http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~11777~2335399,00.html

When New York debutante Debby Black Chastain decided to become a
rancher in Wyoming, her friends "were dumbstruck," said Chastain's son
David Cass of Lafayette.

Chastain's mother, Beatrice Black, was sure it was a passing fancy and
told her daughter, "Go do your Annie Oakley thing and get it over
with," said Chastain's son Charles "Chic" Gast of Sonoma, Calif.

But it was never over. Chastain, who died July 30 at age 88, spent the
rest of her life raising black Angus cattle, baling hay, hunting and
rounding up cattle.

A memorial service is planned at 1 p.m. Sept. 25 at St. John's
Episcopal Church in Boulder.

The daughter of a New York jewelry-store owner, Debby Black was
expected to be a socialite, like her mother, Cass said.

She took part in "society" events in Denver and went to the Central
City Opera. "She could pull it off. She had the gear," Gast said. But
she always preferred being on the ranch driving her Jeep or her three-
wheeler, camping and cooking hamburgers outside.

She went rabbit shooting in Mexico on one of her honeymoons and once
shot a grizzly bear in Alaska.

My mom "was very funny and entertaining and had a way of identifying
with everyone," Gast said.

She could also see through things, and "she usually knew what I was up
to when I was a kid," Gast said. "That was really annoying," he said,
laughing.

The 8-year-old Debby Black moved to Colorado Springs with her parents,
R. Clifford Black and Beatrice Black, because her mother had
tuberculosis.

She took riding lessons while there and fell in love with Western
history and ranches, Cass said.

She returned to New York for boarding school and her debut but came
back west and bought her first ranch - 160 acres near Laramie - after
her first marriage, to Charles Edwin Gast of Pueblo. She and her
second husband, Oscar David Cass, bought 2,500 acres, the Cedar Creek
Ranch near Saratoga, and leased thousands of additional acres for
grazing.

Most years, she ranched without her husbands being involved. Her third
husband, Robert Lee Chastain, owned cattle in Florida, and for a while
they divided their time between Wyoming and Florida, but she really
didn't care for Florida.

Debby Chastain's children loved the ranch, Gast said. "For a boy, that
was about as close to heaven as you can get," he said.

His mother liked everything about the West - its history, archaeology,
the open space, hunting and fishing. She was the only woman on a
six-member championship skeet-shooting team in the 1930s. She showed
animals at the National Western Stock Show in Denver and was on the
National Western board.

She also was on the board of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science and
the Whitney Museum in Cody, Wyo.

"She was often up by 4:30 or 5 a.m. to clean out the stalls and put up
hay just like the men," Cass said. "She was definitely hands-on. It
was a great work ethic for us to learn."

Debby Chastain had to give up the ranch about five years ago because
of poor health, Cass said.

She entertained many friends in the summer and took them on tours of
the area, "but I think she liked it best when they were gone and she
could spend time by herself," Cass said.

"My mother definitely wasn't like anybody else's mother," said
Chastain's daughter, Judy Cameron of Lafayette, recalling how Cameron
brought Eastern boarding-school friends to the ranch. "She was a lot
of fun. But you couldn't be a namby- pamby around her."

Guests were expected to help out on the ranch. "My friends adored my
mother," said Cameron, who teaches riding.

Deborah Black was born Dec. 18, 1925, in Pelham Manor, N.Y.

She attended Ethel Walkers boarding school in Connecticut, "a snazzy
place," said her brother, Andrews Black of San Francisco.

"She was expelled in her senior year for leaving campus to call a
boyfriend," he said. They never let her back in, "so she never got a
high school diploma. The only diploma was a certificate she had from
the (livestock) artificial-insemination class she took."

"She told her mother she was taking an art-interpretation class," said
a longtime friend, Marion Huseas of Cheyenne.

In addition to her sons, daughter and brother, Chastain is survived by
another son, Robert Gast of Reno, Nev.; a stepson, Thomas Chastain of
Palm Beach, Fla.; 12 grandchildren; and 11 great-grandchildren. She
was preceded in death by a sister and a brother.