One of my absolute favorite things is to listen to my dad tell me stories about his past and the history of my family. Especially if its done over food! Maybe that's why I'm into autobiographies and non-fiction..enough of my self-analyzing and into today's Lunch Time Story!
With my grandmothers recent cancer diagnosis, it was only natural that I asked about my great-grandmother. I am lucky in that I had a chance to meet her but due to my bad memory I faintly remember what she looked like.
When I asked my father about her he reacted by saying "wheeew she was a Meeeaaan woman! She had a LOT of stories though!" I then asked and received and here they are:
The Cow Story:
This was in the 1800s and it was the Texas/Mexico Border in Far West Texas. Ranch and Farm land and Wild West Law. My great-grandmother used to take her cow down by the Rio Grande so it could fill up on fresh grass and water. She would tie the cow up to a post with a rope and leave it there until the sun was about to set and then they'd put the cow back in the barn. One day she showed up and the cow was wandering around and the rope was missing.. this was not a problem since her husband owned the local mercantile and she could just pick up another rope. It became a problem when the rope went missing again, and again. One day she put her pistol in her milk pail, got the cow, headed down to the river, tied the cow up and walked away. She wanted to catch the thief red-handed so she staked out in the bushes. After a while a man walked over to her cow and as soon as he touched the rope my great-grandmother shot at him. Just close enough to scare him!
She came out of hiding and he begged "Please don't kill me!". She didn't kill him, but she had the gun, so she made him jump and run and do as she wished, which he didn't mind as long as she didn't pull the trigger. This continued until she was content and then she let him go with a warning to never steal from her again. Which he never did.
The Sad Story:
My great-grandmother had a couple of sisters and two brothers. One day the women were inside the house doing their everyday chores and the men were out in the field. The local drunk decided to assault the family as he entered the house intoxicated, uninvited and armed. The sisters yelled out to the brothers in the field and as they ran to the rescue the drunk shot and killed both of the brothers. While the drunken murderer was occupied shooting the brothers my great-grandmother grabbed an axe and hit him right in the neck. He dropped the gun and hit the floor. He died that day by the blade of a sharp axe and the hand of a brave woman.
The Broom Story:
My grandfather and his brother had a feud going on with two of the local law enforcers. Back then everything was settled with a gun fight and they were all four heated and packing when my great-grandmother showed up with a broom as her weapon and demanded my grandfather put the gun down and somehow ended up with her brothers gun. Which she then used to get the "damn sons of ***** the hell out of her property." (Her choice of word to the officials) They did just that because from what my dad said they KNEW she would not hesitate to pull the trigger. And the feud was settled with a broom.
The Two-Timer Story:
My great- grandfather died in my fathers arms, and even though my father took care of him and nursed him on his deathbed he was not very fond of my father. "All I ever got from that man was a calf, and back then they sold for five dollars! and he had hundreds of them", "I was never his favorite, and when my father married your grandmother she only had THREE dresses! Three! He had money he was just not a thoughtful man." He was also not a faithful man. He was two-timing my great-grandmother and she knew it but wanted to catch him red handed (as was her style). So one afternoon when she knew where he had sneaked off to, she grabbed her pistol and headed to the mistresses house. As soon as she arrived and saw his horse tied out in the front, she raised hell as she stormed into the house gun ready. My great-grandfather had never run so fast in his life but he made it out the back door and back at his house before she did! He insisted he had been there the whole time even though he had left his horse at the mistresses house! My great-grandmother being who she was did not buy into his story so sure enough him and his mistress got a good old fashioned whooping that night. For some reason she did not leave him and he did have two or three sons with the mistress. They are not acknowledged by our family because we are not aware if they know and most of us didn't even know ourselves. They go by a different last name but according to my father look just like his grandfather.
The Two-Timer Story:
My great- grandfather died in my fathers arms, and even though my father took care of him and nursed him on his deathbed he was not very fond of my father. "All I ever got from that man was a calf, and back then they sold for five dollars! and he had hundreds of them", "I was never his favorite, and when my father married your grandmother she only had THREE dresses! Three! He had money he was just not a thoughtful man." He was also not a faithful man. He was two-timing my great-grandmother and she knew it but wanted to catch him red handed (as was her style). So one afternoon when she knew where he had sneaked off to, she grabbed her pistol and headed to the mistresses house. As soon as she arrived and saw his horse tied out in the front, she raised hell as she stormed into the house gun ready. My great-grandfather had never run so fast in his life but he made it out the back door and back at his house before she did! He insisted he had been there the whole time even though he had left his horse at the mistresses house! My great-grandmother being who she was did not buy into his story so sure enough him and his mistress got a good old fashioned whooping that night. For some reason she did not leave him and he did have two or three sons with the mistress. They are not acknowledged by our family because we are not aware if they know and most of us didn't even know ourselves. They go by a different last name but according to my father look just like his grandfather.
