Jane Tapper Carrington

  
Jane with her horse on Crown C in 1940s.........Cowbelles fashion show December 1949

b. December 12, 1900 Syracuse, New York
d. June 1979 Sonoita, Arizona

 Jane Tapper began a love affair with the Santa Rita Mountains the first moment she laid eyes on them in the late 1930s. She had left a career with Curtis Publishing Company in Chicago to go west to recuperate from a horseback riding accident. Forty years later when she was terminally ill, she had her bed repositioned so she could look out the window and see her beloved mountains.

 While working at Los Encinos Guest Ranch in Sonoita, she met Blake Carrington and his son who were in town to purchase ranch property where they would establish the Crown C Ranch. Blake was 20 years her senior and the couple fell madly in love and were soon married at an intimate ceremony at Los Encinos. According to Jane's nephew, Bill Tollefson, "they were the epitome of what love is all about". He added that the Carringtons treated him like their own son, sending him to the University of Arizona and then veterinary school and buying him his first car, a 1949 Ford 'Woody'. Some of the scenes for the movies, Oklahoma and Broken Lance were filmed at the Crown C.

 Blake was a 'gentleman rancher' and never rode horseback; Jane, on the other hand, loved all aspects of ranching and was always in the midst of the activity during roundups and brandings. Dick Jiminez was their ranch foreman and Dick's wife, Eva, did the cooking.

 Jane was a spendthrift and was known to buy expensive clothing, wear it a few times and then donate it to charity. She was exceedingly generous. When she died, about $40,000 worth of IOUs from others and payable to Jane were found in a safe in the basement, along with a note saying they were to be destroyed upon her death. "She was a wonderful woman," Tollefson added.

 After her death, the family received a letter from a local resident saying, "We are moving out of the area. Sonoita without Janie just isn't Sonoita anymore".


Roundup at Crown C; Dick Jimenez dehorning, Bill Tollefson
& Jane giving shots, Joe Higgins helping Bill hold the calf

Written and edited by Betty Barr with contributions from Bill Tollefson.

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