Etchamendy Family
L-R Back: Catherine, John, Jeannette, Rose Marie
Front: Martin & Teresa
Tempe - Maricopa County
Inducted in 2023
Arnaud was the first of the Etchamendy’s to arrive in America from the France Basque area in 1930. He was 22 years old. He became a sheep herder shortly after arriving, an occupation he was familiar with from running the family sheep in the Pyrenees. In 1940 he became a citizen. Less than a year later Arnaud was able to purchase his own sheep and began his own company. He spent a total of $31,645.00 for the sheep, forest permit and range rights, burros and camp equipment. But his dream of being a sheep raiser was short lived. As a US citizen he was eligible to be drafted into the military. With a broken heart, he sold his sheep, forest permit and range rights. Arnaud served in the military being discharged, as a Sergeant, in October 1945.
He returned to the sheep business working for Fermin Echeverria. With the help of Fermin and Fermin’s son Felipe, he was able to start his own sheep outfit, the Diamond Sheep Company.
When he married Ramona Gonzalez in 1948, the couple would run the sheep together. Like all sheep men, the men were heavily involved in their sheep as it was labor intense from trailing, lambing to shearing and other tasks. With few opportunities in France, Arnaud’s nephew, Jean, was the next to come to America. He left France for what he hoped would be greener pastures in the U.S. and the chance to own his own sheep company.
Working for his uncle, he began as the camp tender packing and unpacking the burros twice a day as they carried the food that the herders would eat and he cooked the meals, a job he did not care for. His favorite job was handling the burros as the herders and sheep would travel on the rugged Heber-Reno Sheep Driveway between the summer and winter grazing areas. It was during these long days and nights on the trail that he taught himself English and Spanish.
With a handshake with a Prescott bank loan officer, Jean was able to purchase his own sheep. With a fellow Basque friend Jean Arriage, they began a partner- ship, A and E Sheep Company which lasted two years then dissolved. During that time, the men ran their flock in the winter near grazing land around Parker, AZ and then trailed them northward to Williams in the summer.
Jean married the love of his life in 1959, a Flagstaff native, Louisa Lopez whom he met at a Wool Grow- ers’ convention as her family were past wool raisers. In March 1960, Jean became a citizen. The newlyweds spent their winters in the Scottsdale area. Jean win- tered his sheep on the alfalfa fields in what is now Mesa, along Rural and Baseline Roads.
Jean helped his aunt Ramona once Arnaud passed in 1964. Upon her death, he bought a third of the sheep, using his uncle’s name, Diamond Sheep Company.
As subdivisions sprang up along the route in the valley that Jean took to get to the Heber-Reno Sheep Trail, it became hard to continue to trail. He always thought that it was best for the pregnant ewes to walk to their winter grazing and lambing area but he realized that outside forces were working against him. Jean retired in 1978 and was unhappy thus within two years he owned two-thousand sheep.
Jean Baptiste, JB, migrated after serving in the French army. In 1957 he began working in California. His uncle, Arnaud and his brother Jean visited him shortly after JB arrived eventually leading to all three of them working sheep in Arizona. Then Martin, 21, the youngest brother of Jean and JB arrived in 1961.
While working for different sheep outfits, JB and Martin each bought 500 feeder lambs. With the extra money made selling these feeder lambs they borrowed $5,000, purchased 1,300 breeding ewes and The Etchamendy Brothers Sheep Company was born. With a bumper crop in lambs the next year, they sold the lambs and paid off their loan. Then they purchased four hundred yearlings, and the company steadily grew. Martin became a U. S. citizen in August 1969.
Martin sold his sheep and returned to France in late 1971. He would marry Teresa and moved to the U.S. in 1972, purchased sheep and settled in Bakersfield. With a drought in California, he trucked the sheep for grazing in Arizona. That winter he secured pastureland near Bakersfield. Today, at the age of 83, Martin still has his beloved sheep. The couple live near their four children.
JB continued to run his sheep outfit. He married Barbara Ann Lujan once she finished college. They raised three sons. Knowing the sheep industry very well by this time with working in it on two continents, and thus the hardships and hard work to keep his company growing, pay the bills for the business and the expenses of raising a family, JB never encouraged his sons to join him in the sheep business. Paid an hourly wage the three sons would help on the weekends, holidays and summers; their sons pursued university degrees.
In the spring JB trailed his sheep, taking up to six weeks, along the Heber-Reno trail as he had summer grazing rights on three different ranches in the White Mountain, near Snowflake, ShowLow and Springerville. Barbara would join him, cooking and helping with the sheep when needed.
A sheepherder had many problems that ranged from obtaining winter grazing pastures, the associated cost, and trekking the sheep each spring to their summer pastures and then back to winter grazing. As subdivisions took over the fields, it became more difficult to winter sheep in the Salt River Valley. JB grazed his sheep on the alfalfa fields in Tempe up to 1985. Moving southward, his sheep grazed on the Salt River Indian Reservation for the next 15 years. He sold his sheep in 2000 to his brother-in-law in California.
JB made the prophetic statement in the Ocotillo News, in 2001, “Someday we’re going to be short of food. The farmers are getting broke, the world market is bringing everything from outside, and September 11 changed everything. I think this new generation should see that food doesn’t come from the store.” JB passed away in November 2018 at the age of 86.
The Arizona Wool Growers’ Association Auxiliary sponsored festivals at Chris Town Mall to promote the products from the sheep. The men provided the lamb and beans, cooked Basque style, for samples for people attending the festival. It was one way sheep men could participate in community activities. Jean’s wife Louisa was president of the Wool Growers’ Auxiliary and a director of Make It Yourself with Wool (now called Make It with Wool). Barbara and Ramona both served on committees; Barbara is still active today.
Affiliations
Arnaud, Jean and Jean Baptiste (JB)
Arizona’s Wool Growers’ Association
Western Range Association—member
National Wool Growers’ Association, Board of
Directors—Jean and Jean Baptiste
Martin
Master of Ceremony Basque Festival, Bakersfield, CA
California Wool Growers’ Association - member and Board of Directors
Western Range Association – member
Publication – “The Basque Shepherd” Range, Winter 2019/2020
