IN TEXAS, THE TWAIN NOT ONLY MEET BUT MARRY
LEAD: It is 25 hot, dusty miles from Paducah to the ranch. The road winds past brakes of cedar and clumps of lowing Brahman cows, turns into caliche and ends at a small white house behind a picket fence. It is not the kind of place one expects to find a great-granddaughter of Baron Paul von Gontard of Berlin, one of the leading figures in the Daimler automobile company, and a great-great-granddaughter of Adolphus Busch, a co-founder of Anheuser
It is 25 hot, dusty miles from Paducah to the ranch. The road winds past brakes of cedar and clumps of lowing Brahman cows, turns into caliche and ends at a small white house behind a picket fence. It is not the kind of place one expects to find a great-granddaughter of Baron Paul von Gontard of Berlin, one of the leading figures in the Daimler automobile company, and a great-great-granddaughter of Adolphus Busch, a co-founder of Anheuser-Busch.
Yet the ebullient 33-year-old woman in a plain gray housedress who opens the creaky front door of the ranch house was once known as Eugenie von Gontard. She grew up in Greenwich, Conn., with all the perquisites of inherited wealth: polo, fox hunting, the best finishing schools, safaris to Africa.
Eight years ago she came to West Texas to sample ranch life and ended up marrying the cowboy next door, Jerry Bob Daniel, whose grandfather came west walking behind a covered wagon. Their marriage has bridged two cultures that could scarcely have been more different, rich versus humble, East versus West, urban versus rural.
Had things been otherwise, Eugenie Daniel might be living the life of a New York socialite: yacht clubs, charity balls, flashy parties, nannies. She has traded this for a remote Texas ranch, where the milk comes from the family cow, horses are used for work, shopping means a weekly expedition into town, the closest hospital is 30 grueling miles away and an exciting night out is dinner at Huey's Palace, the nearest Chinese restaurant, nearly 100 miles away in Vernon.
Both sides of Mrs. Daniel's family have their roots in St. Louis. Her father's father worked with August Busch Sr. in the family beer-brewing business. Her mother's family, the Williamses, had vast land holdings in Texas that date back more than a century. As a girl, Mrs. Daniel visited their ranch, the Pitchfork, west of Paducah. She earned her spurs there, showing skeptical cowboys that she could ride and brand cattle with the best of them.
'They were trying to see if they could run me off, but they couldn't,' she recalled. She then took a job as the 'mare person' at the Pitchfork, taking care of 70 broodmares, feeding and weaning their colts.
Her romance with Jerry Bob Daniel, whom she met at a community dance, came at first as an unpleasant surprise to both sets of parents. 'I don't blame her folks one bit,' Mr. Daniel said in his pleasant Texas lilt. At 28, he is a shy but intense man, with blue eyes framed by sharp, handsome features. 'I'm just a country boy. I'd never been out of the state before. To accept me, whacko, just like that, was a pretty hard thing to do.'
'Just like that' was precisely what they were asked to do. 'I asked for her hand in marriage in April of 1981,' Mr. Daniel said. 'We wanted to get married on July 4. They were pretty tough on me. Her father said there was no way you're going to marry my daughter in July. You're going to wait six months at the minimum, go through a test. We have to announce it.
'And I was walking down that road with him, and I said, 'I'll wait six months, but I'm telling you right now, I'm going to marry your daughter.' I meant it. I think he was surprised.' The parents, Adalbert von Gontard
Jr., a former vice president of the Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company and of Metromedia, and his wife, Mamie, invited the young man to meet their friends in Greenwich. It was an ordeal he will never forget.
'I couldn't even imagine what it was like in Connecticut,' he said. 'I'd never even been on a big airplane.'
He was intimidated by the big party the von Gontards gave at their manicured Greenwich estate, in front of the stables.
'Her father got up and made this speech,' Mr. Daniel said. 'Then he says, 'My future son-in-law has a few words to say.' I don't even remember what I said. From that moment it was an uphill climb. I don't know when downhill started.'
This mortification was followed by a black-tie affair. 'I didn't even take a jacket,' Mr. Daniel said. 'It was awful - the most miserable feeling I ever had in my life.'
Mr. Daniel's parents, in Texas, were just as dubious about the impending union, but for different reasons. His father, Don, a cowboy with only a ninth-grade education, and his mother, Margaret, a kindergarten teacher, saw a flashy, high-flying girl from the East and doubted her intentions.
'They were afraid I was just playing with him, that I was just down here on a fling,' Mrs. Daniel said.
'They believe when you get married you should stay married.'
But the doubts of both families eventually were overcome. 'It took both parents a long time to understand both of us,' Mr. Daniel said.
'But there was a willingness to learn.'
The von Gontards are now regular visitors to the ranch, enjoying the quail hunting and horseback riding.
On Oct. 10, 1981, the couple were married in a colorful Western wedding at the Pitchfork Ranch. A dozen cowboys on gray horses rode behind the buggy carrying the betrothed, and a rodeo followed. The festivities, which lasted three days, were the talk of West Texas.
At first, Mrs. Daniel worked alongside her her husband, rising at 4 A.M. to fix breakfast, then working the cattle on horseback with the cowpokes, breaking away to fix lunch for the ranch hands, then heading out on the range again until dinner. 'I loved it -I'd rather be out there horsebacking,' she said.
Her life changed drastically with the birth of her children, Colton, now 3, and Rebecca Lee, 1. She is home most of the time, cooking and changing diapers, something her parents never had to do.
The house is typical of West Texas ranch life. The plain furniture might have been bought at a local discount store, and rodeo photographs hang on the wood-paneled walls of the small living room, which is cluttered with toys. The kitchen is nothing fancy: an electric range, a microwave oven, a refrigerator, simple wheat-colored cabinets, a double sink and a beige linoleum floor. Outside is a menagerie: pheasants, purebred greyhounds, chickens, horses, turkeys.
Mrs. Daniel said she has adjusted to the isolation, but adjusting has meant, among other things, learning cardiopulmonary resuscitation, keeping kits for snakebites and bee stings, and worrying that the children have no friends.
Does she miss anything from her former life? Swimming, she said, and fox hunting. Her mother and sister send their castoff clothes. 'Whatever's two years old is the hottest fashion out here,' she said.
Mr. Daniel has gone into partnership with his father and two brothers, Duane and Michael. Together they graze 3,000 to 4,000 head of cattle on 90,000 leased acres, stable 40 horses and grow 4,000 acres of wheat. It is endless toil, but the Daniels bought their stock and signed their leases three years ago when drought and sorry cattle prices had driven costs way down. Now that rains have come and prices are up, they are doing well.
Mr. Daniel also has his own fuel-supply business, selling to other ranchers and farmers.
'My grandparents built a brewery and a ranch,' Mrs. Daniel said.
'None of the other generations have done anything on their own, to say, 'I really did this.' Look at this land.
Back East, riding was always for pleasure. Here, my husband uses his horses for work, as a tool. It's very real.'
It is this quality that most impresses her husband, whose family understood that hard work was necessary for survival. 'Inheritance is wonderful, but I don't believe you should live off your grandfather's roots,' he said. 'That is the binding part of the marriage.'