The de Braga Family

The de Braga Family: Creating Traditions and Raising Kids on the Dye Creek Ranch (1963-2013)

A perfect childhood on the ranch

Friends and I have long enjoyed hiking the trail to Tehama County’s treasure, Campo Seco, and retreats at the Dye Creek Preserve ranch house in Los Molinos, CA.

As a former ranch kid, I’ve often wondered what it might have been like to grow up raising cattle on that rocky, historic ranch. I found a cowgirl, Dena de Braga Hendricks, who spent 50 years doing just that. She describes her childhood in three words, “It was perfect.”

Bob de Braga, Dena’s father, devotes a section of his book, The Other Side of the Mountain, to his 24 years as ranch manager at Dye Creek Ranch, formerly known as Stover Ranch. His main sidekick was his wife of 63 years, Waynette. Their two children, Dena and Dusty, were part of the crew.

The de Braga family’s ranch story began when Bill Keeler, a Bostonian who Bob says “didn’t know a cow from a billy goat,” purchased the Stover Ranch in 1963. At the time, the fences on the ranch were holding in just a large collection of rocks, and Bill needed someone who could fill the ranch with thousands of cattle. Bill heard that Bob de Braga was the man for the job and he invited Bob and Waynette to leave Nevada and come over the Sierras for a visit.

A land of plenty

Bob and Waynette’s honeymoon years had been spent camping out and running cattle in Nevada’s wide-open desert where you could “see for 100 miles or more.” Driving over the mountains to see Bill, the couple wondered how anyone would ever be able to find a cow in all the trees, and surely, Bob writes, “The Sacramento River had more water in it than the whole state of Nevada.” It was a “spooky world” to the young couple.

But after getting a grand tour and meeting many locals, including the renowned Owens family, Bob was sold — this was a land of plenty. Bob wrote, “Waynette and I couldn’t get over how fleshy the cattle were or how big and fleshy the Owens men were! It had to be good country!”

At the time, Dena and Dusty were five and three years old, and their schooling was a significant consideration. In Nevada, the nearest school was more than 60 miles away. At Dye Creek, Lassen View Elementary was just minutes away.

From Red Bluff to Chester, moving with the seasons

Running the Dye Creek Ranch, which eventually encompassed 32,000 acres, involved moving the cattle yearly from summer pasture up in the Chester area down to winter pasture in Tehama County. The wild and free de Braga kids would also have to be moved, along with their menagerie of pets, which varied between a prairie dog pup they found in a cow track, lambs, puppies, kittens, birds, wild boar piglets, and, at one time, a very wily orphaned fawn.

In Chester, the fawn would follow the kids as they walked to school, but transportation proved to be trickier when it was time to go back down to the valley—driving with the fawn seated in the truck’s cab made for one very memorable trip.

Quickly, Dena and Dusty’s school routine was well established. They began and ended the school year in Chester, attending Lassen View Elementary in between. The kids at Lassen View looked forward to when Dena and Dusty would roll back in from the mountains. Later, Dena and Dusty stayed put at Red Bluff High for their school days, making the trip to Chester on the weekends.

Happy buckaroos and working together as a family

Bob reminisces about a day when “Those two little tykes were literally frozen stiff. When I lifted Dusty off his horse he looked like a little scarecrow, his arms and legs stuck straight out. I gave him to his mom then got Dena off and packed them up to the 101 house. We had gone over early that morning and built a big fire in the fireplace, so it was nice and warm for them. Waynette had really bundled them up that morning. We just left them that way as they were so cold, we were afraid to bend them enough to get the outside layers off. We were afraid we might snap an arm or leg off!
“The trucks were pulling in, so we went out and started loading cows. The trucks were all chained up as the roads were bad. We got the last truck loaded, we loaded eight and went into the house. We could hear those two giggling and laughing and having a fun time. They’d warmed up, shed all the outer layers, and were playing around in front of the big fireplace. They were happy little buckaroos!”

Ranch kids with a perfect childhood

To some, it might be a mystery why ranch kids could describe their childhood as perfect. Personally, I can recall many hot days picking my way through lava rocks on horseback without a sip of water, or fixing a fence with a swarm of gnats around my head.
Happy buckaroos in a happy family are what you will find in the pages of Bob’s book. At one point, Dena asked her ma, “Did you and Pa ever have a fight?” Waynette smiled and answered, “Not yet!”

That could be the answer to our mystery—working together as a family in beautiful northern California made for some thankful de Bragas. When Bob and Waynette moved on in 1986 to manage the ZX Ranch in Paisley, OR, Dena and Dusty stayed local and continued to run cows on the Dye Creek Ranch until 2013.

The family is still deeply mourning the loss of their main cowgirl. Waynette died in December of 2018. Bob lives near Corning, CA, now and, at 84, still stays busy with his leatherwork. He says that he’s been “bucked off and run over” many times, but nothing hurts as bad as losing Waynette.

To hear more of their buckaroo-ing stories, be sure to pick up a copy of Bob’s book, The Other Side of the Mountain, at The Loft or the Bull and Gelding sale office in Red Bluff.