Note: WorldConnect family trees will be removed from RootsWeb on April 15, 2023 and will be migrated to Ancestry later in 2023. (More info)

Individual Page


Family
Marriage:
Family
Marriage:
Sources
1. Title:   Lois James Garner

Notes
a. Note:   Nicknamed "Dobb" or "Dobbie" Obituary from The Boise City News - June 13, 2001 ANDY JAMES Our father traveled to the panhandle for the first time cradled in his mother's arms. He was three months old. Beside them on the buckboard driven by his mother, Mettie James, was Andy's three year old brother, Walter, Jr. Mettie oldest son, Jesse, age six, rode a horse. They were trailing the last herd of cattle from the old home place near Altus. The Canadian River was running high and swift that spring. Several cowboys tied their ropes to the buckboard and they made it across. The year was 1910. Ten years earlier, our great grandfather also named Andy James rode through the Texas panhandle in search of empty land. Altus had become crowded. Finding new places was nothing new to Andy James. A veteran of Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, he'd moved his family out of Virginia in 1869. He found a new beginning brokering land and cattle between the Chickasaw Nation and the Texas ranches south of the Red River. Now on the look-out for another new place, he found it north of the famed XIT Ranch, but he died before he could settle, extracting a death-bed promise to homestead from his wife and two (youngest) sons, Andy and Walter. At its peak, the James Brothers Ranch stretched from Dalhart into Cimarron County, four or five miles shy of Boise City. They ran cattle, always borrowing money for as much land as they could get their hands on. Life was good until the winter of 1918-1919, when a bottomed-out cattle market and the most brutal winter anyone had ever seen hit. Our father told us they didn't know they were broke until round-up. Now the brothers struggled to stay in business, selling off one piece of land after another, but it was never enough. Their catastrophe affected our father his whole life. "If I ever get any land, it's going to be paid for," he said. Telling you that our father didn't always want to be a rancher may surprise you. At Stratford High School, he excelled at basketball and track. When he started college, he wanted to teach history or math and coach basketball. We doubt he would have lasted long on a basketball court with his temper or in a classroom either. He had a gentle side too. His future mother-in-law, remembered his coming from the high school down to the elementary area to make sure his younger siblings had everything buttoned up or tied down. He loved children. . . but hated music. Mother never played the piano at home until he was gone. He married our mother, Mary Ingham, in December, 1931. Their first home was a tarpaper shack abandoned by an oil field company. Everything about it was flimsy. One morning they woke up to find snow on their blanket. In the summer the pigs they were raising would scratch their backs on the corners of the house, shaking it until Mother poured scalding water on them. When an opportunity to move to the old Wilmuth Place came along, they were elated. They lived there until buying their first land, a half-section where they spent their lives and where Brad and Tammy James now live. Like everyone else during the Dust Bowl, they barely scraped by. Daddy made a buck or two whenever and wherever he could. On April 1 1936, their son, Bob, was born. Six years later a daughter, Barbara, was born on May 31, 1942. Andy was a member of the First Baptist Church of Boise City. He also served on the school board, and as Cimarron County Republican Chairman for several years. He was a self-made man, an honest man, and one who liked to watch crops grow and the cattle fatten. On November 25, 1985, his world crashed when his beloved Mary died. He tried to fill the aching void with hard work. Nothing helped until he married Mildred Ingham, Mary's older brother's widow. They had 12 happy years and when she died, he began a slow nose dive which culminated in his death from pneumonia and heart failure on May 31, 2001 in the hospital at Elkhart, KS. He was 91 years old. He has five grandchildren: Brad James, Jeff James, Cindy Cordova and Leslie Fretwell. He has four great-grandchildren. Josh, Adam, Jessi and Taylor James; one brother Frank James and one sister, Lois Garner. Once, during the last month's of his life, Andy became impatient with his care giver, Charlene Gurley. She was speaking with someone at the door of his room. He told them to be quiet. "We'll be done in a few minutes, Andy. This is business." "Just be sure you're making money," he said. Grave side services were held Saturday, June 2, 2001 at the Stratford Cemetery, Stratford, TX with Bryan Long officiating. Interment was in the Stratford Cemetery. The family suggests memorial to the First Baptist Church of Boise City or the Cimarron Memorial Hospital. They may be left in care of the mortuary. Services by Cimarron Mortuary. (Barbara Carol James Fretwell)


RootsWeb.com is NOT responsible for the content of the GEDCOMs uploaded through the WorldConnect Program. The creator of each GEDCOM is solely responsible for its content.