Married With No Kids and a Ranching Business with No Heirs

Death, Sex & Money

Slate Audio

Careers, Sexuality, Business, Health & Fitness, Relationships, Society & Culture

4.6 • 7.7K Ratings

🗓️ 25 October 2023

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Albert and Sue Sommers met, fell in love and got married in their 40s. Albert is a rancher whose family has worked the same land in Pinedale, Wyoming for over 100 years, and Sue is a writer and multimedia artist who grew up in New Jersey. Since they married later in life and don’t have kids, that raised big questions about what would happen to Albert’s family ranch once they were gone. Ranching is a tough business, and the Sommers family land is in a part of Wyoming where property values have soared as very wealthy people have moved in. That increases development pressure to turn that land into cash. In 2010, Albert and his family decided on a different, novel path that both preserved the Sommers’ family land from development and enabled them to pass the business to a young neighbor who’s no relation. Albert and Sue tell Anna about how they got together and took on these big family decisions, and despite their offering differing opinions, how they “continue the conversation.” Did you know we have a weekly email newsletter for the Death, Sex & Money community? Every Wednesday we send out podcast listening recommendations, fascinating letters from our inbox, and updates from the show. Sign up at deathsexmoney.org/newsletter, and follow the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're not doing this because you want to make money, you do it because it clicks in your soul.
0:08.0	It's probably who your parents or who your grandparents were.
0:12.0	It's not because the money is good. Money is shitty.
0:22.0	This is Death, Sex, and Money.
0:26.0	The show from WNYC, about the things we think about a lot,
0:31.0	I need to talk about more.
0:34.0	I'm Anna Sale.
0:41.0	When you drive in to Pinedale Wyoming, the welcome sign says Pinedale,
0:46.0	all the civilization you need.
0:49.0	When artists Sue Summers arrived in town in the early 90s,
0:52.0	after growing up in New Jersey, moving around internationally with her dad's job and going to art school,
0:58.0	she was surprised to find Pinedale was all the civilization she needed.
1:03.0	I felt like I could live here, I could live somewhere else, it doesn't really matter.
1:09.0	But when happenstance brought me to Pinedale and I needed to stay for a while,
1:16.0	I noticed that I could start contributing to the community and participating in the community
1:23.0	and people would welcome me.
1:26.0	As long as if I said I was going to bring the brownies and I brought the brownies, I was in.
1:33.0	People like that when you follow through.
1:37.0	And so I started acquiring friends and I worked at the Pinedale Roundup.
1:43.0	And when you work at the local newspaper, you meet everybody.
1:47.0	And I had never felt that relevant to a place before.
1:55.0	Sue now lives about eight miles out of town on a multi-generational cattle ranch.
	...

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