Parker County Today Dec. 2018 | Page 92

Larry Don Womack 2551 State Hwy. 6, De Leon, TX, 76444 Phone 855-933-6497 Fax 254-893-3400 R iding S chool B U IL D CON FI DE NC E ! MAKE FRIENDS! LEARN TO RIDE! 90 83 Years of Service Join us for lessons, pony camps, and loads of fun on horseback at our top level facility in eastern Parker County. 4302 East Bankhead Hwy Hudson Oaks, Texas 76087 Wendy Gerrish & Erin Heineking, Owners Christian Heineking, Head of Operations 817-341-2012 OCTOBERHILL . COM whacked his team into motion and sped off, leaving the child in a cloud of dust. Kate, witnessing the conver- sation, pitied the child and demand- ed the driver pull up and let the girl on. The teamster balked because he believed the girl had no money. When Kate paid for her ticket, the stage stopped and the wandering girl climbed aboard. During the trip Kate learned the girl was an orphan and homeless. As this story goes, once in Fort Griffin, Kate arranged for the child to stay with a hotel owner and his wife who eventually adopted her. The girl grew up to be a schoolteacher and remained close to Kate, and, “According to Josiah Wright Mooar, a buffalo hunter and one of Kate’s clos- est friends, the close relationship she had with the girl helped change her immoral ways. Kate was a surrogate aunt and took her responsibility for the child seriously. The reformation included giving up operating saloons and bordellos and playing cards. She attended church regularly and raised funds for various charitable endeav- ors.” Just as an aside, most accounts of Rowdy Kate’s last days have her vanishing into thin air, her trail going cold. As for Rowdy Joe, he ended his days in Denver on Feb. 11, 1899, drunk and shot dead in the Walrus Saloon by an ex-policeman he’d been berating. Knowing Joe’s affinity for gunplay, E.A. Kimmel just pulled his pistol and shot him. Rowdy Joe was unarmed. The following words appeared above his obituary in the Feb. 17 edition of the Wichita Eagle: ROWDY JOE KILLED Famous Dance-hall manager of Wichita is dead DIES WITH BOOTS ON History of a Man Who Had No Equal of his Kind Dying with one’s boots on basically meant that one had not retired to a sick bed or died in his sleep. He’d been about his business when death came, whether fighting Indians, roof- ing a cabin or, as was Joe’s case, propping up a bar and fuming acri- mony. Writer’s note: Gleaning history