Talented Tuesday: Great Aunt Grace Bartram Bags the First Deer of the Season!

I come from a family of deer hunters on both my Bartram and Brittain sides. I remember well the beginning of deer season when I was growing up. My dad, uncles, grandfathers, etc. would all get ready to head up to Kennedy Meadows in the Sierra mountains, and we'd all wonder what they were going to come back with: hopefully enough deer for Uncle Jimmy to make some of his amazingly delicious deer jerky. Oh, how I miss that jerky...

While I'd always heard the hunting stories of the men in my clan (some of them tall tales, I'm sure), I had no idea that at least one of my female relatives was quite the shot, herself. Since I've subscribe to a couple of the online newspaper archives that are out there, I'm finding out all sorts of fun things about my family. Here's an August 2, 1932, Oakland Tribune newspaper article that tells the story of my great Aunt Grace (1913-1975, and Grandpa John's sister) bagging the very first deer of the season!

That's Aunt Grace on the left, with Elizabeth Rowell on the right

 The article is a bit hard to read, so here's what it says:

(Caption under the photo: It took two girl hunters to bag the first deer of the season in the Livermore hills. One shot from the rifle of Miss Grace Bartram (left), of Castro Valley, and this three-point, 180-pound buck was downed. Miss Bartram was accompanied on her first hunt by Miss Elizabeth Rowell, also of Castro Valley. -- Wallace photo)

Hayward, Aug. 2 -- Her first shot in the first hunt brought Miss Grace Bartram, 21, Castro Valley girl, the first deer of the season. 

Just two hours after California's 1932 deer season officially opened yesterday, Miss Bartram and Miss Elizabeth Rowell, 18, also of Castro Valley, ran across a three-point buck in the Livermore hills near Sunol.

One shot from Miss Bartram's rifle and the first deer of the Livermore hills, one of the state's principal hunting sections, was bagged.

Miss Bartram said it was the first time she had ever been deer hunting. She confessed to a slight case of "buck fever" after the the animal was downed, but today was back in the hills with Miss Rowell again on the hunt.

Taken to Don Harder's sports emporium here, Miss Bartram's deer was found to weigh in excess of 180 pounds. She won the Harder cup for the first deer bagged in this section.

Not bad for her first shot of her first hunt on the first day of deer season!!