05/06/2025
Fascinating story.
She had once been the belle of Savannah—poet, socialite, fiancée to a rising young doctor. But when her brother shot and killed the man she was to marry, shame and scandal engulfed her family. Ena Palmer fled the South, following her brother to start over on the open Nebraska prairie.
There, among buffalo grass and wide skies, she met Texas Jack Omohundro: scout, cowboy, and the first man to stir her heart after the ruin of her old life.
He tamed her wild pony, Falcon, and taught her to shoot. She dreamed, briefly, of what might be. But dreams are fragile things on the frontier.
Maybe because of everything that had happened to her in Savannah, Ena was cautious. She wasn't ready to commit to a life with Texas Jack. He rode away with Buffalo Bill and became a star. Ena remained in Nebraska—wondering if her "Western Hero" would return home wanting the quiet domestic life she desired. Her journal fell silent the day she learned he’d married a famous and beautiful ballerina from Milan.
She consoled herself, not by writing in her journals, but by firing her rifle. She taught Doctor Carver to shoot.
After months under Texas Jack’s tutelage, Ena was among the finest marksmen on the frontier—man or woman. She passed those skills on to the ambitious young dentist who now lived with her on Medicine Creek while building his own home. But their friendship—which Carver frequently asked to turn romantic—was uneasy. One journal entry, written after Carver’s pistol discharged accidentally in the house, captures her tone:
“I trust it will be a lesson for him; he is too careless with firearms.”
Carver became obsessed with the fame that he saw Buffalo Bill and Texas Jack achieve, and he pursued marksmanship with growing obsession. It was an obsession that did not interest Ena. Where she wanted a home filled with warmth and laughter, Carver sought medals, fame, and headlines. When he left for California to join a series of exhibition matches, he begged her to come with him. She refused. He wrote to her, begging her to follow. She would not.
Instead, Ena met a man named David Coulter Ballantine—a powerful rancher and respected businessman. Confident in business, but shy in love, Ballantine admired Ena from afar. So she arranged to be camped one evening by the river, knowing he would pass by.
They talked until dawn on a bluff overlooking the valley. When he rode away the next morning, they both knew that their futures would be built together. They married in October 1875.
When Dr. Carver learned of the marriage, he refused to believe it. He bought a fine gold locket, set with a jewel the color of Ena's eyes, and boarded a train back to Nebraska. But when he arrived, one look into her eyes told him what she had already chosen. He placed the locket on her desk—beside a pistol once gifted to her by Texas Jack—and left without a word.
The Ballantines thrived. David was elected state senator. They welcomed two children into the world. In the summer of 1880, Ena read of Texas Jack’s death in Leadville and gently unearthed a picture he had sent her years before, posed in his stage costume. She hadn’t expected grief—but it came, just the same.
“She had long ago put to rest the broken dreams of a life with the dashing scout,” wrote Ena's biographer D. Jean Smith, “but she would never forget the buoyancy of his spirit, his quick, easy laugh, and flashing dark eyes. And yes, she could still shut her eyes and remember the easy touch of strong hands on her waist as he lifted her from her fiery little pony, Falcon.”
In her chest she kept a clipping of Jack's obituary from the Leadville Daily Chronicle:
“He was noted as a cool, intrepid Indian fighter, government scout and ranchman, but was never a desperado or even a quarrelsome man... His most intimate acquaintances refer to his kindly disposition and his exceptional muscular strength.”
Two years later, tragedy struck again.
Returning from a legislative session, David Ballantine tried to board a moving train. He slipped beneath the wheels and was crushed. He died soon after. He was 39. Ena was 33, with a six-year-old son and a daughter not yet two.
Still, she wrote that she had no regrets. When Dr. Carver partnered with Buffalo Bill to launch their grand Wild West show in 1883, she reflected:
“How thankful that I am as I am. The quiet dignity of my home life is worth a world of such as that.”
She turned over management of the ranch to a trusted local man named Washington McClary—unaware that McClary had long been quietly in love with her. They grew close. They married in early July 1884. Ena was pregnant with their child.
They left for a short honeymoon. On the journey home, their wagon struck a rut and overturned. Ena’s neck was broken. She lingered for several days before passing away. Her unborn child died with her.
She was buried beside her parents near Medicine Creek in Frontier County, Nebraska.
Ena Palmer’s life—like Texas Jack’s—was cut tragically short. Jack died at 33. Ena at 34. And yet, what she left behind still speaks.
Her journals—full of storms and sunsets, gunfire and laughter, heartbreak and prairie wind—survive in the Ballantine Family Collection at History Nebraska. They offer one of the most intimate glimpses we have into life on the Nebraska frontier after the Civil War. Through them, we remember not just the woman she was, but the many names she bore:
She was born Annie Palmer. Her brother nicknamed her Einna, spelling Annie backwards. When she wrote poetry, she called herself Ena Raymonde. To the Pawnee friends of Texas Jack, she was Pa-He-Minny-Minnsh—Little Curly Hair. Too briefly, she was Mrs. Ena Ballantine, beloved wife and mother. Briefer still, she was Mrs. McClary. But to history and posterity, she became something more.
Ena of the Plains.
________________________
My book, Texas Jack: America's First Cowboy Star is available at: https://amzn.to/4k0Xwhb
