Old Cowboys Never Die, They Just Ride off into the Sunset

October was a difficult month for me. It marked the death of one of the most influential men of the 20th Century, even though you may never have heard of him.

Donald Albert Depew was born on December 20, 1933, in Raymond, Alberta, Canada, in the Mormon farming and ranching colonies of southern Alberta. His father was William Warren Depew, and his mother was Leah Enid Lybbert Depew. The Depews were from Payson, Utah, and the Lybberts were from Vernal, Utah. They were all ranchers and horsemen, and lived on the plains of southern Alberta, east of the Canadian Rockies.

One day when Don was two years old, his father was in the barn taking care of the horses, when something spooked them and they ended up trampling him to death. The Depew and Lybbert clans rallied around Enid and her two young children. Don was raised as much by his aunts and uncles as he was by his mother, and never lacked for love, nurturing and good role models. 

When Don was 5 years old, Enid married a good man named Bill Hass. Enid and Bill had four children, which, together with Don and his older sister, made six children in the family. The family moved around Alberta as Bill pursued different jobs, ending up in Edmonton in 1945, at the end of World War II.

Starting at age 10 ½, Don would live with his family during the school year, and then spend summers on his uncles’ ranches in southern Alberta. He became a cowboy, working alongside the other cowboys on the ranch, learning about horsemanship and care of horses and cattle. He developed a deep love for horses, which stayed with him his whole life.

He also developed a solid work ethic, which guided his life and which he passed on to his children. In fact, I can remember working on the house with him, at age 17, and hearing him say to me, “I finally taught you how to work, and now you’re leaving.” It sounded like he was complaining, but I think he was pretty satisfied.

He got his first job at age 12, as a paper boy for the Edmonton Journal. This gave him money in his pocket and taught him independence and self-sufficiency. In the summers, he would line up substitutes for his paper route so he could go down south and work on the ranches. At age 16, he bought his first car, a 1940 Nash, and used it to drive the kids in Edmonton to early-morning seminary.

At a youth dance, he noticed a pretty little 16-year-old girl from school, named Patricia French. She was not a member of the church, but was attending the dance with some friends. She was quite different from the “pruny Church girls” his mother kept trying to set him up with, but who did not interest him at all. Don began dating Pat, got her connected with the missionaries, baptized her, and added her to the list of kids he would pick up for early-morning seminary.

Don wanted to go to college, and had applied to BYU to study geology, but then the Korean War broke out, and those plans were put on the shelf. 

Bill Hass decided to start a long-haul trucking business, and eighteen-year-old Don became one of his drivers. Don drove trucks across Canada and the United States, but he knew this wasn’t the kind of job he wanted to do long-term. Besides, he and Pat were courting by now, and he wanted to spend time in Edmonton with her.

In March 1954, Don and another driver were at the customs office on the border in Manitoba, when they received word that Bill had died of a massive heart attack. They hurried home, and the family ended up selling off the trucking business. Don and his mother used the money from the sale of the trucking business to build a boarding house, which they called the Hasshold. The income from the boarding house supported his mother for many years, and one of the boarders ended up marrying Don’s sister Carolyn.

With his mother taken care of financially, it was time for Don to start his own family.

Don and Pat got married in 1955. He was 21 and she was 19. Pat was working as a school teacher, and Don got a job as a lab technician in Edmonton, in the exciting new world of plastics, with an up-and-coming company called Canadian Industries Limited. They had four children: Cheryl, Ray, Craig, and Doug. After Doug was born, they put their station wagon and their children on a train and moved from Edmonton to Toronto, Ontario, again with CIL. 

From there, Don followed new job opportunities and promotions across the border, to West Chester PA, Wilmington DE, Montreal Quebec, Naperville IL, Detroit MI, Marietta GA, and Bainbridge GA. His willingness to work hard and to move around allowed him to work in sales, engineering, research and management, eventually retiring as VP of Engineering for Amoco Fabrics, in Atlanta, without ever having a college degree. He was proud, however, of his certificate for the Executive Management course he took at the University of Michigan late in his career.

Don and Pat added Susan to the family in Toronto, and Shelly in Wilmington, making a total of six children. Over the years, they have taken in strays, that is emancipated or foster teens, and young adults, single or married, who needed a hand up. So, depending on how you count it, you could say they have dozens of children.

In 1975, Pat started showing symptoms of what was finally diagnosed as multiple sclerosis. They soon moved to Georgia, so that Pat could get better medical care. Don arranged his work responsibilities and his residence and office locations, so that he could drop everything and be home in less than 15 minutes if Pat needed him. He took training to become her primary caregiver, and he took care of her for 12 years. His devotion to her, and his single-minded care for her, was a powerful example to his family and to others, who have attempted to emulate his devotion in their own marriages.

Pat passed away in 1988, at the age of 52. Don was 55. In Pat’s final years, one of the frequent visitors to Don and Pat’s house had been Pat’s best friend, Linda Bess. Before Pat passed away, she told Don and Linda (separately) that she wanted them to get married. So they did.

Don and Linda lived in Acworth GA and Dothan AL. They went on adventures, including trips to Ireland, Hawaii, the Mediterranean, and their timeshare in Colorado. Linda supported Don’s passion for horses, and they more or less adopted each other’s grandchildren. The marriage ended in 2014, after 25 years, but they kept in touch, and the grandchildren and Don are still close.

Don and Linda served a mission together in Nauvoo, Illinois. Don worked as a sealer in the Atlanta and Birmingham temples, and this gave him the chance to officiate at the marriages of many of his grandchildren.

Because Don was raised on the ranches in southern Alberta, he became an avid horseman and had a passion for horses his entire life. He had a special interest in quarter horses. In Montreal, he built a barn for two horses in the backyard, and arranged with the neighbors across the road to keep his horses in their pasture. He eventually acquired some real horse property in western Cobb county. Later, when his son Doug bought some property for a horse farm in Acworth, Don served as barn building contractor, groomer,  feeder, ranch foreman, head horse wrangler, chief hay thrower, bushhogger, fence fixer, horse shoeing supervisor, tree cutter, and ditch digger for as long as he was able. Doug has inherited Don’s passion for horses and continues the tradition of horsemanship. There will always be cowboys in the Depew clan.

In Don’s later years, Doug and his family made room for him in their home. They gave him a great deal of independence, dignity and private space that allowed him to grow old gracefully. He enjoyed holding court in his chair in the sunroom, entertaining the third and fourth generation, and driving around the ranch in his golf cart with the big knobby tires. The siblings from Way Out West acknowledge and appreciate the unmeasurable time and resources that Doug and Vicki, and also Sue, put into caring for Don all those years.

Don enjoyed presiding at family reunions, where four generations would get together to honor him, and to enjoy each other’s company. The first reunion was at Doug’s ranch in Acworth. It was organized by his 12-year-old granddaughter, Ashley, who has since turned event planning into a career. Since then, reunions have been held in Morganton, Georgia, and Estes Park Colorado. 

Don Depew leaves behind two sisters and a sister-in-law, six children, 28 Depew grandchildren, 4 Bess grandchildren, 37 great-grandchildren, many nieces and nephews, and the hundreds of people who have been affected by his generosity, his faith, his service, and his friendship. His legacy extends beyond his immediate descendants to include all of the people whom he and Pat took in and sheltered and nurtured over the years, and the many people that he touched in a lifetime of teaching and leadership.

Photo credit: Gene Praag