I got out of it, but there wasn't too many bad accidents, there were two or three people
killed.
Was it rough?
Well, one of them, he was killed in working, see, one of them, I believe, fell out of one
of those dairies, 112 feet high, you know, and we had to over, now, Gander Slough was,
was a gander slew we had some highfalutin lady houses over there and they had whiskey they had
everything over on that side over on the other side yes they did and they fought and cut each
other and they had a pretty good town there and i think about three or four restaurants there one
time and I never had any trouble there I'll lie I've used to maybe it'd be dark
you broke down and before you'd get out and get the rig unloaded and he had one
good restaurant and a lot of times I'd come by their horseback coming back to
the corral where we kept the horses mules and horses over on the other side and I'd
stop by and eat my supper there and I ain't got no trouble around them cause I didn't
drink food with me anyway but it is a rough place it is rough now over here
Walter Ellison was Colorado County Walter Ellison was sheriff at that time and he
wouldn't he didn't allow none of them they didn't open no they tried it hey
they tried it right out here but they didn't make it
I when he was moving the rig over that one even across the river and this
contractor had two boilers most of them didn't have one but he had a double he
had two boilers and a double engine and a heavy rig and he thought he could dig
well quicker than these other boys but he couldn't he didn't well I went up and
picked up one of those boilers and brought it around and unloaded on this
where this is gonna dig and there's two women and two men and four suitcases
sitting down in the bar ditch. Just sitting down on the ground. We unloaded that
border and went back up. It wasn't over half a mile back up that other border.
We got back down over that border. They had a shack half built. They all brought a
load of lumber out there and that was a hothouse. And they had that, by the time
we went on, we didn't work till nearly sundown even with the teams that
day and time. I didn't have very far to come across the river to Montcarril from where
we was doing this, not over three miles, see. But bringing that over there, we had to go
all the way to Luli and come around to get over to Gander Slough. So that is the first
building that went up in Gander Slough. And I'd taken this grandson over there when he
was still in college. He brought a friend down here and wanted to go out here and go
through this oil field i'm taking them over and showed them where they were in the first place
well i was i was right there on my horse i didn't know whether the whiskey house or
what it was i knew there's some kind of business going to go on there and it did
oh i got along never had any trouble i never did after far but two or three men and uh in my whole
life. I always got along. You finally, you get a hold of some of them you can't. I had one old boy
out here driving. He's out of San Antonio and he's driving. Couldn't drive but two. And he got to tell
him the man wasn't paying him enough money. Well, he was paying what everybody else was paying.
And that oil field work is hard. You had to know what you're doing to get it done.
there's a contract and we'd load after this was finished practically finished all those
drilling rigs here we'd load here today go to Luling and out of Corral there and leave the teams
and the men and uh next morning and we'd we'd deliver this rig see taking two days
And that old boy, he is a, I can just see him now, I forgot his name, oh I had about
all of them I wanted, and that Saturday when we got into Luling, I told him, I said, go
down there and get your pay, I said, you're not working anymore, you're fired, oh, he
said, Mr. Langley, I don't want you to fire me, I said, no, I've already fired you, you
already farted. He went down there and got it, too.
Well, I got along all right, but I done lots of hard work, Mrs. Thompson, in that oil field.
That's part of it. I think this leg, though, that I accidently had in the gym,
that's playing a whole lot in my knees right now. Which kind you want?
Want it in a bottle or in a glass?
It doesn't matter.
Glass.
I guess the glass.
No.
They still got me harnessed up here.
What about the depression?
Was the depression bad around here?
It didn't bother me.
Did it?
I'm telling you, I'm telling you the facts.
I went on with my, from the time I started out,
Mr. Thompson, on my own,
I've never changed no pattern.
Oh, we had to, yeah, I did change,
but what I mean, I never let anything get me.
You worry, yes, oh yes,
but don't let it get you down in the dumps.
don't let, you've got to overcome that.
You've got to fight that off.
So we had, I think I told you about
selling hogs for two and a half cents,
delivered in San Antonio.
But I had my own truck,
and it was paid for,
and my hogs is mine,
and I got $5 for a 200-pound hog.
Well, I didn't, I didn't, I wasn't mad at nobody, I didn't abuse nobody, I just went
on and taken it.
Kept on, I cut the hog, my hog bench down some, yes.
I wasn't raising as many, but I didn't quit.
And this was in the 30s?
And uh, well yes, that's right.
That's right in the 30s, that's right.
And of course sold cotton for five cents a pound,
$25 for a 500-pound bale of cotton, see?
But I didn't keep me from getting that land in tip-top shape to farm the next year.
And that's the way I've run mine all the way through.
If you've got a piece of foul ground, be sure and clean it before you ever plant anything on it
because that that's the easiest part about it you you're not you're not trying to save
nothing you're killing you killing that vegetation that's on that land
and if you get it clean one time you're having trouble year in and year out year in and year out
you have no trouble you just cultivate the land just be sure that you yes that's right
so I
I think most people
had had trouble with
with
depression and all of that
I had
I had a friend down here
well I didn't know him too well
his name was Sheedy
John Sheedy
and he owned some land out from
Lockhart and he had a little grocery store
down there in Luling
you know there in the oil field
So up in the late 30s, I went up, I drove my truck over to Lockhart to get a load of
hog feed and John was there.
First time I talked to John in a long time, and I said, how are you getting along, John?
Oh, he said, pretty good, pretty good.
He said, you know, I was doing good down in Luling.
He had that store and said that compression hit me and said he'd knock me out.
I have to think about it. So it didn't knock me out. I managed. We lived. We sent our kids to college.
We didn't borrow no money to do it. Our son went to A&M College.
This was during the Depression.
right he started in 31 that's when he started yeah and uh my other lead she went
two and a half years and could have went on the other she quit herself and
so billy then the young the baby daughter she she finished college she's she's she's a school
teacher two-bit school teacher but she's not teaching now but anyway uh my son was raised
on a farm and when i sent him to a m college you know you always got a a bunch of people
who'd rather see you go down and to see you come up you know and i told him i said marshall
i want to tell you one thing i said they need we had lots of kin folks here at that time
on the wife's side and more people here in finish would like to see you kicked out down to a m
than to make it and i said don't let that happen well of course he didn't and he went right on
he's a lieutenant colonel before he was 30 years old and i think that speaks and a battle line
commander and he didn't have no johnson or no pull he wasn't supposed to have miss thompson
if you can't make it yourself, get out of the kitchen.
I'm talking, yeah, what they call pulls, you know.
Well, of course, he went to war, and he didn't have to go.
He was transferred to Fort Selle, Oklahoma, as an instructor.
But he had trained two different bunches,
and he had 750 men under his command.
And he had trained them from the time they went in, and they had sent those two companies
on but didn't send him, you see.
So this was the third bunch, and most of his men at this time was from Ohio National Guard.
He had a few from Texas, not many.
And so he, of course, he knew all about invasion, like where it was going to be and all about it, of course.
They had to study that here.
They had to know.
So the last time I was at home, he told me, he said, I was in January and he left here, he left in February.
About, he was, they transferred him to Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
And he said, Dad, I'm not going to take it.
And I said, well, he said, I've trained this as a third outfit.
He said, part of those first men are already killed.
He said, I'm going.
I said, well, what suits you, that'll suit me.
So that's the way it was.
And, of course, he was killed.
But I know he went out there and stayed out there with his men.
He didn't stay here and say, you go do that.
He said, come on, we've got this to do.
Tell us, tell us that story about his deciding to buy that land before he left and y'all going down and buying the land.
Well, you've been on that land, you know right what we're talking about.
He'd always, as a kid growing up around here, he always liked land.
all right this grandson has changed some now but he he was a shave tail if i want to say it for a
long time what i mean he didn't care much about land or nothing you know and and marshall
uh wanted this because it was next to mine it joined my land he wouldn't he wouldn't
wanted it if it had to join mine well of course harvard had gotten dutch with it and gives
he gave the second a mortgage on it you know which is a violation of the law of course and
so they were going the last time he was here my son and and this this little old
grandson then was a baby just wasn't four months old and uh they i told him that night i said
marshall i said they fixing to say archie harwood land out here oh he said dad let's go by that
and the first word he said he's standing right there i told him standing up right there by that
We had a wood burner in here then, burning it. Yeah, that's right.
And of course Rochelle up here was this fella's brother-in-law. He said, let's go talk to her.
No, I said, well wait, I'll talk to Rochelle in the morning.
so i told him then i said well let's just wait and let it go through sheriff sale
and then that clears the whole thing up thompson don't you see
title and everything and uh when he he was leaving the next day to go to san marcos and
then he would leave the next day to go back to brownwood marshal now my son
So I went to Lockhart and he stood right there and watched them, heard them sell it and sold
it right there.
And of course he had to leave and then I had to, I had taken it over and I made a trip
to San Antonio.
I tried to buy it for $4,000, the 173 acres, but they said, no, we can't take that.
I said, well, I said, I'll give you $4,500.
And they said, all right.
They've been taking it, see.
And he was on his way to New York then, Marshall was.
So I told him, I said, well, I'll pay you $2,000 cash and make five notes.
Well, that suited him because he'd get this old winter woman that had the paper.
and she wound up with it
and she got the sale see
and I
I said we'll make
make five notes and pay you
five hundred dollars a year
and they said that's alright
so that's the way we fixed it
and in all the
the will that
Marsha left his wife was one of those
government wills
and the law
they wouldn't take her signature on those notes
Well, I signed, I just went ahead and signed them five notes myself, and of course he's
killed in a little over a year.
He got to see a picture of the tank, and it was filled up and it was full of water, and
this baby was there, that was Larry, and that, yeah, I had some gravel hauled out there where
this kid would have him gravel to throw in that tank, you know, so he'd taken a picture
that and say to him he got to see the picture there were no fence around it had to fence it
and uh that's pretty much the history so i just taken it if it hadn't been for that baby
that grandson mr thompson no i wouldn't have fooled with it i wouldn't have had any right to
thompson and uh so it still belongs to him he's still out there
and that's the kind of tank that he wanted marshal he told me before he left here
he said dad he said to forget this that i want a tank like mr jimmy cardwell and that
way down katarina and that cow country down there you know
i went out there with two mix and this boy's uncle this boy just left here
in August just about ready to start picking cotton and cut those little old trees and they
brought the team over and we pulled all those trees out of where this tank is with that team
and I stayed out there with them all day on Sunday when this tank man come in there all he had to do
go digging see and he had a solid rock in the bottom of that tank and solid rock
and uh he had to make it not that he did because it's a whole lot wider the dirt to take out of it
you see and at that time is the biggest tank in caldwell county we call them tanks lakes or
or ponds, but it's not the biggest now.
No, no, I mean back there.
See, that's been 32 years ago.
32 years ago now this August is when I dug that tank.
And it filled up in September.
Yes, sir.
Pretty quick.
Yeah, that cat driver, when he finished out,
he said, Mr. Laney, how long will it take this tank
to fill up?
said boy that could fill up at one ring because we got all that watershed up above it in that
mesquite pasture it's just like a pan just like that see and uh we got two rings and it ran around
now i spent on it down here a little while yesterday evening he
Oh, he's crazy about that land out there now, but...
This is Larry?
Mm-hmm, yeah.
He's got beautiful cattle out there now.
Well, he and Mary Ethel and that other daughter and Larry's mother.
That's four of them, see?
That's a lot of people.
I told him, too damn many in one cow outfit.
it looks like he traded bulls too yeah he bought this yeah he wanted to get that bremer bull and
they'll probably get a little bigger cow then he'll put the white face bull back that was my
bull that white that i sold mine that was the last i'm out of the calvinies i had that year
and there wasn't no need in them buying one at that time and that old boy brought me three hundred and twenty-five dollars.
So, uh.
Well, now how, you're out of the cattle business now.
I am.
When did you start in the cattle business?
Oh, I've had some cattle, cattle and hogs, but mine here at Thomas started with my wife.
That's right.
There's one in a hog, Thompson.
Well, how do you raise hogs?
Well, you can raise a hog on a whole lot less territory than anything else,
and it's a quicker turnover.
But you might not have got to see them every day.
You've got the first thing, you've got to have good fences,
and the second thing, you've got to have plenty of water.
And, of course, they have to have feed, too.
They have to eat.
And I started out just with a few head and just went on with the farming and I worked
when we first married after I run the grocery store down here when I married I was running
a two-bed grocery store down there in Prairie League, you know, for McCann, huh?
You've done everything.
well everything but going to the moon
well of course i was working for the other man you know and i didn't i didn't like that inside stuff
and that's the first year we married married 1910
and well it's nearly the 18th day of december nearly christmas see but anyway in 1911
And so my wife's grandfather, Mr. Smith, had a 185-acre farm right out here,
just a little on out from me, but over to the right, not on the road,
just a strip of land between his and the road.
And one of his sons had been working it, and he wasn't, he wasn't, he was unhappy about it.
Mr. Smith was, you know.
And he rented me that land, and I think about that now.
I was young, you know, and that old man had confidence in me.
He had to. He had to.
And I rented that land, Mrs. Thompson,
and I had the typhoid fever on top of that that fall.
My wife didn't have it.
And we moved out there, and that was 185 acres now, Thompson.
And I wasn't able to do any work, but I had two families of Mexicans, and that's where
we started, right there, and talking about hogs, I had a sow out there that had ten pigs,
and I wasn't too bright, you know, and I didn't have enough shed.
And I come in one day from the field, and that sow was dead because of hot weather.
kill her you know now all them little pigs you know i think i raised all of them though but
i'll give you a little rundown on the hog business going there too and i had a good my wife was a
good woman she never worked a day in her life in the field she never worked a day in her life to
buy a loaf of bread and i'm i don't say that that's not right i don't mean that but then we didn't do
And so I made, that first year I made 40 bales of cotton. That's pretty good. Back in corn,
raised the corn and feed for the mules. And the second year I made 75 bales.
On the same strip, well I did have taken on a little more land. And I stayed out there three
years on that and uh i was in uh and our son was born in 1913. we married 1910 but he wasn't born
till 1913 and mr smith her grandfather died in 1917. he's a pretty old man then but he's a fine
old fellow and from that on just i'd always take on a little bit more and i knew how to handle it
i did handle it and i knew how to well you know this mexican boy wouldn't come back here to see
me and he comes pretty often come by here and talk he stayed a little too long i think this time
but he's a pretty good talker he he's he's honest he's a pretty good fella and uh so i just
went on and went on never did try to get ahead of nobody that's not my i wouldn't do that if i
I had them to tell me on the school board down here.
I served on this school board 19 years.
That's too long.
But they put me on there, and I quit, and they put me back on there.
And when I quit the second time, I said,
Now, listen, I've already been on here too long,
and I said, Let somebody else get on here.
And I had one of the members to say to me, he said,
I don't see how in the devil you can let some of them
come up with some of them ideas they come up with down there and you just let
them go ahead I said well now that's the only thing to do let him go on and see
whether he's right or not yeah I had a man tell me that one night
well if I was president of the school board I wouldn't have voted that way I
said you're damn sure not president
So I've had it rough, Thompson, yes, but if you don't have it rough, you don't know what life is.
Ain't that right?
And you've always got some friends.
You might think you don't have any, but you have.
We've got them and we don't even know where they're at, but you're liable to run into them most any time, you know.
Well, I went from, well, 75 bales of cotton to as high as 350 bales in one year, in my
lifetime.
And I've worked as much as—
There's 300 bales.
How much land was that?
Well, in actual cotton, that 300, we had a—that was in 32.
I made a bales of acre on a whole lot of the land.
i think we had around 600 acres in cotton you've always got some and that much land it's not a
all going to produce the same i don't know well that's nature it won't do it
you have a garden and maybe it'll be a little better on one end and we'll be on the other end
and i'll tell you something else about farming the last time maybe we had now that was all news back
at that time maybe Saturday dinner we didn't have maybe we was going to finish planting we'll say
cotton on one more day if we planted Saturday evening well later we'd have to went out Sunday
I mean Monday anyway don't you see and I'd tell them I'd well just go ahead and quit till Monday
and it'd be as much as a half as a quarter of a barrel of cotton to the acre difference
from saturday till monday now i've never been able in this time i've never been able to figure that
out now wait a minute explain that again well say if you're planting your cotton it's all in the
same kind of land and you like a day or a half a day getting through really like a day because
they could have finished on saturday evening you probably went on back and planted see
all right you quit. All you've got Saturday evening all day Sunday and
Sunday night and you start back and finish. That'd be as much as a quarter of a
bale of cotton difference. Now not every year, not every year. I've never been able, I'm not smart enough to know that, but I know that happened in corn too.
Do you plant by the moon?
No, no, I don't.
No, I plant in the ground.
No, I never paid any...
I always...
I got my land ready, and it was ready,
and if I thought February was the time to plant that corn,
that's when we started planting.
I never lost...
In 55 years, I lost three crops from frost.
frost or cold weather, see, little old corn, you know, after it gets four leaves on it,
that way it'll kill it and you'll have to plant it over. But only three times that happened,
in my lifetime. Well, I went on from, like I said, there from, well, say, 40 bales, not
to build a shed over a sow up to 30 I've run in with mine and seen after as high as 3,500 acres
of farming land that's a pretty good one that is a lot of land it's 3,500 acres it takes 40 mules
not 40 horses to work a thousand acres 40 minutes yeah a thousand acres yeah take four to a hundred
acres well that was I was running this other for this Rochelle this friend of
mine was all right in here closed but he wasn't a farmer he you know well he was
a city boy just like a lot of these city boys think they know everything now but
they don't when it comes to land we talking about land that's what we're
talking about now the city they know how to scoot around get around in them
cities but when he goes through this land that's something else what is a wonderful life if a
person likes it and he ought to like it whether he's on it or not because that's the foundation
of the whole thing is the ground let's stop right there i think we've taught you