L ong time Santa Ynez Valley resident Viola Hansen was raised in Carpinteria during the early part of the twentieth-century. Some of her earliest memories are of riding horses on the Carpinteria beach. In the late twenties, she became a member of the first lady’s polo team to play at Fleishman Field in Montecito. Some of the other team members were Ellis Irving, Vi’s sister Frances Tuckerman, Mrs. Demming Wheeler, and Patsy Collins, who brought her horse from Honolulu. Ann Jackson, Palmer Jackson’s mother, sponsored the team and provided some of the horses. Vi commented, “The weather was so good that we could play almost all year ‘round.”
Several men’s teams also practiced and played matches at the field, and the women sometimes played practice matches with the men. Vi met her future husband, Barney Schley, during one of those practices.
    Some weeks later, both the men’s and women’s teams were invited to compete against teams at Pebble Beach. “The horses all went in a van,” explained Vi, “but the players were expected to drive themselves. Barney invited me to ride with him, and it was during that drive that we became interested in each other.”
    In addition to playing polo, Barney was also an experienced pilot and owned a Stinson Reliance airplane. He was soon giving lessons to Vi, who enjoyed flying almost as much as riding horses. When the couple married in 1932, they purchased a ranch near Prescott, Arizona, flying back to California regularly to visit Vi’s family. Their first three sons, Turner, Wolcott and Barney, were born while they lived in Arizona, although the couple returned to California each time, so the babies could be born at Santa Barbara’s Cottage Hospital. Vi sometimes flew solo from Arizona to Carpinteria for regular prenatal doctor’s appointments. At one point, her doctor advised Vi to give up driving, and she asked, “What about flying?” He retorted, “Oh, flying’s perfectly safe.” Later, Vi realized that the doctor probably never dreamed that she meant “piloting,” but she wasn’t about to clarify the matter.
    While Vi and Barney waited in Carpinteria for baby Wolcott’s arrival, they often enjoyed flying their airplane. Vi’s flight log reveals that only five days before Wolcott’s birth, Barney was teaching her to “fly blind,” with a hood over her eyes to simulate heavy fog conditions. “I felt perfectly safe,” said Vi. “I knew that if I did anything wrong, Barney was right there to take over the controls.”
    When World War II began, the couple decided to move back to California, and in 1939 they purchased the ranch in Happy Canyon where Vi still lives. When the United States became involved in the war, Barney volunteered to help train pilots and to transport airplanes from factories in Los Angeles to wherever they were needed. Only six weeks after the Schley’s fourth son, Kenneth, was born, Barney was tragically killed when a new airplane he was flying from Los Angeles to San Francisco malfunctioned over the mountains not far from Happy Canyon.
    For the next five years, Vi continued to raise their sons on the ranch by herself. Although she had a number of suitors during that time, she eventually chose to marry Sig Hansen, known to many in the Valley as “The Danish Cowboy.” Sig took on the job of father to the four Schley boys, and eventually the couple added a fifth son, Sig Hansen, Junior. All five boys grew up on the ranch, helping their parents with their herd of cattle and competing in local horse shows, doing 4-H projects and participating in some of the first Danish Days events.
    In the 1950s, Sig and Vi were instrumental in forming the Santa Ynez Valley Horse Show Association. The planning meetings alternated between their living room and the Red Barn. Some of the other founders were Katie Peake, Helen Pedotti, Red Hanly, Bill and Laura Deputy, and Chuck and Joanne Irwin. Vi’s oldest son, Turner, was already an adult and he became one of the association’s first presidents. Turner’s wife Jean was also an active member, as was Wolcott Schley.
    “All the horses that competed in the shows were just ranch trained,” said Vi. “We held the shows at the Alisal Ranch and the Western classes were on Saturdays and the English classes on Sundays. The High Point prize for each day was a saddle. Jedlicka’s made the western saddles for us, and the English saddles were always the best we could purchase. Frank Jordano managed our shows and enjoyed it so much that he started another show in Santa Barbara!”
    Valley horsemen Turner Schley, Bill Deputy and Mike Crisman introduced team penning to the Santa Ynez Valley Horse Show after they saw a similar competition in Ventura in about 1955. The early teams consisted of two, instead of three riders, and in 1956 Sig Hansen and Wolcott Schley won the Team Penning trophy at the Santa Ynez Valley Horse Show. Later, team penning competitions became separate from the show. In 1978 the first World Championship Team Penning was held at San Marcos Camp, with a purse of $12,000. Now team penning is a popular horse sport all over the west, as well as Canada and Hawaii. There are about 200 members here in the Santa Ynez Valley Team Penners club.
    Vi Hansen is now 91 years young and gave up riding horses about five years ago. But she still lives on her ranch in Happy Canyon, and she still has a herd of white Charolais cattle.