Saddle maker feels good at the end of the day

Thursday, February 12, 2004
Connie Jo Discoe

Nelseena Lehmann has spent hours and hours, for days on end, in a saddle on the back of a horse. She knows what feels good and what doesn't at the end of the day.

She knows how she wants her saddle, her horse and her backside to feel when the sun goes down.

Nelseena chuckled: "I've sat in one of those suckers 12 and 16 hours a day, day-in and day-out."

"It's gotta fit the horse, and it's gotta fit me," she laughed.

Nelseena, who moved to McCook with her husband and two children a year ago at Thanksgiving time, is a saddle maker.

Nelseena and her brother and sister were raised on their parents' ranch at Ekalaka, Mont. Nelseena apprenticed under a saddle maker from Ekalaka, and then bought the saddle shop. "It was a starve-to-death deal," she remembers, and so she moved to South Dakota and worked with a saddle maker whose clientele included several PRCA cowboys. Representatives of a big saddle company in Texas saw one of saddles the shop made, and traced it back to South Dakota. "They offered me a job in Texas," Nelseena said, and Kurt found a ranch job.

The ranch went under in the aftermath of the 9-11 terrorist attacks, Nelseena said. She and Kurt had a two-year-old son, and their daughter -- the "miracle baby" no one expected -- had just been born.

While looking at new jobs, Kurt interviewed with Dr. Joe Gillespie, D.V.M., in McCook, which was much closer to his parents and four brothers at Eustis, and closer to Nelseena's sister in Maxwell and mother in Allen, S.D.

When the family moved to McCook, Nelseena set up her saddle shop in the back of Dr. Gillespie's office in the 100 block of Norris Avenue. The warm sunshine beaming through the shop's south windows soaks into the smooth, worn leather of the saddles waiting for repairs.

Repairs are a saddle maker's bread-and-butter -- there's always something getting torn up, Nelseena said.

Over the years, she's learned, however, that good repairs still can't make a silk purse out of sow's ear. "The repair can't make the saddle better than it was originally," she said. "That's a hard pill to swallow some times."

Though her shop is dotted with saddles in need of repair, what Nelseena enjoys -- what really makes her eyes sparkle -- is building a new saddle.

"Repairs provide a much-needed service for people," Nelseena said, "But I'd rather build new than repair old."

From the old saddle maker in Montana, Nelseena learned the artistry of tooling designs onto leather. "He was a master ... one of the best there is," Nelseena said. "Good tooling is perseverance, and practice.... lots of hours spent beating on a piece of leather," she said.

Bob Clark, an old saddle maker in Mount Pleasant, Texas, taught her how to make things fit. "He was undoubtedly the best at adjusting things to fit," Nelseena said. "The look of his chaps was important ... the angle ... the eye appeal."

Nelseena said the Texas saddle maker instilled in her the principles of using the best leather she can get and the best tree (the frame of a saddle) she can buy.

"A lot of saddle making is common sense," Nelseena said. "The rest comes from picking good leather and using quality supplies."

In her six years as a saddle maker, Nelseena has made -- "Oh, it's hard to say ... " -- 50 or more saddles. "We built a pile of 'em -- five or six a month -- in South Dakota," she said. And in Texas, she had her hands on every saddle that was shipped out -- sometimes 80 or so a week.

And she's built several saddles, on the side, for friends and family.

If Nelseena could build her "dream saddle," what would it look like? "Oh, I've got my ideal saddle," she brightened. "It's a little old-fashioned ... full-tooled oak leaf and acorn ... with a maroon suede patch in the seat." Nelseena said the old saddle maker in Ekalaka helped her build the saddle, "but we built it for me." That old saddle maker, John Brown, was originally from Curtis, Nelseena said.

"A saddle's kinda like a favorite pair of shoes," she said. "Once you find one you like, it's hard to switch."

Saddle making is a dying art, and saddle makers are a dying breed, Nelseena said.

Lots of today's saddle makers are into the "art" of the craft, Nelseena said, but finding one who makes the "everyday, working tack" is getting hard to do. "There aren't a lot of people making the working tack."

Nelseena can do both -- she loves the decorative tooling. But her own chinks (leg protectors, like chaps, but shorter) are an example of her work. "My chinks are designed for work," she said. "There's aren't any conchos (on the leggings) to catch on you rope. And the tooling on the yoke is there because I can do it, not because it needs to be."

Many of the leather items Nelseena crafts can be and are used every day -- chaps, rope cans, breast collars, briefcases, wallets, checkbook covers, clocks, picture frames, belts.

Nelseena likes that part of working in a saddle shop -- the opportunity to work on something different every day. And the hours fit in well with her family.

"It's nice getting up in the morning, knowing that I like what I do," she said.

A well-built saddle can last almost forever -- and even outlast some cowboys and horses -- with good daily care and an annual cleaning and oiling. A saddle's like a car, Nelseena said, it needs regular maintenance. "If you don't know how, that's what I'm here for," she said.

After a good cleaning, some people are surprised how good their saddles can look, she laughed.

Because saddles can last so long, they aren't replaced often. And when a cowboy finds one that fits, he sticks with it.

But that's the beauty of a saddle shop, Nelseena said -- its owner doesn't have to rely on only the consumers who live in the immediate area to support it.

"A good shop, even in a remote area, can have lots of clientele," she said, "because there's not a saddle maker under every rock."

Saddle makers are becoming a scarce commodity, but it's not a job Nelseena would recommend to just anyone.

"It's not very glamorous," she said. "Your hands are always dirty, and you smell like leather."

"But," she adds, with a smile on her face and a little bit of pride in her voice, "It's an honest living."