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In
the late 1940s cattle auctions were common in the towns of Northeast
Texas. Each town picked a different day of the week so as not to compete
with nearby towns. Sulphur
Springs held its auction on Mondays, Mt.
Pleasant on Tuesdays, Paris
on Wednesdays, and Winnsboro
on Fridays. Most of the livestock bought by buyers from local meat-packing
plants were calves born in the spring and sold in the late summer
or early autumn.
On our farm near Saltillo
my father kept a herd of thirty Jersey cows as breeders. He bred the
cows to a Hereford bull because the Jersey cows produced more milk
than Hereford cows and the milk from the Jerseys was higher in butterfat. |
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Lampasas
Post Office Mural (detail)
"Afternoon on a Texas Ranch" by Ethel Edwards.
TE Photo |
On the days
my father sent the calves to auction my brother and I, who were teenagers,
and my father awoke early, ate breakfast hurriedly, and went to the
pasture. We did not own a horse, so we herded the cows whose calves
would be sold and their calves to the loading pen at the roadside.
Sometimes two or three neighbors would help drive the cattle to the
loading pen. Unlike the stereotypical cattle owner, neither my father
nor my brother and I wore boots or wide-brimmed hats. Daddy wore brogans
and an old felt Fedora, and my brother and I wore moccasins and baseball
caps. When the herd arrived at the pen, Daddy took a cane and prodded
the calves he wanted to sell into the small enclosure. My father paid
a local man who owned a two-ton truck with side rails to take the
calves to whichever town had a sale that day. The calves were forced
down a narrow chute and into the waiting truck. The bed could hold
six or seven calves, weighing as much as 350 pounds each.
Two hours or so after the trucker drove the calves to the sale barn,
my father, my brother, and I would drive to the town where the barn
was holding an auction that day was located. These were memorable
days for my brother and me, for on those days we went to a movie.
Weekday matinees were common then. In Sulphur
Springs we saw the feature at the Carnation Theatre, in Mt.
Pleasant we went to the Martin Theatre, and in Winnsboro
to the State Theatre (always 20 degrees cooler inside).
My father gave my brother and me one cow each. We could claim the
money from the sale of the calf the cow produced. On the days when
our calves were sold my brother and I usually bought a pair of shoes
to wear to school the following fall. We also bought polo shirts and
jeans as well as popular magazines. When we returned to the farm after
the day of each auction, we could hear the lowing of the cows whose
calves had been sold. Their udders were filled with milk. Not only
did they miss their calves, but they were physically uncomfortable.
The lowing of the cows became a mournful sound, especially because
the daylight was failing. The next morning my father would check to
see whether he needed to milk each cow. He wanted to prevent a possible
infection, since it was possible one of the teats would burst from
the pressure of the milk.
We rarely ate beef ourselves, but we provided the main course for
a number of families as well as ground beef for the Dairy Queens in
the towns.
© Robert G. Cowser
November
22, 2010 Guest Column
More Columns by Robert G. Cowser
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