When I was a child, my father, pro-football's Jerry Kramer, and my uncle Russ liked to tell me stories of their bigger-than-life Uncle Bud: a 6-foot-6-1/2 inch giant of a man who liked to drink and fight. Legend had it that Bud, like the character Mongo in Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles, had once punched a horse and knocked it out.

But I was also raised on the stories of Bobby, a woman who held her own with Bud. At the age of 75, she was selected as a working drover for a huge cattle drive organized as part of Montana's centennial celebration. Five years later, she hitched up her trailer and won six American Quarter Horse Association all-arounds.

And so, in 2002, I received a grant from the Montana Historical Society to document my legendary grand-aunt-in-law. A mixture of excitement and fear went through me as I approached Billings for the first time in June. I felt like the nervous kid from Wisconsin who had spent summers in Idaho trying to fit in. My aunts had told me Bobby was a tough old bird.

The first trip to Billings lasted about one week. Once, as Josie helped Bobby saddle Big Red, Bobby climbed a fence to mount the 16-hand horse. "You take this picture and I'll shoot you," she warned, embarrassed that, at the age of 88, she needed help to get on.

My second visit occurred just before Thanksgiving Day and stretched through Bobby's 89th birthday: Dec. 1, 2002. She had cataract surgery over the summer and couldn't ride but Josie would bring Big Red to the door so Bobby could feed him some sweets.

During my third and final visit in June of 2003, I photographed Bobby competiting at the Billings Saddle Club's annual horse show. The best part of this trip was that it served as a mini family reunion. My dad and my two half-siblings Alicia and Matt, uncle Russ and his fourth wife, Tammy, and aunt Kiki all made the trip from Idaho. There were another half-dozen Kramers from the Billings area who joined us to hoot and holler as Bobby took second in trail and third in halter.

When it was all over, we headed back to the ranch and ate watermelon on the front yard. As we took our leave, there were tears in Bobby's eyes.

Bobby has collected wild horses off the Montana range, ridden broncs in rodeos, earned a beautician's license, learned to fly a twin-engine Cessna and slowed a stampede.

In so doing, she broke her arm when a bronc stumbled on a pickup man's reins; she was kicked ferociously in the back thus breaking numerous ribs; she's had both knees replaced, dislocated a hip and had the tip of her nose bit off by a surly stallion.

In 2000, Bobby was inducted into the Cowgirl Hall of Fame, where she joined the likes of Sacajawea, Patsy Cline, Georgia O'Keefe, Annie Oakley, Dale Evans and Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Bobby died in early January, 2005, at the age of 91.