The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 58, July 1954 - April, 1955 Page: 210

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Obstcatiols om Iorses Across
Sedlfty-fle iears*
LEE SIMMONS
ON RECEIVING an invitation to appear on the Annual Meet-
ing Program of the Texas State Historical Association,
with the above subject assigned to me, it was with some
hesitancy, and to a degree, a feeling of fear and trembling that I
accepted. Why so? I recognized that I was to be on a program with
well-known and distinguished educators and historians, men for
whom I had great respect and admiration, and that my life had
been in an entirely different field of activity. And yet, I also
recognized that but few men had had the long and varied expe-
rience in life that had been my privilege. So with that feeling of
confidence in the knowledge of the subject assigned to me, I
blazed away.
Yes, I actually had been riding, and riding at, horses and dealing
with livestock for some seventy-five years. At the age of five I
would be sent out late in the evening to drive in the milk cows
and could tell the sound of our cowbell, as bells were almost a
necessity in those days for the horses, milk cows, calves, and oxen.
I was reared at Whitemound in south central Grayson County,
a small community of about fifty people within a radius of half
a mile. There were small farms of from ten to twenty-five acres,
enclosed with rail or bois d'arc hedge fence, and picket fence
gardens, everything else being the open range, mostly prairie but
some creeks and timberland. The village was composed of one
general store, in which were located the post office, a blacksmith
shop, an old-time ox mill, a cotton gin which was owned by my
father who was a country doctor, and two, yes, two saloons. On
rainy days and Saturday afternoons Whitemound was indeed a
lively little burg.
On Saturday and Sunday afternoons and on rainy days the
main sport was the roping and riding of wild horses and cattle
*The following address was presented at a morning session of the Annual Meeting
of the Texas State Historical Association on April 3o, 1954.

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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 58, July 1954 - April, 1955, periodical, 1955; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101158/m1/251/ocr/: accessed March 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.

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