| Recommended
Books on the Texas Panhandle |
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WORK,
WORK, WORK
Zuleika O’Daniel as told to Louise George |
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Author:
Personal interviews with Texas Panhandle men and women born in the early years
of the twentieth century rewarded me with hundreds of stories illustrating their
everyday life. I like to share those stories just as they were told to me.
Zuleika
O’Daniel grew up on a farm southwest of Hart, Texas. She was the oldest of four
children. Her mother was ill much of the time and needed help in the house, and
her father desperately needed help tending the cattle and crops. Zuleika learned
about chores when she was very young. She tells about some of them. |
“I
don’t remember how old I was when I learned to milk a cow. I always knew how,
I guess. I don’t ever remember not knowing. Really, I would say nine or ten. We
had a different number of cows at different times. I never will forget one time,
one of Daddy’s brothers had some feed that didn’t make very good, and it was just
full of cockleburs. Cockleburs kill cattle if they eat them at a certain stage
when they’re young and tender. Later then, those old burrs will get in their tails.
Anyway, Daddy put cattle in there to graze it in the winter and their tails got
full of burrs. Then we kids, my brothers and I, had to get all of them out of
their tails, because Daddy didn’t want those burrs coming up on our place. Can’t
you just see us out there working with those old cows’ tails?
“Daddy always
said, ‘Don’t you ever leave a rattlesnake or a cocklebur living.’ Whenever we
found a cocklebur, we’d get off our horse and pull it up. You took them to the
house and burned them too. You didn’t leave them out in the pasture.
“Tumbleweeds also caused problems on the farm. Daddy would always have us pitch
them over the fence, because they hang on the fences and they will tear a fence
down. If the wind is blowing them up on one side of the fence and if the staples
are on the other side of the fence, it will eventually tear down a fence. Anyway,
when we built fence, we would put the wire on one side of the post and on the
next one we’d put it on the other side. That kind of helped keep the fences from
tearing down when the wind blew. I helped Daddy build fence and I used those old
posthole diggers a lot. That’s hard on your shoulders.
“We rode calves,
we roped calves, we rode horse back. But, it wasn’t really for fun usually. It
was because we were moving cattle from one pasture to another, or helping Daddy
move cattle. It was really work, but we took it in our stride and we liked it.
“I did something one time that I wasn’t big enough to do, but I did it
anyway. I don’t know how old I was, probably ten or eleven, somewhere in there.
Daddy was sick and we were to help one of our neighbors move some cattle. I thought
while Daddy was sick, surely he’d let me ride his horse. I never did get to ride
that horse before. It was a big cutting horse and his name was Old Speck. He was
part Appaloosa and you know, they’ve got specks on their rear quarters, and you
judge the worth of the horse, I guess that’s the way you would say it, by the
number of specks it has on it. It’s not a paint, it’s just specks. Old Speck was
supposed to be a real good horse, and it was a privilege to get to ride him. Nobody
else ever got to ride Daddy’s horse. The thing was, though, I like to have not
been capable. Old Speck knew more than I did. If a steer turned out of the herd,
he was out there after them before I realized we ought to be. All I did was stay
on him.” |
© Louise George
History
by George
- March 12, 2005
Zuleika O’Daniel is featured in Louise George’s book,
Some of My Heroes Are Ladies, Women, Ages 85 to 101, Tell About Life in the Texas
Panhandle. Louise can be reached at (806) 935-5286, by mail at Box 252, Dumas,
TX 79029, or by e-mail at lgeorge@NTS-online.net |
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