20 NEBRASKA CATTLEMAN September 2025 PAST A Pioneering Woman Sarah (Sal) Paine Forbes BOB HOUGH | CONTRIBUTING WRITER In late 1939, Sarah Paine, or Sal as she preferred to be called, married Waldo Emerson Forbes. Both came from established eastern families from the Boston area, but the Forbes also owned a large, extensive ranch in Wyoming just west of Sheridan. The Paine family has a long history of accomplishments and civil service, including ancestors coming over on the Mayflower, a signor of the Declaration of Independence, Olympic and intercollegiate athletes and extensive military service. The youngest in her family, Sal attended Boston prep school and completed two years at Vassar College, a small, prestigious women’s liberal arts school at Poughkeepsie, New York, where she studied American history and literature. However, she decided early on that, “marrying Waldo was more to the point than doing four years at Vassar.” Waldo had taken over full-time management of the ranch in the mid-1930s and moved his new bride there in January 1940. Sal had never been to the ranch, so she was taking a giant leap of faith moving to an unknown place and unknown lifestyle. Waldo used to kid her that he wanted to make sure she was marrying him and not the ranch. As it turned out, Sal took to ranch life like a duck to water. Regarding her new life in the West, she explained: “I thoroughly loved it. I liked very much being in the middle of it and doing things. I also believe in learning things from the ground up. I was very much with my husband on all the roundups and cattle work and a great many of the meetings, though our seven children kept me a little more at home. They of course were our main interest.” Beckton Stock Farm When the Forbes brothers bought the Wyoming ranch in 1898, they made the home of early settler George Beck the ranch headquarters, whom they named the ranch after. Beckton Stock Farm is still in operation, but over the years, the ranch has been quite diversified, producing Rambouillet sheep, purebred and commercial Hereford cattle, Clydesdale horses, Shorthorn, Ayrshire, registered black Angus and eventually Red Angus cattle. It was with Red Angus that the Forbes would reinvent cattle selection in the beef industry through performance testing within contemporary groups. Sarah (Sal) Paine Forbes’ (1919-2011) Saddle and Sirloin portrait, painted by Richard Halstead. Courtesy of the Saddle and Sirloin Portrait Gallery, Louisville, Kentucky.
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