Cowboy Serenade - Lifetime Legacies & Lunch, part 4
Rae Gravley's collection of North Park stories continues with the Cowboy Band
Several other North Park neighbors added to the luncheon storytelling. Mac and Mabel Adkins, married 63 years, had spent most of their lives in the neighborhood. Mabel had come with the J.C. White family in 1909 in a covered wagon when she was fifteen months old. She attended the North Park school and Abilene High. The Adkins’ roots run deep and strong in the neighborhood. They grew their own food, had cows, took the street car to Abilene High, and later she laundered the shirts for the members of the cowboy band. One, after a gentle complaint to the band about her 6:00AM practices, the Adkins were serenaded by the band members attired in shorts and cowboy boots. Mabel says it was and is a good life! Mac, Mabel’s quiet husband, father of their four children and grandfather of many, passed the storytelling on to others in the room. He did grin when someone told on him riding his bicycle a total of 8,000 miles—and just around the streets of the neighborhood. “And it’s not a fancy bike; it’s one that is hard to ride!” someone in the room added.
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Rae Gravley volunteers as CCC's Story Chronicler. This collection of stories from North Park is added to each Wednesday morning.