Before it became a national park, the Big Bend was home to a number of ranches and mining operations. On the Wilson ranch, which stood at the center of the current park, Patricia Wilson Clothier spent her youth exploring the wonders of ranch life in the Chisos. Patricia’s richly detailed memories, coupled with a backdrop of Depression era hardships, bring the Big Bend to life in this original and vivid description of a childhood spent Beneath the Window.

Reviews ...

"A book with a different perspective. It is warm, yet full of strength. It is not only a story of the Big Bend, but of a family with joy, sorrow, and struggle. A story of a time and place that is gone, but one that should never be forgotten."
      – Jack Lamkin, President of Friends of Big Bend

"This is Patricia Clothier’s story of growing up in the 1930s and 1940s on a vast ranch in the mountains and desert hugging the Mexican border in the Big Bend country of Texas, before it became a national park. Her family weathered rattlesnakes and drought, accidents,loneliness, and the financial hardships of the Great Depression with fortitude, ingenuity, and grace. Like their scattered neighbors – miles away over rugged roads – it was the love of the land that gripped and held them there. Clothier paints a picture of this vast and glorious territory with words as vivid as any artist with a pallet of paints. A joy to read – an adventure of Western life you’ll not forget."
      – Jean Bradfish, award-winning author and editor

"My life has been closely intertwined with that of Patricia ever since she was born, particularly during those years when we both lived on our family ranches in the Big Bend. Our families and the others that were clustered around the Chisos Mountains shared the same problems. Patricia has captured these and the intense love we had and still have for the area. This book needed to be written because it shows what life was like in the Big Bend before it became a National Park and I am extremely proud of Patricia for doing it."
      – Julia Nail

About the Author...

Patricia Wilson Clothier spent the first fourteen years of her life on the Wilson ranch in Big Bend, Texas. In those years, she experienced the Big Bend as a backyard filled with cherished treasures and inspiring adventures. Patricia, an artist and teacher, now lives in Shawnee Mission, Kansas with her husband, Grant. Although over a thousand miles away, Patricia returns to southwest Texas as often as possible to visit friends and family, and to renew her spirit in the beautiful land of her childhood.