Jo Hutchinson was practically born on horseback, in a saddled seat which she has used to trailblaze her way through the many years of her life.
Not unlike acclaimed vaudeville performer and champion trick roper Grace Bensel, better known for her stage name Florence “Flores” LaDue – Hutchinson couldn’t be held back by the social bonds of her time.
Though she was never a rodeo competitor, the current resident of Cochrane’s Grande Avenue Village embodied a cowgirl tenacity that saw her become a teacher when many women were not in the workforce, travel the world alone while many were at home raising families, and pursue an education when it was uncommon for women to do so.
Hutchinson’s grit, authenticity, integrity, philanthropy and pioneering ways led the La Due Ladies Lunch Society to name her this year’s winner of the eponymous La Due Legends Legacy Award at their annual luncheon on July 7 – just in time for the Calgary Stampede, which was fittingly co-founded by LaDue’s husband, Guy Weadick.
“I ended my speech with some of the lyrics from Ella Fitzgerald’s song, Don’t Fence Me In,” said Hutchinson. “That is how I feel … that is my life.
“Wherever I lived, I managed to live in the country. I just loved being in the country and getting on a horse and galloping into the woods.”
The 95-year-old woman grew up on a three-quarter section farm in a three-room log house in Horse Creek, just outside of Cochrane. There, she and her sister were homeschooled by their parents for six years before her father traded a workhorse and a pair of chaps for a pony named Robin.
With a new mode of transport, Hutchinson began riding Robin two miles to Chapleton School in Horse Creek every day. She later attended St. Hilda’s boarding school in Calgary for her high-school years.
“We worked hard on the farm and as far as I was concerned, I was lucky,” she said. “I’ve always said I have soil in my bones because I loved the country life.”
When the time came for her to decide on an occupation, Hutchinson knew only one thing for certain – she wasn’t going to work in the city.
“I said to myself, ‘Oh well, I guess I’ll teach,’ that way I could work in the country, in a country school,” she said.
With a fresh Grade 12 diploma in hand, at the young age of 19, she became a teacher in the Pine Lake area in a one-room school.
Each day, she would walk to work, start the wood heater, and have lessons prepared for all of the students – usually without the help of books, which were hard to come by at the time.
“I taught in country schools until they all closed down because of the changing times,” said Hutchinson.
A point came where she was forced to move a little closer to the hustle and bustle if she wanted to continue teaching – although Red Deer could hardly have been considered a city at the time, with a population of around 7,500 people.
In the 1950s, not far into her 20-year teaching career, she began travelling the world alone – an unmarried woman, sometimes sleeping in bus and train stations along the way.
A visit to Mexico kept Hutchinson there for a summer while she was busy taking courses.
“How she managed to do all of that at a time when women weren’t really doing any of these things and just figuring everything out at a time when the Second World War had just ended … she’s always been kind of like a driving force for me and I’ve always felt inspired by her,” said Hutchinson’s granddaughter, Fiona, who wrote her grandmother’s nomination letter for the La Due Legends Legacy Award.
Hutchinson looks at her granddaughter with a similar sense of awe.
“While she’s taking university courses for pre-med school, she house-sits, walks dogs, and works in a restaurant all at once,” she said.
It would seem grit is hereditary in the Hutchinson bloodline, if at least by way of rearing – Fiona is the daughter of one of two children adopted by Jo and Jonathan Hutchinson, a man she says she knew since birth and who she would eventually come to marry in 1967 upon returning to Cochrane.
As the youngest child of Walter Hutchinson, Jonathan inherited his family’s ranch lands in the Big Hill Creek area. After Hutchinson took his name, she moved in and they began raising purebred Hereford cattle, carrying the old “Oxyoke” brand.
They also raised pigs, chickens and sheep, in addition to growing their own produce.
“I always had a huge garden, we had a greenhouse and I grew my own bedding plants which I used to plant a huge bunch of flowers,” said Hutchinson. “I also had a passion for transplanting trees. I would take them from our pastures where they were growing and place them around the house area.”
While ranching and raising two adopted infant children, Hutchinson, now in her 40s, also became involved with the Alberta Women’s Institute – often representing them at their many events.
In 1977, she co-edited the book “Big Hill Country,” a comprehensive history of Cochrane’s pioneering families.
In 1996, the Hutchinson’s donated 960 acres of their land to the Nature Conservancy of Canada.
“When it was obvious that it was time to retire, we didn’t want our land sold for acreage development so we worked out an easement with the Nature Conservancy of Canada so the land would be protected forever,” said Hutchinson.
The couple retired in 2003 but continued to live in their farmhouse until 2010, when Jonathan’s early onset dementia was becoming too difficult to manage in the setting.
“By the time my husband was 90, he was getting dementia and it was getting to the point where I just had to move him to where I could keep track of him,” said Hutchinson.
They moved into Cochrane and bought a house, but the move only accelerated Jonathan’s dementia, according to his wife.
“I think he only lasted seven months after we moved before he died,” she said.
Hutchinson stayed in their home until roughly four-and-a-half years ago, when she moved into Grande Avenue Village – a senior’s living facility that she says she adores. There, she and some of the other residents have stayed busy knitting mittens, blankets and other items to be donated to charitable community groups over the years.
Occasionally, Hutchinson also likes to get out on Thursday mornings for Cowboy Coffee at the Stockmen’s Memorial Foundation Library. She’s always had a keen interest in the history of the area and enjoys reconnecting with her own past here.
Not to mention, she is good friends with one of the board members, Jane Mason, who also played a part in nominating her for the La Due award.
“This photo was taken in around 1900,” said Hutchinson, pointing and smiling fondly at a framed black and white image of an old farmhouse taken from the library’s archives. “This land was granted to a man named Colin, who got the land grant for fighting in the Riel Rebellion.
“The land was then sold to my father-in-law in 1906.”
Although she no longer rides horses or lives on a ranch, Hutchinson is and always will be a country girl – true to her core.
While she says it’s an honour to receive the La Due award, she doesn’t see any striking similarities between herself and the acclaimed cowgirl.
“She was an American girl who ran away from home to join the circus and came up as a trick rider and rodeo competitor,” said Hutchinson. “I remember my mother casually mentioned to me once when I was a child that there was a woman riding bronc in the rodeo events … and it probably was her.
“It’s truly an honour for me to receive this award and to be named among the likes of some of the previous winners.”
Hutchinson joins the ranks of former interim Conservative Party of Canada leader, MP, and holder of various ministerial roles Rona Ambrose, Order of Canada recipient Joan C. Snyder, and champion barrel racer Jerri Duce among others who have won the award since its inception in 2013.
Although she may not see it, like LaDue, Hutchinson has carved her own path, unbothered by societal norms and created a legacy worth remembering.
In the words of American jazz and song vocalist Ella Fitzgerald and one of Hutchinson’s favourite tunes: “I want to ride to the ridge where the west commences, gaze at the moon til I lose my senses. I can’t look at hobbles and I can’t stand fences – don’t fence me in.”
