Fort Worth, Oklahoma, Lake Worth Waco Texas Ranger Museum Trip

 Fort Worth, Oklahoma, Lake Worth, Waco Texas Ranger Museum Trip

The Admiral had some questions regarding her mom, her mom's parents, and a few missing links of the Henson/Lovelady line. After spending the pandemic years on online genealogy work at Ancestory.com and many other supporting web sites, discussions with family members, and visits to various state, county, city agency's seeking records,  she had enough compiled to submit an application to the Texas Genealogical Society for a First Texas Family Certificate. 

There were some boxes in Oklahoma in Norman and Tulsa that she needed to see from the Henson side of  the family, her aunt Alma Henson Mahaffey was the mother of the Oklahoma Mahaffey's. She has several Mahaffey cousins up there that may contain the pictures, documents, and letters dating two or more generations back. So she called up her cousins and they planned a cousin reunion to go through the boxes of scrapbooks together.

Fort Worth

We drove up to visit with the Admirals dad, Big Dave, for a few days. Big Dave is 90 years of age,  he saves up a few projects for us to do. Mostly general house projects, outdoor yard projects and eliminating wasp nest around the perimeter of the roof. The time in  Ft. Worth  helps break up the drive to Oklahoma.  

Oklahoma

The Five Cousins Robert, Lynn, Gregory, Jann, and Douglass(3 brothers and 1 sister)spent hours every day and evening pouring through the boxes, the rest of us spouses filled in as necessary. We had wonderful lunches dinners and some breakfast together. We got to meet a lot of the extended Oklahoma family from sons, daughters, grandsons, grand daughters, husbands and wife's mostly under the roof of the Greg Mahaffey's home. 

The weather was actually very nice during this early March weekend. We were provided very nice accommodation's at the family Barndominium. Upstairs is a very nice condo that could easily accommodate two families. Downstairs is a five stall horse barn full of horses and nearby includes fine accommodation's for a donkey, dogs, chickens, goat and sheep and a pig. We took full advantage of the barn life to get some exercise. We volunteered, along with Jann and Walt,  to clean out the horse stalls and load the manure into a manure spreader and then use the 4 wheeler to take the manure and spread it in a recently planted orchard.

When we were cleaning the stalls, this horse Two Socks (see them?) would continuously come stand right where we were trying to rake. Every time I moved to rake in another area Two Socks would come stand right where I was raking, I tried to gently encourage him away and then I looked down and noticed that his front leg had been injured. Mrs. Mahaffey was about to drive off when I motioned to her. She came over took a look and thanked me for noticing the injury. You can see the black bandage on his leg and reports are that he is fully healed and doing great.

Lake Worth

                The Admiral found this quaint lake cabin on Air B&B on Lake Worth. 

The Admiral and I both lived in Fort Worth during our early years yet we had never visited Lake Worth, If we went to the Lake it was always Benbrook Lake or Eagle Mountain Lake, so this was an opportunity to see what we had missed.

And just a few miles away was the Fort Worth Nature Center, never been here before either.

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They have quite a herd of Bison here

See: https://youtu.be/bF2bWiB5ghw 

The Bison shed horns

And Hoofs

NorthTexas Deer

This is a Prairie Dog town but the grass is to high to see any.

The land bridge to Greer Island

Trail getting kinda thick, glad it is early March

Back to Lake Worth at Sunset Park, a small Yacht Club with a fleet of Catalina 22's to race just across the cove.

The Yacht Club has a gate

There once was a big Casino at Lake Worth

Casino Beach in the 20's -40's

Not Sure??

We found Josephine Mahaffey's building where she had her art studio

But now these guys have the building

Several look out points at Lake Worth

Even Canadian Geese at Lake Worth!

Went back to Sunset Park for the Sunset but the sunset was around the bend instead.

Back at the Cabin

Lots of cats greeted us on our walks around the Lake.

We stopped back by Big Dave's house before returning to Austin, they had some straight line winds in the area the night before. We went for a walk before starting our drive, this house was just a few blocks away from Big Dave's, Huge oak tree blown down by the straight line winds.

Waco Texas Ranger Museum

There was some mention of James Lovelady, one of the Admirals ancestors, being a Texas Ranger, So we stopped in Waco at The Texas Ranger museum to do some research.

Just off Hwy 35 in the heart of Waco

First we went in to the round building to the left to see if they had any records indicating her ancestor was in fact a Texas Ranger.

That's where we learned this fact, anyone who protected Texas citizens back in those days could have been refereed to as a Ranger. Many early Texas Ranger records burned up in a fire. We do know He was a soldier in Mexican-American war in Texas. But no proof he was a Texas Ranger.

The Museum is just as much about the history of firearms in Texas as it is about the men and women who serve as Texas Rangers, I would bet that this is the largest collection of firearms anywhere in the world. These caught my eye immediately. My Grandfather owned the top and the third rifle. The top one is a Remington 30.06, his deer rifle, The third one a Remington 12 gauge Shotgun. He taught me how to shoot the shot gun and a Remington 22 rifle he also owned. That was just part of growing up in Texas in those days.

There are documents showing James Lovelady fought in the Mexican - American war, so in some respects, James Lovelady was a Texas Ranger.

The favorite part was Hi Ho Silver, Away!
I grew up in Abilene and Big Spring Texas, my favorite horse was named Elvis, If I pulled the reins just right Elvis would rare up just like Silver. I was riding Elvis in the Big Spring Rodeo Parade in downtown Big Spring, I was around 8 years old and when I got Elvis to rare up in the parade I felt just like The Lone Ranger

Back In Austin

Do You See The Moth?

Finally completed the rock project. This will save a lot of watering!

This guy just dropped by, he is a Unicorn, these guys cut down trees affected by the Aborgeddon, we still had two trees that needed to come down. Wasn't Cheep but at least he could get the job done now!

They call tree cutters Unicorns because they are so hard to find during Aborgeddon. This guy did 90% of the job
See: https://youtube.com/shorts/wwk45si1t_M

This tree had to be taken down in small sections to prevent roof damage.

This tree had to be taken down in small sections to prevent damage to the electrical service line.

This guy fell two difficult trees almost entirely on his on and stacked it all by the street.

We were so Very lucky the large brush collections came the very next day!! 
See: https://youtube.com/shorts/UHF4qBRWZko?feature=share

The next day I did some more spring cutting, This would be typical for a normal spring without the Aborgeddon!

I found a nice deal on Ebay, a Yamaha Electric Acoustic. I asked the seller for a little history on the instrument, she said her dad manages wealthy peoples homes and one of his clients had bought it for his kid but it sat in the closet for two years and was never used. He gave the guitar to her dad and then she was given the guitar, she sold it on Ebay to me. You will be hearing it in some of my upcoming tunes.

There are still lots of trees all over the Austin rea still needing to be cut and hauled off. This one is in a creek, there are lots of creeks all over Austin full of downed trees. I hope they get them out before spring Floods!!

A whole lot of Bluebonnets this year blooming early, Lots of em'!