Life on the ranch didn’t allow for much downtime, and even as a little girl, Reba was expected to pull her weight.
By the time she was just five years old, Reba was already driving her dad’s truck through fields of cattle. Well, steering might be the better word since she was too small to reach the pedals. Her dad, Clark McEntire, would prop her up with a 50-pound feed sack, shift the truck into ”granny gear,” and let her take the wheel. And this wasn’t just a fun one-off moment — it was part of daily life.
The legendary country singer grew up in a family steeped in rodeo history. Her granddad, John Wesley McEntire, was a world-champion steer roper in 1934, and her dad, Clark, followed in his footsteps, winning the title three times.
Her childhood wasn’t glamorous
But Clark McEntire wasn’t just a rodeo legend — he was old-school when it came to parenting. Reba’s father didn’t believe in handing out hugs or saying “I love you” to his kids. His way of showing love was through high expectations and teaching them the value of hard work.
Reba later admitted in her autobiography, For My Broken Heart, “When we were growing up, I used to regret that Daddy never told us he loved us.”
Her childhood wasn’t glamorous. The McEntire children — Alice, Pake, Reba, and Susie — grew up in a modest gray house with just one bathroom for all six family members.
”We weren’t no wealthy West Texas people or nothin’. It’s mostly rocky, mountain country, but enough to run a few steers on,” Reba recalled.
”My mama, they used to say she coulda been as big as Patsy Cline if she’d had any breaks, but she was teaching’ school by the time she was 16 or 17,” RebaContinue reading…
