Life on the King Ranch

by Frank Goodwyn, Bruce S. Cheeseman (Foreword), Bruce Marchin (Illustrator)

(The Centennial Series of the Association of Former Students, Texas A&M University ; No. 49)

Genres: History

344 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

FRANK GOODWYN was born in South Texas in 1911 and grew up on the King Ranch. He holds degrees in English and Spanish from Texas A&I University in Kingsville and earned a Ph.D. in Spanish and Folklore from the University of Texas at Austin. He twice held the J. Frank Dobie Fellowship in Southwestern Literature. Goodwyn is the author of two novels, The Magic of Limping John (named Best Texas Book of the Year by the Texas Institute of Letters in 1944) and The Black Bull, as well as poems, folk tales, and articles on the craft of writing. He is a professor emeritus of the University of Maryland and lives in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Reviews

[Ameliedanjou · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stories from the 1930's about life as a ranch hand. Author was a kid then, learning the ropes. Includes stories told around the campfire.
This is well before miles of inside fences were built, before cattle pens. Mornings start with roping your horse. A truly vanished way of life.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting account of life on King Ranch nearly 100 years ago. Definitely worth the read just for the stories from the old ranch hands.

[MissJessie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a collection of short stories/essays about some of the various myths/stories told by cowboys and other workers at the King Ranch. It also contains a lot of interesting information about how the hands lived and worked, the living conditions on the ranch which is so huge that entire towns/villages were constructed around the ranch. The life there seems very much "company store" oriented, with housing, health care, free/inexpensive food, etc. being provided to the hands and their families. The men were cared for after they reached the age of retirement and life as described in this book was good.

This book was written in the 50's and so is quite dated in many ways. I doubt there are so many hands now 60 years later.

Additionally, most of the hands appeared to be Chicano or Mexican or whatever they were called in those days. I wonder how much discrimination there actually was; a lot, I imagine. Not mentioned here.

The folk tales of the hands are told in great detail and in many ways are the most interesting part of this book.

All in all, fairly interesting from a historical/sociological point of view. I would have liked more information about the powers-that-be and the King family in general, but this was apparently not within the scope of the writer.

[Velvetink]

Toni Frisell was mentioned in To War with Whitaker
By Hermoine Ranfurly. They met during WW2.