This is the last day as we were getting ready to leave the Ranch in CO to go back to TX for the winter. For the first time I see my father in my picture. I hope I can be the man he was, I still have a way to go.

Walter (goat) Davis was 72 when he died. Daddy had very little formal education, he made it to the fifth grade in school. His mom was alone & he had to help support the family, he had 3 brothers & 5 sister, he was the oldest. When I was born in 1941 Dad & Mother lived in a log house in East Texas. The road to the farm was dirt & Dad would carry an axe in the back of his car, so he could cut a path around any mud holes in the road he could not drive through. They left the farm when my brother was born in 1944. There was a farmer just west of
Athen who had a tractor & so Dad made a deal with him to farm his land (shear-cropper). Dad & Mom later moved to Waxahachie just before I started to school. Dad got a job at Tyler Refrigeration where he later retired. Dad never missed work, would do anything, he saw or found very little in could not do. Dad would cook, clean house, wash clothes, work on cars, sew, my Dad even made a quilt which I have. He found a pattern of a house quilt & ask Mother about it she said why not you make it. So he did. Beside the farm Dad & Mom bought & paid for three homes, & when he retired did not owe anyone. When he retired they went down & bought a new car and paid cash. At age 50 he started putting 50% of his check in saving bonds. They saved enough money to see them both threw retirement & even had a little left when Mother died.