Several Christmases ago, my mother gifted me with an original copy of J. Frank Dobie's 1931 classic work, 'On the Open Range'. The kind of old book whose hardbound binding is falling apart and faded at the seams from countless openings and closings. Worn pages, lightly darkened at the edges through years of captivated fingers turning pages. And most curiously, this treasured book has a very distinct smell (as old books do) reminiscent of my Grandfathers' garage, that was filled with, amongst countless other things, boxes upon boxes of books.
J. Frank Dobie, for those of you unfamiliar, was an American folklorist and writer best know for his depiction of rural Texas, and the Southwest, in all its richness and tradition, in the days of the open range. It has been said that he is the first well known Texas author to be recognized internationally for his writing work. But Dobie was also known in his lifetime, as a public figure, for his outspoken liberal views against Texas state politics. The FBI actually secretly investigated Dobie during the McCarthy era as one of Texas' leading dissenters. I sum him up as a John Muir/Edward Abby combined with a Molly Ivins/Jim Hightower. Basically, someone I could totally hang out with around a campfire and throw back a few beers with.
After receiving this book, I prominently placed it on a shelf that helped add a little 'rustic' to my home, never bothering to actually read it. Many months passed, and then one day it caught my eye and I picked it up and began turning pages and reading a few paragraphs. I became mesmerized as Dobie began describing with remarkable clarity the land of the Southwest that I so dearly loved and had spent countless times wandering, alone and with friends. I was completely drawn in. He 'spun yarns' about cowboys and Indians, long traildrives and hidden gold; the true old Wild West. I believe the book rested on my nightstand for a few weeks as I read and re-read stories and tales of the open range. I then sought out other writings of Dobie and became equally as charmed and delighted. Thus, my affection for Dobie began.
He loved the outdoors and the miracle of Nature with a passion that I can identify with and embrace. Anyone that writes these words is an inspiration to me..."For me the beautiful resides in the physical, but it is spiritual. I have never heard a sermon as spiritual in either phrase or fact as 'waters on a starry night are beautiful and free'. No hymn lifts my heart higher than the morning call of the bobwhite or the long fluting cry of sandhill cranes out of the sky at dusk. I have never smelled incense in a church as refining to the spirit as a spring breeze laden with the aroma from a field of bluebonnets." Another favorite quote of mine Dobie uttered was when he was on a teaching fellowship at Cambridge University in England and was getting 'grilled' on the American Constitution. He explained to the relentless room of young British academics that he hadn't read the Constitution since he was a boy and didn't understand it then. But that he DID know 'the length of horns on longhorn steers, the music inherent in coyote howling and the smell of coffee boiled over mesquite wood". Another audience put at ease by Dobie's charm and quick wit.
Dobie was born on a Texas ranch in September of 1888, the eldest of six children. He lived on this ranch, of 7000 acres, until he was 16. In 1910 he graduated from Southwestern University in Georgetown and later earned a master's degree from Columbia University in New York City, in 1913. The next year he joined the faculty of the University of Texas, leaving in 1917 to serve in the field artillery in WWI. He returned to the faculty in 1919 only to leave once again after becoming dissatisfied with the academic life. For a while he managed his uncles ranch, a quarter of a million acres(!) along the Nueces River. It was here that Dobie conceived the idea to which he then devoted his life. The collecting and retelling of legends and folk tales of Texas.
He returned, once again, to UT, and in 1922 became the Secretary of the Texas Folklore Society, a position he held for 21 years. His first book was published in 1929, "A Vaquero in Brush Country". In 1933 Dobie became a full professor in the English department of UT, thus becoming the first native Texan to receive a full professorship in that department at the University. This was unusual as Dobie did not hold a PhD. He was asked often about this, prompting his famous quote "The average PhD thesis is nothing but a transference of bones from one graveyard to the another". Dobie taught 'Life and Literature of the Southwest' at UT. His obituary called it the most popular course at the University.
Prior to his professorship and after a yearlong research grant Dobie took the time to make a 2000 mile trek, on muleback, across the Southwest gathering folklore. He notes his research was found around campfires, trading posts and chuck wagons.
While quite popular with students and fellow professors, Dobie often clashed with the University's regents over policy and politics. His insistence on 'free-range' thinking led him to preach such radical actions as full integration of the University of Texas. In the 1940's! As you can imagine, this was not well received by the governing body of The University.
He was well known among his contemporaries for his long personal war against what he believed to be as 'bragging Texans, religious prejudice, restraints on individual liberty and the assault of the mechanized world on the human spirit." Dobie boldly fought for labor, free speech and civil rights well before these causes became acceptable to most Anglo Texans.
What on earth would Dobie think of Texas politics today?
"I have come to value liberated minds as the supreme good life on earth"-J. Frank Dobie
So what does J. Frank Dobie have to do with Rockmoor? Well, back in 1959, after a severe illness, Dobie sold his ranch in Marble Falls, Texas and bought a 250 acre ranch 14 miles southwest of Austin, which he named Paisano. (paisano is the Spanish name for the ground bird 'chaparral' more commonly known as a 'roadrunner') Paisano, as many of you know, lies adjacent to Rockmoor and shares a fenceline. Dobie used this ranch as a writer's retreat until his death in 1964. Following his death there was then a movement, amongst his friends and contemporaries, to preserve the ranch. Shortly after, in 1966, the deed was handed over to the University of Texas. The mission statement of Paisano stated, "Paisano will be operated by the University of Texas as a permanent memorial to J. Frank Dobie and the primary use will be to encourage creative artistic efforts in all fields, particularly writing. It will be kept in its present, more or less, natural state and the ranch house will be kept in simple style, very much as it was when Frank Dobie occupied it."
Two fellowships, of six months, are awarded each year by a committee chosen by the presidents of the University of Texas and the Texas Institute of Letters. The applicants must be native Texans, or Texas residents for at least two years or persons whose writing is substantially identified with the state. It is quite an honor for a writer to be chosen. The list of past 'fellows' is an impressive one. All are published authors with many familiar names.
I recently contacted the director of the Paisano Fellowship program and have set up a visit to Paisano in the coming weeks. I hope to share that experience with you afterwards. I'm eager to see with my own eyes this historical place that I have heard so much about since childhood. Dobie has settled into his own place in Texas history and I think it's very special that he lived and worked so close to Rockmoor. It's not everyday that one has a neighbor that is inducted into the Western Writers Hall of Fame (1986) or is awarded the Medal of Freedom by an American President(fellow Texan Lyndon Johnson in 1964). Not to mention one who is buried in the Texas State Cemetery in downtown Austin. Dobie is a bona fide slice of Texas history, as well as American, and he lived right down the road. I like to think that he paid Rockmoor a visit a time or two.
If any of you plan on traveling the deserts of the Southwest or the brush country of Big Bend soon, you should find a copy of Dobie's work and bring it along. I've no doubt you will be delighted, as I am, by his story telling and images he paints with words. And then join me around the campfire at Rockmoor for a few beers and we can tell and retell our own adventures. Because I never get tired of hearing them.
Thanks for the book Mom.
Till next time...
Sally Anne
*photo courtesy of Center for American History*
No comments:
Post a Comment