At the time the picture was taken, Lytle was a young unmarried woman living on her own, getting by as a trick rider on western Montana's rodeo circuit. She did a little trick roping, too, and there is another picture of her that shows an impossibly large lasso whirling far above her head.
People came for miles to see. Professional photographers snapped picture after picture. But Lytle didn't have much money, and she didn't buy many photos. She considered them a rare extravagance.
Joan Lytle could yodel. She could sing, and write her own songs. She could play the violin, the steel guitar, the organ, the harmonica. She could sew, and crochet, and tool leather. She could cook and bake, and she was an avid gardener. If she felt like it, she could even build her own greenhouse.
“She was very talented,” said her daughter and friend, Lorri O'Neill. “She could do anything.”
Joan Lytle was born Joan Gertrude Stewart in Oshkosh, Neb., on Oct. 17, 1929. Her parents, Earl and Mary Kimball Stewart, had six children, including her three brothers; Duane, Dwight and Robert; and two sisters, Imogene and Patricia.
Joan Stewart was only 9 years old when the family picked up and left for her grandfather's homestead near Meadow Grove, Neb. When she was in second grade, she wrote in her journal: “We walked 2 miles North and West to school, right into the bitter wind and snow. I would get so cold I didn't know I had any feet about halfway up to my knees. The teacher would let us sit by the big stove in the middle of the room to warm up.”
She would one day share those memories with her grandchildren - especially when they complained about having to walk very far.
As a young girl, she taught herself to play the guitar and fiddle on instruments her brother made himself. The family faced tough times during those Depression Era days, and she spent much of her time working outdoors with her father, tending the pigs and chickens they raised to sell.
She had a special love for horses, and eventually, somehow, she managed to scrape together enough money from her hog sales to buy her first saddle horse.
“Horses were her life,” explained one of her granddaughters, Alyssa O'Neill.
In fact, Joan and her best friend, Kay, would regularly ride the 150 miles from their homes to the White Horse Ranch, which was famous for its herd of pure-white horses. The girls were enchanted by them, and seized the opportunity to begin learning to trick ride.
Eventually, Lytle managed to trade her saddle horse for a white ranch horse named Sunny.
But then, when she was 17, her family moved again - this time to Portland, Ore. Her brothers went to fight in the war, and Lytle dropped out of high school. She found work, but soon realized she hated city life.
So, at the age of 18, she left her family and struck out on her own for western Montana, where she planned to reunite with her friend Kay and her beloved horses, and ride in the regional rodeo circuit.
Not long after she arrived, however, Kay decided to leave Montana for Arizona. Lytle found places to stay with the families of her rodeo friends. She also lived, for a time, with a couple of other single women in a house all their own.
Fay Haynes remembers when Lytle stayed at her family's house. They did a lot of riding together, and loved to take their horses up into the mountains. That was before they married, Haynes pointed out.
“We were single girls in those days,” she said. “We had a lot of fun.”
Outside the rodeo arena, Lytle was a rather quiet, reserved person, Haynes said. She didn't seek out any attention - but she was a natural beauty, and hard to ignore. She made her own clothes, and they were beautiful, too, with big roses embroidered on her Western-style shirts.
Joan Lytle was a talented trick rider on western Montana's rodeo circuit. She passed away on Sept. 20, at the age of 77.
“She was a shy, almost bashful girl,” Haynes remembered. “She kind of stood in the background until she got to working. Then she just came out and just glowed. She was really an attraction to the rodeo.”
Lytle traveled around western Montana quite a bit in those days. One week she'd be at the rodeo in Dillon, and the next she'd be singing on the radio in Deer Lodge. She sang a lot of country western songs, many of which she wrote herself. “On the Wings of a Dove,” as sung by Hank Snow, was a favorite, and her family and friends listened to it at her funeral.
Lytle died on Sept. 20, 2007, just shy of her 60th wedding anniversary.
She first met her future husband, Leonard Lytle, at the Polson Golf Course Country Club in 1945, just after the Polson rodeo. His family ran the Lytle rodeo just north of Arlee.
“It was huge,” Lorri said. “People would come from all over the state.”
Not quite three years after Joan and Leonard met, they married. Eventually, the couple settled down in Arlee, where Leonard Lytle's parents owned ranch property where Joan Lytle would end up living for the remainder of her 78 years.
She gave up the rodeo life and settled in to raise her children: a son, Marty, and a daughter, Lorri. She tended the farm while her husband traveled the region as a brand inspector. Later, he ran the stockyards in Missoula.
It seemed her husband was always bringing home one sort of animal or another, and Joan Lytle would care for them all. When her children were very young, she would wrap them up and set them nearby in a feeding trough while she helped her husband with the lambing, which often went all night long.
“She was a hard worker,” her daughter Lorri said.
Most days, Lytle would meet her children after school at the bus stop and they would spend the rest of the day feeding cattle, tending chickens or working in the garden. If she couldn't be outside, Lytle would sew clothes or tool leather or bake. She was always busy.
And she was always singing.
Lytle would sometimes get together with neighbors to sing and play the steel guitar long into the night. She continued to write her own songs, and when her daughter, Lorri, started dating a “scruffy country kid” named Tim O'Neill, she wrote a 10-verse song about him and sang it at their wedding.
Lorri and Tim O'Neill made their home just across the field from Joan and Leonard Lytle, and Joan remained close to her daughter. She would often baby-sit her grandchildren when they were younger, and as they grew they would usually stop by her house for a visit after school.
Lytle would let the children play, or put them to work at simple yet endless tasks, like picking dandelions. Often, she would just enjoy their company. And she would sing and play the guitar for them.
About 20 years ago, she also taught herself how to play the harmonica, said her daughter, Lorri.
“One day she just decided she wanted to play the harmonica, so she taught herself,” she remembered. “Within two days she could play any song.”
Her musical abilities, and many other skills, are apparent in her children and grandchildren, Lorri said. In fact, her true inheritance, her lasting gift to her children and grandchildren, is the confidence to take on anything they please - and succeed.
“They can do anything they want, and I'm the same way. I can do all the things she did,” Lorri said, “because she taught me the things that she loved.”
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