In 1916, 3-year-old Lucienne Lauron's father, a French infantryman, was killed in World War I.

Four years later, the little girl and her widowed mother emigrated to the United States, where they made a new life amid the beauty of the Rocky Mountains.

Her mother remarried - to a former American doughboy, James Runyon. At 18, Lucienne was married herself - to Colorado rancher and coal mine worker James Franklin Stetson.

In time, she became one of the state's most respected breeders of quarterhorses.

Mrs. Stetson died Aug. 2 at the Doak Walker Care Center in Steamboat Springs, following complications from a stroke and broken hip. She was 95.

Well into her 80s, her son Franklin O. Stetson reports, Mrs. Stetson continued to muck her beloved horses' stalls, groom them and ride the range at her Oak Creek ranch. She also worked the hayfields and kept up the barn.

"She remembered the name of every horse she ever had," her son recalls. "Right now I couldn't name three of 'em."

Born Feb. 7, 1913, in a village near Paris, Mrs. Stetson never spoke French again after coming to America, her son says. She and her husband, who died in 1983, raised livestock, delivered milk and during World War II operated Bell Mercantile in Oak Creek.

Asked if the family is related to the famous manufacturer of cowboy hats, Franklin Stetson replied: "Nope. They never heard of us. I pay for my own hats, just like you do."

In the 1950s, Mrs. Stetson bought a 2-year-old colt named Poco Bimbo at Denver's National Western Stock Show and began raising quarterhorses for ranch work and cutting-horse competitions. Partnered with Poco Bimbo, she won quite a few of those herself until a back injury put an end to her riding career.

The Stetsons' ranch on Yellow Jacket Road never had a name. "That's cowboy crap," her son says. "Everybody with a 20-acre place wants to give it a name."

Stetson Quarterhorses supplied stock to riders and ranchers until 1989. Mrs. Stetson continued to live on the ranch, alone, until her broken hip forced her into town for treatment.

"My mother never seen a stranger over five minutes," her son says. "But if somebody crossed her up, they knew it."

Mrs. Stetson was buried in Oak Creek.

Survivors include her son, who ranches near Steamboat Springs; a brother, Dean Runyon, of Phoenix; a sister, Elsie Bush, of Fayetteville, Tenn.; four grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.