Coffee Gallery gets $50,000 from colorful North Platte woman

The contribution was made by Billie Snyder Thornburg, an author, publisher and friend of anyone who grew up on a ranch and learned the western way of life.

“I saw the gallery when it was just getting started a few years ago, liked what it is about and want to do my part in helping preserve the way of life it portrays,” said Billie, who is 95 and has a few physical infirmities after undergoing surgery for an aneurysm of the aorta, but is extremely sharp mentally.

Billie added that she has always admired Mari Sandoz’s work. “She wrote some great books and made the rest of us want to be writers. She was really smart. I’m not nearly that smart, but I’ve been able to write a little. It’s fun to write about things that have happened to you.”

Billie has written four books and has another one in the works. The first three, she said, told about “being a country kid and going to school” while the fourth discusses some of the “behind the scenes” happenings in North Platte in the late 1920s and early ‘30s.

The book she is still working on will be called “Angels on Horseback.” Billie said she’s convinced she and her three siblings “had to have some darned good guardian angels to have ridden horseback as much as we did and never had much go wrong.”

Billie’s parents were Albert and Grace McCance Snyder. The family lived on a ranch 11 miles west of Tryon. Her oldest sister was Nellie Snyder Yost, renowned author of books such as “Evil Obsession,” the story of Annie Cook who ran a poor-farm in Lincoln County; a biography of Buffalo Bill; “No Time on My Hands,” the story of her mother’s life; “Pinnacle Jake,” the story of her father’s days as a cowboy on the 101 outfit; and “Call of the Range,” a history of the Nebraska Cattleman’s Association.

The second child was her brother Miles, who took over the family ranch that is still owned and operated by his descendants. Billie was third in line, followed by her sister, Bertie, who is two years younger and also lives in North Platte.

Billie’s book, “Bertie and Me: Kids on a Ranch,” is one of her most popular. “We still argue about some of the things we did as kids,” Billie said.

Billie said she started driving the stacker team when her family put up hay at age 5, then turned those duties over to Bertie and was running a horse-drawn mowing machine when she was 9.

“That was during World War I and Dad couldn’t hire anybody because everybody who had been working on ranches was over in Europe fighting the Kaiser,” Billie said. “By the time the war was over, Dad had made us all into such good hayhands that he didn’t need to hire anyone again.”

Going to school was another memorable experience, Billie said by telephone last week. The family’s ranch was located between two schools, each five miles away.

“Some years we went to the one to the west and some years to the one to the east,” she said. “There were usually four of five gates we had to get off and open either way. Dad loosened them up for us some, but a couple of them were still ‘two-kid gates.’ That means both Bertie and I had to get off our horses to open and close them.”

Billie said she went to school just 30 days when she was in the first grade and two months when she was in the second grade. After that the terms were usually longer. After Bertie completed the eighth grade, Albert Snyder decided his family needed to see something besides the Nebraska Sandhills, leased his ranch to a neighbor and took the family to Salem, Ore., where the girls attended high school.

“Traveling out there was pretty rugged. The only paved roads were between Portland and Salem. Dad had taught us kids to work and he wouldn’t let us out of the habit. He bought an autocamp (forerunner of motels) for us girls to clean and bought a filling station for my brother to run,” Billie said.

After Billie’s first husband, Maurice Riley, died in a rodeo accident, she married Bob Thornburg, a North Platte native who was in the Navy. The couple spent two years in Japan before being stationed at Norfolk, Va. She said Norfolk was not viewed by most sailors as a plum assignment, but it worked out well for the Thornburgs.

“That’s where I made my money. I bought run down stuff and fixed it up. After a while the prices went up and I did all right. It was fun making the money, but it’s more fun giving it away.”

Billie was introduced to the Coffee Gallery about four years ago when the Friends of the Library in Chadron hosted her at a book signing for “Bertie and Me.” While she was in town, Tammi McCance Littrel, the Coffee Gallery’s research historian, showed her the facility and told her of the plans.

Billie’s mother and Tammi’s father, the late Charley McCance, were cousins.

Littrel and Ken Korte, the interpretive planner for the gallery, said they expect to use Billie’s donation to build a display on the contribution of women to ranching and an interactive exhibit that will take an in-depth look at the trails which brought cattle to the region.

Besides the $50,000 gift, Billie also gave the gallery a “brand quilt” that was made in 1927 by Grace Snyder and other members of an extension club in the Sandhills.

Grace, who lived to be 100, was one of the nation’s outstanding quilters. Two of her quilts are listed as among the top 100 of the 20th century. She was inducted into the Congress of Quilters Hall of Fame in 1980.

“Billie is a remarkable person who has done a lot in her lifetime,” Littrel said. “Her contribution kind of came out of the blue. One day she called and said she was making out her will and decided to give some money to that museum I was helping with. I had no idea how much money she was talking about, but she asked if we could use $50,000. I about fell over. It will really help us do some special things. We’re so appreciative. She says she wants to come to Chadron and see what we do with her money. We hope that will happen.”