a horse so "Inky" was shipped west to Pop Boyer.
By now Pop had moved to his Bear Creek
ranch in La Plata, Mo. "Inky" grew up there until he was shipped
back east to begin training.
Charles started him under saddle while
boarding him at Pegasus Stables in Silver Springs, Md., adjacent
to Rock Creek Park. Although Chuck had not ridden seriously
since he had been in high school at Culver, he also began riding
"Inky" quite a bit.
When Charles joined the Navy in 1952,
Inky went to York, Pa., to Lillian Whitmack Roy for further
education. Still a dressage instructor today, Roy showed Inky
with some degree of success during the first year she had him
in training. Chuck took several lessons from her before Inky
went back home to Pegasus to be his personal mount.
These were the good old days of the Arabian
community. Breeders were few and far between. Everyone knew
everyone.
Soon they organized the Arabian Horse
Association of the East. Their charter extended their boundary
to the Mississippi River. Bertha was elected the first secretary
of the club.
"We had members from Florida, Indiana
and states in between," she recalled. "We tried to set
our meeting in connection with the big shows at that time, Devon
or Harrisburg.
"Members would show up from all over.
I put out the newsletter and would always try to write a personal
note with every copy sent out."
"Bazy Tankersley was the central hub
around which Arabian activities on the East Coast revolved."
Charles remembered. "She was unfailingly kind toward me and
my parents. There were 'pasture shows,' trail rides and cookouts
at the old Al-Marah that added a great deal of fun to our life
with Arabian horses."
Mrs. Tankersley recalls Bertha and Chuck
with equal admiration.
"They
are the only people in any Arabian club that I've ever known
who remained totally positive and agreeable on every occasion."
"Once,"
Bazy continued, "we were having a meeting in the basement
of my house and we came upon a knotty problem that required
some specific knowledge (I have no idea about what) and
Bertha said, 'If we just could call up a 13-year-old
boy, he'd know.' She did and he did.
"No
one ever gave a better example of the Arabian as a family
horse. 'Inky' was the only horse that belonged to the whole
family, and while he was primarily Charles' horse, he certainly
had attention lavished on him by Charles' parents.
"He
was the only stallion in a public stable and was as perfect
a gentleman as all the other gentlemen in the Craver family.
No one ever got more pleasure out of their horse than the
Cravers did, and by demonstrating this along with their
unfailing good sportsmanship they did a great deal to further
the acceptance of Arabians," Bazy said in a recent letter
about the Cravers.
Carl and Jane Asmis of Never-Die Farm
were good friends of the family. They introduced the Cravers
to Edward Wolf Jr., whose father had a circus in the Netherlands.
Ringling Brothers had brought the elder Wolf to center ring
in the United States with his dressage act.
Chuck arranged for the junior Wolf, who
was in rather dire financial straits at the time, to give dressage
lessons at Pegasus. In an effort to help him out, the whole
family took riding lessons.
Today Bertha, a woman who never so much
as saw a cow until she was 12 years old, tells about her life
as part of Craver Farms.
"I've
learned a lot about horses. I'm timid, but I have learned
a lot. Every family needs a wheel horse, and I was the wheel
horse. I tried to do my part. I can really comb out a mane,
but am still timid about the tail."
This is the woman who decided to surprise
Charles, who was away at school, by taking riding lessons from
Wolf. Brought to the stable for her debut in front of him, Charles'
only comment was, "What keeps her on the horse?"
While Bertha went home on a trip to Kansas
City, Chuck bought a house in Silver Springs. "I think he
bought it," said Bertha with a smile, "because it was
within walking distance of the stable where we kept Inky."
Charles put the three summers between
college years and entering the Navy to good use for his future
with Arabian horses. Like his father, who had floated down the
Missouri River with Paul Jenkins, a high-school friend, Charles
traveled around the country with his college chum, Andy Segal.
He carried a used Rolex movie camera,
visiting as many Arabian farms as possible and taking movies
of the horses. (One of the glories of a visit to Craver Farms
is the old film library. If you have domestic-bred Arabians,
you can see footage of their ancestors taken in 1949, 1951 and
1953. Many of these animals are captured no place else in movie
form.)
A 1949 trip, again to estate developer
C. A. West's farm, led to the purchase of the Craver's first
Arabian mare, Arabesque #5403 (Rouf x Koreish). Koreish's dam
*Simawa #358 (Rustem G.S.B. x Sarama G.S.B.) fit in with the
original plan of Craver Farms to breed good Skowronek or English-bred
mares.
"There
was nothing really straightforward about the decision to
concentrate the breeding program at Craver Farms on those
horses that could solely trace to Davenport's 1906 importation,"
said Charles.
"It
gradually evolved out of the circumstances of the horses
we acquired and the hours of pedigree research that I was
able to do in my spare time while stationed at Treasure
Island. I was also fortunate in being able to spend a lot
of time with Alice Payne,
the noted *Raffles (Skowronek G.S.B. x *Rifala) breeder,"
One day in the library at Asil Arabians,
Charles picked up a notebook containing the names of horses
bred by Asil. One name,
Tripoli #4591 (Hanad
x Poka), was underlined.
"Why
have you put a line under Tripoli's name?" Charles asked
his hostess.
"I
always thought I might breed back to him,"
replied Mrs. Payne.
"Anything
that was good enough for Alice Payne to breed to was good
enough for me," said Charles. "I set off to northern
California to find Tripoli. His owner, Mary E. Waldo, had
leased him to a man who ran a pack string for the forest
service. He wasn't using him, he was just standing in a
barn starving to death. He looked terrible.
"I
told Mrs. Waldo about his condition, so she had
the horse brought down to her farm. I returned later to
try and buy him. From there he went to Jimmy Wrench's place
until Alice Payne heard he was there and sent for him. While
he was at Payne's, she used him to produce the chestnut
stallion Jamzed #10874 (Tripoli x Prochi), foaled March
28, 1956.
"I
used to have the weight ticket on Tripoli. Probably still
do around here somewhere," continued Charles, "but
after having been on full feedfor six months, he did not
weigh 500 pounds as a 7-year-old. From Alice's he went to
Pop Boyers.
"When
I left the Navy in 1955, my mother and father gave me encouragement
and support every step of the way. I had decided to farm
the land that the family had owned near Hillview, in the
Illinois River bottom since the turn of the century."
Chuck retired in 1963 with the Albert
Gallatin award, the highest honor that can be conferred by the
U.S. Treasury. Bertha and Chuck built a home in Winchester in
1965, 15 minutes away form the main farm of 2,000 acres. After
the move from Washington, Chuck came to the farm virtually every
day, helping however he could.
Charles honeymooned at the farm
with his wife Jeanne Hussong in 1974 as his father honeymooned
there with Bertha in 1925. Jeanne remembers Chuck:
"He
was great. He trimmed shrubbery, painted fence. He loved
every minute of his retirement.
"I
especially remember his birthday rides. Once a
year (after Inky had been given to Besssie Blackmore just
across the river in Louisiana, Mo,), he would arrive to
a celebratory ride. I was newly married and had no idea
how this 75-year-old man could ride. I sent him off on my
Fatimah #36202 (Julyan x Fadaa), who could be something
of a handful. I was terrified.
"He
got on Fatimah, sat up beautifully, collected her and looked
just grand. They had a good ride together. I miss his daily
visits to the farm."
Chuck Craver died on March 10, 1979.
Craver Farm is not the same without him. Bertha is a little
slowed now with a bothersome knee so seldom makes it out to
the farm. Charles and Jeanne see her daily or are in communication
by phone.
Bertha is still busy writing both to
her friends and for the arts. Since moving to Winchester she
has won first place for the best one-act play in the state of
Illinois.
"I
am terribly proud of the people who come to Craver Farms
that I get a chance to know," Bertha said. "They
are gentle, in the highest sense of the word, and have a
real love for their horse, like Chuck did. I miss him."
"My father gave me gentle support
all the way." Charles will remind a visitor.
"His greatest gift was an instinct
for the things of life of real value. It might be a horse or
a little dog having some trouble. I remember him receiving appeals
in the mail.
"He sent a little something to all
of them,' because they might really need it.' he told
me. I don't believe I ever met anyone who did not like him."
(Alice Martin owns Star West in New Berlin, Ill.,
a dressage training stable and Arabian breeding farm. she has
been a visitor to Craver Farms since 1963 when she
met Sir and the Craver family.)
StarWest
The training division of New Berlin, Illinois 62670
Dressage training for the horse and rider.
Star M
Stables Watson Illinois 62473
Farm since 1842. Arabians since 1963
John R. Martin, owner
