James Robert Dodge (1894-1949)

James Robert Dodge, my great-grandfather, was born in 1894 in Buena Vista, Colorado. Growing up on the family farm there, he only obtained a 3rd grade education. My great-grandfather was a World War I Veteran (It's too bad my family doesn't have any pictures of Jim from WWI or know where any pictures would be). He enlisted in August of 1918 and took part in the March to the Rhine and the American Army of Occupation before receiving an Honorable Discharge and returning home in August of 1919. My grandpa told me a story about how his dad captured a platoon of Germans while out on patrol (It was one of the only stories he told from the war; he never really talked about what he went through). In my Grandpa's words: "Jim (as my grandpa always called him) and three or four guys were out on patrol and they were walking out across the bridge and they heard some German troops underneath the bridge talking. Jim and his buddies thought that there were only eight or ten of them. They hollered down at these German soldiers to come out with their hands up and that they had a whole company of American Soldiers up there and they’d shoot them all if they didn’t throw their rifles in the river and come up. The German troops heard this and started to come out from under the bridge, dropping their rifles in the river. There were more German soldiers that came out then Jim and his buddies had expected. The German troops were so disgusted, so irate that they let those six guys capture them. They couldn’t do anything because by the time they came out from under the bridge they had thrown their guns in the river. These American soldiers were armed with Springfield Bolt-Action Rifles and held the Germans prisoner. They marched these Germans back to a POW camp and received a citation for their actions."
After he returned home, Jim ran and took care of the family farm until his father, Nathaniel T. Dodge, died in 1926. After that, Jim went to Leadville, Colorado and helped bring up a herd of horses from Leadville to Wyoming. After arriving in Wyoming, he decided to stay there. Jim was a laborer when he first arrived and helped build the old high school in Rawlins. He met and married my great-grandmother, Alice Laura Lemoine, in 1929. They were both living in Laramie, Wyoming when they married. They lived at Windmill Ranch, 18 miles west of Laramie, during the early 1930's. Jim was in charge of the ranch, which was part of the Swift Meat Company. Along with running the ranch, Jim would break horses. He was like the horse whisperer, my grandpa remembers, and was never bucked off a horse when he broke one in. Jim never whipped or beat or used spurs on a horse and he could break in any horse he was given. After leaving the ranch in 1934 or 1935, Jim and his family went to live on a ranch in French Creek as well as working at the pump stations in Sinclair, Wyoming before moving to Rawlins. Jim worked for Carbon County for a time, helping out with highway building before working for the railroad. He started working for Union Pacific during WWII and worked there until his death in 1949. Looking at the pictures of my great-grandfather, I cannot get over how lanky he was. He was a true cowboy and rancher.