Texan Magazine
Growing Up On The 101, The Largest Ranch In Hays County, Texas
Part III
By Marshall E. Kuykendall
Broker, Author, Rancher, Texan
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EDITOR’S NOTE
The life and times of Marshall Kuykendall, whose family was considered Texas ranching royalty, continues in this historical, poignant and sometimes shocking and sad, but very true tale of a genuine Texas legend…
Television may have the Dutton’s of the Yellowstone Ranch, but Texas has the real life Kuykendall’s.
You can read Part I and II in the last two issues of TEXAN MAGAZINE at texanmag.com
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We were not a huggy-lovey family. No, not at all.
You see, in the early 1900s, Alice, my mother, was underage when she married my father, who was much older than her. Scandalous and illegal. And guess what?……She was NOT from a ranching family.
Because of this, my aunts, uncles and grandmother had little to do with my mother.
——I have very little or no recollection of a Thanksgiving or Christmas at any time in my early years on the 101 Ranch. ——
That’s not to say that we didn’t gather over Thanksgiving down at the main house where Aunt Dorothy K. Hoskins and Grandmother Maggie Kuykendall lived. I have no memory of it. It’s a shadow in the back of my mind. Christmas was no better.
I was never the normal ranch kid who came home from school, gets off the bus, rushes into his room, puts his spurs on, goes out and saddles up his best pony and then looks for something to rope. Instead, I put on my deer skinned fringed shirt, grabbed my Winchester rifle and hit the woods. I was happier by myself than with others. On a ranch that size, there weren’t any “others” anyway.
“We do not rodeo on this ranch,” were my father’s words followed by a whack up -side the head with his “roping-rope” as a reminder. My father had ranch hands that worked the numerous head of livestock.
Dad played polo instead.
A BRIEF BIT ABOUT POLO, DAD AND TEXAS
Back in the 1930s, my memory of my dad is mixed because he was gone a lot. I was at school all winter and dad played polo in the summer.
Using the horsemanship skills dad learned on the ranch, he competed and won against more seasoned players and truly made a name for himself on the polo fields around the country.
MEANWHILE …..I WAS MADE SAFE
In 1946, I was 13 years old and about to be “saved,” by baptism.
Quick as a wink the preacher done flung me in what looked like a horse trough and then dunked me under the water.
I thought surely, I was gonna drown.
With that he jerked me out of the abyss and hollers, “Have you found Jesus yet?” I spit out some water and shook my head when slick as a button, he dunked me again and quickly pulled me back up, hollering again about finding Jesus, when I spit out about a gallon of water and stammered,
“PREACHER-ARE YOU SURE HE’S DOWN THERE?”
AH, the life and times of a newly baptized Christian!
HOME AND SIX MAN FOOTBALL
After 16 years of being placed in different foster homes and schools, (read Part I and II,) I was finally able to live full time at the ranch.
A new home was built, and I actually had my own room and a new school-Kyle High School. When one moves into a small community or small school system, everyone who has been there since the age of 3 is standing in the hall waiting to see what the new person looks like, etc.
My entry was no exception. The other thing, and this is important, no matter your gender you are REQUIRED to play all sports—the reason is simple—there are very few students and when one shows up as new blood, the coach (there was only one) will be the first to greet you and ask you your size for your football uniform.
Every football field in the district was cut out of an old farm or pasture. Pflugerville, NE of Austin, had the most “interesting” field that ran down along side of a pretty steep hill, so when you ran one way or the other, it always felt like one leg was shorter than the other’n. On top of that, they watered the football field from one water hydrant that was slap dab in the middle of the field and of course, it leaked, so there was a mud hole there about 10 feet all around it, plus the water hydrant stuck up just a wee bit.
Our quarterback called a long pass play and I took off like a shot looking over my shoulder and just as I reached up to catch a sure touchdown pass, I ran through that muddy bog hole, stumbled over the damn hydrant and fell. I was 35 years old before the scars ever healed on my elbows and my knees. AHH—The joys and memories of Six Man football.
GRADUATION, WAR AND PEACE
I graduated from dear ole Kyle High in the spring of ’50.
Since ranching was in my genes, I chose Sul Ross State Teachers College in Alpine, Texas, because I knew they offered a degree in Ranch and Range Management.
I hadn’t any more than checked in when the Korean War exploded and since men and boys 18 or older were eligible for the draft if not in school, I thought I was safe for a bit. Then I got a short note from my draft board who changed the rules and said, if I was not in an ROTC Unit by the spring semester, to get some warm clothes, ‘cuz I was gonna need them.
Sul Ross did not have an ROTC unit but Southwest Texas State Teachers College at San Marcos, did! I immediately informed my draft board that I had already made transfer plans and they let me stay in college. So, back to San Marcos I went.
I guess my spit and polish attitude paid off out there because I was chosen as commander of the entire ROTC Camp for our graduation week.
I was commissioned a fresh 2nd Lt. in Uncle Sam’s Air Force, with orders to report to Lackland, AFB in 30 days for processing.
I attended multi-engine training at Goodfellow Air Force Base, San Angelo, Texas to be trained in the B-25 WWII twin engine light bomber.
——-I really took to the B-25 and by the end of my 6-month tour, I could fly the hell out of that airplane.——-
They transferred me to Lockbourne AFB in Columbus, Ohio to be in a KC-97 Refueling Squadron in concert with the B-47 bombers stationed there.
The next thing I knew, they re-cut my orders, took me out of the KC-97 Tankers and slapped my butt down in a B-47 Squadron and told me to get ready to bomb Russia.
SAY WHAT??
Boy, none of that made me very happy. But I got even with them. In about four weeks a school opened up on base to start our up-grades to the B-47. I took one look at the classroom full of electric wires that was the electrical harness for a B-47 bomber and immediately came down with a 104 fever and the flu.
By the time I got out of the hospital, my class had moved on and I had missed that chance for future glory.
ARRIVAL OF B-25’S
I was informed that the base had received two executive B-25’s and no one on the base was certified to fly that aircraft except me!
A CALL FROM THE GENERAL
One afternoon, the Flight Ops fellow at Base Ops handed me a note and said the General wanted to talk to me. Well, we had a joke in our squadron about calling one of the men in our office, “The General.”
So, I dialed the number, this fellow answered, and I said, “What’s up, General, this is Lt. Kuykendall.”
Well, the other fellow said, “Lt., this is Captain so and so in General Wheelus’s office, the base commander, and he wants to speak to you here in his office at Headquarters. When can you be here?”
Well, I nearly fainted and said, “Right now, Captain.”
I hung up the phone wondering why in the heck would the base commander of Lockbourne AFB want to speak to ME?
THE ANSWER
Well, the real skinny was they were all at the Austin Country Club, drunk as 13 skunks and began to harass Gen. Edwinson about why he didn’t have Bill Kuykendall’s son WORKING for him.
It was not until years later when I decided to write a biography
about my old Commander that I discovered I had been in the presence of an extraordinary individual who very much epitomized what Gen. Patton had said at one time, that, “All war time Generals should be killed by the last bullet of the last battle, because they do not function well in peace time.” General Clarence Theodore Edwinson was that man.
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Read Part IV in the next issue of TEXAN MAGAZINE!
