Saturday, February 25, 2006
Grandpa's Legacy
Grandpa's Legacy
When Grandpa Gunn came west to farm,
no plow had broke the land.
No weed, no cactus, no mesquite,
just grass on every hand.
He was the best of neighbors,
a Christian through and through.
Just ask for help and he was there,
most everybody knew.
A transient family stopped awhile,
the pregnant mother sick.
She died, and Grandpa's helping hand
never missed a lick.
He took the boards right off his barn,
a coffin for to build,
and buried mom and infant
up on the gravel hill.
The grave remains, a monument,
reminder from above,
of a Grandpa that I never knew
and his legacy of love.
When Grandpa Gunn came west to farm,
no plow had broke the land.
No weed, no cactus, no mesquite,
just grass on every hand.
He was the best of neighbors,
a Christian through and through.
Just ask for help and he was there,
most everybody knew.
A transient family stopped awhile,
the pregnant mother sick.
She died, and Grandpa's helping hand
never missed a lick.
He took the boards right off his barn,
a coffin for to build,
and buried mom and infant
up on the gravel hill.
The grave remains, a monument,
reminder from above,
of a Grandpa that I never knew
and his legacy of love.
Grandpa was Lycurgus Aurelius Gunn, of Scottish descent, a good friend of David Lipscomb, a well-known preacher of the time. He moved from Bell County, Texas to Motley County (lower panhandle) in about 1901, when his youngest child (my dad, Robert Houston) was 8 years old. Curg's second wife had died when little Hute was two years old. This was before the town of Flomot existed, thus no cemetery. The nearest place to buy lumber was Lockney, probably a day's hard ride up the Caprock in a wagon. After his death, the farm was sold to a nephew, and as I was growing up we sometimes helped him hoe his cotton crop in the summer. One day a man with a long grey beard stopped by and asked about the grave where his wife and baby had been buried all those years ago. It was a small area out in the field, but never touched by the plow, covered in mesquite grass and a few small trees.
Cora Gail Trent
www.cgtrent.com
Cora Gail Trent
www.cgtrent.com
