Burnet County ranching couple works family land in nod to heritage and higher power
Burnet County ranchers Jan and Austin Rose have worked the Taylor-Rose Ranch for the past 20 years of their 44-year marriage. They’ve returned the land, purchased by Jan’s great-great-grandfather in 1886, to working order. The couple reside in ‘The Home Place,’ the original house that Jan’s great-grandparents lived in over 100 years ago. Staff photos by Dakota Morrissiey
Jan and Austin Rose raise cattle in Burnet County on land that Jan’s great-great-grandfather William Washington Taylor bought in 1886. The couple has dedicated their retirement to ranching and restoring the acreage that generations of Taylors have called home, but they see themselves as grateful stewards more than legacy landowners.
Over the past 20 years of their 44-year marriage, the Roses have improved the Taylor-Rose Ranch and returned it to working order after decades of disuse. Their days are spent running cattle, mending fences, branding calves, clearing land, and roping in a rancher’s daily challenges.
Jan and Austin both grew up in the Panhandle and raised their children in Abilene. Austin worked in the cotton commodities industry for 45 years, but the farmer’s son always dreamed of returning to his roots. Jan was a hospital administrator. She served as a nurse in the Army, deploying to Afghanistan and Iraq during wartime and working in at least 20 countries before retiring in 2018.
“I guess this is my third season out here,” Jan said. “Now, I’m a rancher.”
Aside from modern conveniences like trucks, heavy equipment, feed hoppers, and air conditioning, the Roses live pretty close to how Jan’s family did over a century ago.
“We think we work hard, but I think about Jan’s grandfather and those before him,” Austin said. “They dug every one of those (fence-post) holes by hand. They didn’t have a skid steer or an augur either.”
The Roses run a cow-calf operation, raising and selling the calves from their home herd. With occasional help from son Will, the couple cares for, rounds up, and transports their cattle using techniques and traditions passed down from past generations of Taylors.
“I don’t think things have changed that much from when my grandfather did it to how we do it,” Jan said. “The main difference is machinery. The work used to be all on horseback or old trucks scooping feed by hand.”
Jan’s grandfather Ellis Taylor was known as an especially attentive stockman who had a way with animals. She and Austin strive to carry on that style and tradition.
“I tell people all the time, ‘If you don’t love to be with your cattle, you don’t need to be a rancher,’” Jan said. “If you have cattle, you don’t want to make pets out of them, but you want them gentle enough where you can work them so that they’re not skittish.”
This method has become doubly important as the couple gets on in years because it doesn’t require as much manhandling or muscling.
“We try to do all the work ourselves,” Austin said. “We try to be more efficient with what we have.”
The Roses now live at “The Home Place,” the original house that Jan’s great-grandparents lived in over 100 years ago. A tour of the home reveals decades of family history, including a row of portraits proudly displayed on a dresser in what she calls “the women’s room.”
Jan spoke with unmistakable admiration for the women in the photos.
“Women have done a lot for this ranch,” she said.
She focused specifically on her great-grandmother Hattie Taylor, whose husband died in 1910, leaving her to raise seven children on her own on a rural ranch in the backwaters of Burnet County. The oldest of those seven children was Ellis.
According to Jan, Hattie went to the bank for a loan to turn the land into a proper working farm and ranch but walked away empty-handed. The banker told her they didn’t loan money to women. As the story goes, he offered to help her sell the ranch and move to town, but she had other plans.
“She stayed,” Jan said. “She plowed with mules, no cars, no running water, no bathrooms, and raised seven kids in this house.”
Hattie’s hard history also had an impact on Austin.
“We feel a certain responsibility because of the people like her great-grandmother who were able to hold on to this place,” he said. “Imagine how hard it was for her to raise seven kids out here all by herself. We feel a kind of responsibility to carry that on.”
Despite the land’s history, the couple rejects any idea of entitlement.
“We have a heritage here, and that’s important. And the land means a lot to each one of us,” Jan said. “Austin and I love that we’ve been able to (continue ranching the land), but I’m not going to hold my kids to that. When we’re gone, they can do with it what they want to or need to with the land.”
Her family puts people before property, she said, recalling a hospital visit from her grandfather when her father was being treated for cancer. Her grandfather offered to sell the ranch to provide better treatment for his son if that’s what it took to save him.
“That made a huge impression on me because I never dreamed I’d hear my grandfather say that,” Jan said. “What I took from it was that this ranch was a means to a lifestyle, but family meant more. That’s the way we feel about this.”
The Roses have three children who will inherit the land when they’re gone.
“I hope we’ve instilled how fun it is out here and how blessed we are, but it is for them to decide,” Jan said. “We’re really just tenants. We are tenants of this land, but it is God’s land.”