In 1972 LIFE magazine ran a cover feature on what it termed “Marriage Experiments.” The issue featured several examples of nontraditional domestic units. These ranged from a collective family in Berkeley, California to unmarried parents living in the Boston suburbs. If the Boston couple doesn’t sound all that experimental, keep in mind that this was at a time when raising children out of wedlock was still relatively rare, with percentages just starting to climb out of the single digits. (In 2024, about one of four children are being raised by unmarried parents).
Another one of the “experiments” in the issue featured Joy and Stan Potts, a couple who had what the magazine termed a “frontier partnership.”
Here’s how that partnership worked, as described by LIFE:
For three months each year they disappear into the Idaho Primitive Area where, as a team, they operate a commercial hunting camp. To do this they leave behind their three girls, ages 11, 12 and 17, who willingly—and successfully—remain entirely on their own at the alfalfa ranch the Pottses run in Nevada during the rest of the year.
Joy Potts said leaving the children on their own for so long benefited the kids as well as the parents. The kids, she said, learned to be independent. And running the camp together with her husband was good for their relationship. “Marriages get down in the dumps because people sort of ignore each other,” Joy told LIFE. “I know I am an important person to Stan.”
As for Stan, he told LIFE that the key to a happy marriage was sharing in everything—including the inevitable failures. “Then you know how it all works, that it’s not any one person’s fault,” he said. He added that if he were running the camp on his own, “It would be a lot more lonely and a lot harder without Joy, that’s for sure.”
The story was photographed by John Dominis, and he visited the Potts’ camp during Thanksgiving, when their daughters had come to visit. Their holiday dinner, which also included the hunters at the camp, looks as welcoming as it was rustic.
The Potts’ “frontier partnership” was an enduring one. In 2021 Stan and Joy were recognized by the Hall of Fame of the Idaho Outfitters and Guides Association, Salmon River Chapter. Later that same year Joy died at age 87, survived by her husband of 67 years. Her obituary included a delightful detail on how Joy and Stan first met, while she was Mackay, Idaho visiting family: “During that first conversation, she told him she milked cows, and he was hooked.”
Joy and Stan Potts shared a light moment during Thanksgiving dinner at the hunting camp they ran in Idaho, 1972.
John Dominis/LIfe Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Joy and Stan Potts leave their alfalfa farm and children three months a year to brave the frontier wilderness in Idaho. Here they and their daughters, on the left side of the table, enjoy a Thanksgiving feast, joined by hunters at the camp, 1972.
John Dominis/LIfe Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Joy and Stan Potts would leave their alfalfa farm and children three months a year to run an Idaho hunting camp. Here Joy (second from right) handed out sandwiches to a hunting party before they set out, 1972.
John Dominis/LIfe Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Joy Potts carried water from a stream to use for cooking and cleaning at the Idaho hunting camp that she and her husband ran, 1972.
John Dominis/LIfe Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Joy Potts took a bath in water heated from a stove at the Idaho hunting camp that she and her husband Stan ran, 1972.
John Dominis/LIfe Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Stan Potts chopped firewood at the hunting camp run by him and his wife Joy, 1972.
John Dominis/LIfe Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Joy and Stan Potts, 1972.
John Dominis/LIfe Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Joy and Stan Potts would leave their three daughters, ages 11, 12 and 17, at the family alfalfa farm for months at a time while they went off to run their hunting camp.
John Dominis/LIfe Picture Collection/Shutterstock
