Willow Springs Tuesday Study Club

Dorothy Morrell was born in Russia in 1888, Dorothy immigrated with her family to Canada in 1998 and settled in Winnipeg. She came to the United States in 1912 and for several years lived near Helena, Montana. She learned to ride working as a mounted mail carrier for the Blackfeet Indians.

She became a world rider Champion by accident, or rather as a dare. At the age of 24 she attended a Wild West exhibition in Fresno, California and was mesmerized by the women bronc riders. A cowboy spectator named Skeeter Bill Robbins, who was seated next to her at the event, bet she could ride one of the broncs. Skeeter had met Dorothy in Montana and witnessed her extraordinary riding skills. Even after she told him she had never ridden a bucking horse in her life, Skeeter insisted she had what it took and dared her try it. She reluctantly agreed. 

The mustang’s name was Lillian Russell. When she was seated someone gave a whoop, the horse bowed its back and began to lunge, she told a newspaper reporter years later. With every impact there was a terrific jolt and I thought that every bone in my body would be thrown out of joint. Had it not been for Skeeter though, I think I surely would have been thrown. He told her that every time the horse hits the ground raise your hat high and when he comes up hit him between the ears. The advice saved the day for it kept me erect and well forward and going with the animal when he was in the air. That’s all there is to riding a bronc.

Shortly after accepting Skeeter’s bet and realizing she could indeed ride bucking broncos, she embarked on a career with the rodeo. She signed on with the 101 Ranch Show and there perfected the art of riding fractious horses. In 1914, she won the title of Women’s World Champion Bucking Horse Rider at the Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo and married Skeeter Robbins. Skeeter was also a bronc rider and they traveled together participating in rodeos from Dallas to London.

Dorothy and Skeeter spent time in Hollywood during the mid 1920s riding extras and in vaudeville acts and in circuses. Skeeter was killed in an automobile accident in 1933. Dorothy was in the vehicle with him and was seriously injured. She returned to the rodeo circuit the following year, winning awards in trick riding, roping and relay racing.

When Dorothy retired from professional riding, she returned to Canada where she enrolled in college and eventually became a nurse. 

I love being a cowgirl, she told a reporter when she first started riding in rodeos. “That, perhaps is because I love horses and babies. I often wish I could be a horse. Of course, I have been a baby once and therefore have no desire to be a baby again. But would dearly love to be a horse!”

Dorothy Morrell died in Ontario in 1976 at the age of eighty eight.