I __BOOK PROFILE I
THE TRAIL DRIVERS OF
TEXAS
Compiled and edited by:
J. Marvin Hunter
Introduction by B. Byron Price
The Trail Drivers of Texas, issued in
1920, enlarged in 1924, and reissued
in 1925, holds an unrivaled place in
Texas literature. John Jenkins, in his
standard reference Basic Texas Books,
call it "the essential starting point for
any study of Texas trail driving days".
Walter Prescott Webb called it "absolutely
the best source there is on the
cattle trail".
These are the chronicles of the trail
drivers of Texas, those rugged men
and, sometimes women who drove
cattle and horses up the trails from
Texas to northern markets in the late
1800s. In tales of adventure and misfortune,
of drudgery and hardship and
danger, these masters of the frontier
vividly recall the early days of Texas
and the West and the drovers who
carved out the trails as their own.
This new edition of a Texas classic will
be available in April, 1985. $27.50
Published and available through the
University of Texas Press, P.O.
Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713, (512)
471-7233.
THE LOBLOLLY BOOK:
Water Witching, Wild Hog Hunting,
Home Remedies, Grandma's
Moral Tales, and Other Affairs of
Plain Texas Living
Texas is rich in folklore, folk crafts,
and folk history, all reflecting the
state's diverse cultures and strong regional
traditions. The Loblolly Book
draws upon this richness to present a
mixture of fascinating details and recollections
about life in Texas during
the early twentieth century.
Readers of this interesting book can
learn about the home remedies oldtimers
used to treat common ailments.
For a person with chicken pox, "kill a
black hen and scald it, then get the
water and bathe the person". They can
learn the imaginative ways feed sacks
were used to make clothing for the
family, and also about courtship, wedding,
and shivaree customs of a halfcentury
ago.
The Loblolly Book is published and
available through Texas Monthly Press,
P.O. Box 1569, Austin, TX 78767,
(512) 476-7085.
TEXAS TEARS AND TEXAS
SUNSHINE
Voices of Frontier Women
Edited by Jo Ella Powell Exley
Texas Tears and Texas Sunshine-familiar
names of quilts pieced by frontier
women. Here, Texas women fill in
sixteen pieces of Texas history with
stories that range from fighting Indians
to honeymooning on a trail drive.
Other pieces of the patchwork include
a survivor's tale of the massacre of her
family and her two years of captivity
with the Comanches, an eyewitness account
of the Revolution's "Runaway
Scrape," and descriptions of plantation
life from the viewpoints of a slave
and a slave-owner.
These scraps from the past are representative
of the lives which formed the
state of Texas. Texas Tears and Texas
Sunshine-the voices of the past are
woven into the fabric of the present.
Published and available through Texas
A&M University Press, Drawer C,
College Station, TX, (409) 845-1436.
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