No Life for a Lady

Agnes Morley Cleaveland’s memoir of growing up working cattle on her family’s ranch in the Datil country of what is now Catron County, New Mexico — the title is a joke about what everyone told her the life was.

Context: Houghton Mifflin, 1941; still in print in the University of Nebraska Press Women of the West series. A canonical Southwestern memoir.

Why it’s on the list: It is the woman’s account of this exact country, and it is the thing the Luna research is thinnest on.

Where I saw it: Recommended by Debbie Lee alongside her four-part Catron County Centennial History, posted publicly by the Catron County Historical Society in April 2022. It is part of the Catron County reading list assembled for the Luna novel research — the county Kyle’s family town sits in.

Debbie Lee’s note: “Outstanding history around Datil NM.”

Connections

• Agnes Morley Cleaveland — the author, one of the names Debbie Lee lists as important to the making of the county
• Meet Mr. Grizzly — the same Datil country from a man’s side; Pie Town Woman — the same country a generation later
• Catron County · Ranches of Catron County