682-1 2 Preface

Preface For all the years after we moved from Texas to Canada, my mother was the letter writer in the family. However, in the early 1980’s she suddenly lost her sight. My dad dutifully took over the letter-writing role but once said to me, plaintively, that he had a hard time thinking of anything to say every week. I suggested to him he put down some of the stories about his childhood and family. I had grown up listening with total fascination as my grandfather and his cronies sat around and told tales about the old days of the ranches and cattle drives. As I got older, the stories had begun to blur together and it occurred to me that we should get some of this down accurately before it was lost. Dad took me up on that and over the next few years, every week I got another chapter. I have not changed his grammar because it is written the way he spoke. The letters are divided into two main sections. The first section is about ranch life and the second about his WWII experiences. For the ranch section, I have included not only family pictures but also cartoons from Ace Reid. My dad loved his work and often said he somehow truly captured what life then was about. He even had taken some of the cartoons from a calendar and put them on his wall. For the war section, I have included pictures taken by an Associated Press photographer who was assigned to their Division, some personal pictures, and some cartoons by Bill Maudlin, whose work my dad also loved. The history included is from The Fighting 36th: A Pictorial History Of The Texas Division In Combat. This then, is the resulting family treasure. Cherry Pickard Murray December 15, 2002