|
Post by charleshelm on Nov 2, 2019 20:20:38 GMT -5
N.B. You can visit the town of Quanah today, although I am not sure why you would.
|
|
|
Post by linefacedscrivener on Nov 3, 2019 17:31:43 GMT -5
N.B. You can visit the town of Quanah today, although I am not sure why you would. Yeah, it is a small town, much like Cross Plains. But, then again, I go to Cross Plains every year now! Actually, I took a look and I would go pay a visit to Quanah, mostly for the history. I do like looking in unique stores and they have the store Rustic Relics which looks eclectic, and I like trying local restaurants and both Medicine Mound Depot Restaurant and the Cafe Blackbird look good. But the one thing I would really want to do in Quanah, Texas, is pay my respects to a Robert E. Howard Iron Man: Texas Ranger Captain Bill McDonald. The good Captain is buried in the Quanah Park Memorial Cemetery. He is the Texas Ranger who was sent to Dallas, Texas in 1896 to prevent the illegal heavyweight prize fight between Pete Maher and Bob Fitzsimmons (two more Robert E. Howard Iron Men). The story has it that when he got off the train and was met by the mayor of the town, McDonald was asked where the other Texas Rangers were. He is said to have replied, "Hell! Ain't I enough? There's only one prize-fight!" One Riot, One Ranger! If I do visit, I'll probably have to leave a half-bottle of good whiskey at his gravesite (the other half I would, of course, drink in his honor). His life's story was recounted by Bigelow Paine the the 1909 book: Captain Bill McDonald: Texas Ranger, which is a fun read. If you are interested in a more serious biography of him, the University of North Texas Press published one in 2009: Yours to Command: The Life and Legend of Texas Ranger Captain Bill McDonald
by Harold J. Weiss, Jr. I also see that Edward G. Givens, Jr. is also buried in the same cemetery and he was actually born in Quanah. He was a military test pilot who joined NASA in the 1960s and was involved in Apollo 1, the mission that caught fire and the three astronauts (all Iron Men) died: Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger B. Chaffee. Givens was then involved in the Apollo 7 mission and there is a good chance he may have been picked up for Apollo 9, but he died in an automobile accident in June of 1967. One website I like to review before visiting locations in Texas is Texas Escapes. Here is what they have to say on the town: QUANAH, TEXAS
|
|
|
Post by linefacedscrivener on Nov 5, 2019 11:23:17 GMT -5
Since we are on the topic of Quanah: Cynthia Ann Parker, Quanah Parker, and Quanah, Texas, I thought I would share Howard's telling of Quanah Parker's Story: “The story of Quanah Parker is brighter, as the story of man must nearly always be less fraught with tragedy than that of woman. Quanah escaped that slaughter on the Pease River, a lad of about twelve years of age. His life at first was bitter hard, for he lived only by his own skill and cunning; and it was this fierce training as well as his white blood, that made him superior in physique and craft to his red kinsmen. One doubts if he ever gave his white heritage any thought. Indeed, his portraits give no hint of any but Indian blood. “Doubtless his youth was much like that of all other young Comanches; he fished, hunted, stole horses, pillaged the frontiers of his white kinsmen, indulged in tribal warfares and the brutal “smoking horses” and tortured and took the scalps of his enemies when he could. When he came into young man-hood he loved Weckeah, the daughter of old Yellow Bear. But she had another suitor – Tannap, son of that old Eckitoacup, who had rivalled Peta Nocona in his youth. Eckitoacup was crafty and far-sighted, a red-skinned business man, really, and he was very wealthy. The Comanches measured their wealth by the number of their horses; Eckitoacup possessed no less than a hundred ponies. Quanah had exactly one horse. But he had an advantage no other Comanche possessed; he was half-white, and the greatgrandson of grim old John Parker who died in the smoking ruins of his fort among a red heap of Comanche corpses. Quanah went to his friends, wild young braves like himself, and they gave him their ponies. The significance of this can be easily under-rated. They were poor young braves, they owned only one horse apiece. When they gave their mounts to Quanah, it was as if they had freely tendered him their whole fortune, all their worldly goods and hope of future advancement. It was more; a Comanche’s horse was more to him than his bank account is to the average man. His horse meant the difference between life and death. When he gave it up or lost it, there was only one way to get another, and that was to steal it. And to steal meant that first he must borrow, in the savage ritual of “smoking horses” and carry the terrible scars of a raw-hide whip on his back for the rest of his life. For he could not raid the remudas of the settlers or the rival tribes on foot. “So Quanah brought ten horses to Yellow Bear’s wickiup – only to find that Eckitoacup had offered twenty horses to purchase his son a wife. There may be seen less a desire to pamper his worthless son than to avenge on Quanah the defeat he had met at the hands of the young brave’s father. Weckeah was prepared for the bridal party. “But, as has been reiterated, Quanah was half a white man. None of the Indian fatalism was his. In his veins burned the hot blood of those unconquerable white-skinned wanderers who have never known any gods but their own desires. Twenty-one young braves listened to Quanah’s words in amazement, and fell in with his desires. When night fell, shadowy figures stole to Weckeah’s tipi. There was a low rustling of whispering, then she glided from the tent and became herself a shadow among the hurrying shadows. When dawn rose, a fierce yell went up from the camp on the Canadian. Quanah was gone, and with him Weceah and twenty-one of the most stalwart young braves. “They rode southward, into the mountain country of West Texas. There they pitched their camp and began raiding the ranches of the whites – a dangerous game, a breath-taking, touch-and-go game. But they prospered, and soon owned a great number of mounts. To the outlaw band came other discontented young braves, and the young men slipped back to the main tribe to steal women for themselves. After perhaps a year, the clan had grown from a score-odd, to several hundred. A new tribe had come into existence; a new star flashed redly across the frontier; a new chief brandished his scalp-tufted lance and sent his war-whoop shivering across the river-lands. “Then came old Eckitoacup, thirsting for vengeance, with a horde of lean naked riders, painted for war, their lances glimmering in the dust cloud their horses’ hoofs lifted along the horizon. It has been said that Eckitoacup was a business man. His lust for vengeance did not exceed his caution, his concern for his own painted hide. He found Quanah’s clan ready and more than willing to join battle. And he backed down. There was a parley, the pipe of peace was smoked, and Eckitoacup’s injured feelings were soothed with a gift of nineteen fine horses from Quanah’s now enormous herds. “But though Quanah’s red brothers were no match for him in force or craft, he could not for ever compete on equal terms with his white kin. His continual raids on the horse-herds had the Texans fighting mad. And in those days, when Texans lost their temper, blood was spilt in appalling quantities. The soldiers stationed along the frontier were more or less useless, but the Rangers were riding, and the settlers were notching their sights on their own hook. The crack of the rifle answered the twang of the bow-string, the bowie knife dipped as deeply in red paint as the tomahawk; raid was met by fierce counter-raid, and the white men, who in early days had barely held their own in their tenacious grasp on the land, were moving like a juggernaut westward, crushing all in their path. “Quanah pulled up stakes and drifted back up the long trail to the Canadian River again. Of his desperate defensive wars and eventual and inevitable defeat, there is little point in telling. He came at last to live in a valley of the Wichita Mountains, in a two-storied frame house, “the White House of the Comanches”, with thirty rooms and all the comforts of civilization. Of his thousands of acres of land, some two hundred and fifty were put into cultivation; his horses numbered a hundred, and of “whoa-haws” he had a thousand – nor is it recorded that his more needy kinsmen ever lacked for beef. He was one of the six chiefs in the parade at the inauguration of Theodore Roosevelt – the others were Little Plume, the Blackfoot, American Horse and Hollow Horn Bear, both Sioux, Geronimo, the Apache, and Buckskin Charlie, the Ute. He was a personal friend of Teddy’s. He educated his children at Chilocco and at Carlisle. Among the Indians he wore moccasins and buckskins, among the whites he wore the most genteel garments of civilization – so-called. When he died, I do not know, but in 1905 he was living in his big white man’s house, in the Wichita valley, with his wives Weckeah, To-ah-nook, Too-pay, and Too-ni-ce. And many a swashbuckler of the middle ages has enjoyed a reputation for a dramatic career with less reason than Quanah Parker might boast. The Parker family played an important part in the settlement and developing of Texas. Colonel Isaac Parker, in particular, Cynthia Anne’s uncle, was prominent in the politics of the Republic, and later a Senator when the State carried out its folly of coming into the Union. Parker County, in which I was born, was named for him, in memory of the times he spent in that then wild country, searching for his kidnaped neice. “Nor is Quanah forgotten; the county-seat of Hardeman County is named for him.” --Robert E. Howard to August Derleth, January 1933 There are numerous documentaries on Quanah Parker for the mere fact his, as Howard recounts, is an interesting story. Here is a documentary on Quanah Parker from the History Channel:
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 5, 2019 12:15:29 GMT -5
Thank you for the excellent and very informative posts, Linefacedscrivener.
|
|
|
Post by Von K on Nov 5, 2019 15:41:29 GMT -5
Thanks for your recent updates, linefacedscrivener.
|
|
|
Post by linefacedscrivener on Nov 6, 2019 11:04:43 GMT -5
Thanks to everyone for the kind words on Howard's "An Unborn Empire" - I appreciate it. Since I have been talking about the Cynthia Ann Parker and Quanah Parker, I thought I would mention some additional reading and viewing that details their story. I would imagine, had Howard lived, he may have continued to write tales of the Southwest, the Frontier, and especially about Texas. If he had fleshed out the story of the search for Cynthia Ann Parker after her kidnapping, I imagine it would end up being a lot like Alan Le May's The Searchers, a fantastic book of historical fiction on the Parker story. I highly recommend it. And, of course, the book was then made into one of the best films John Wayne ever made. If you have not watched it, of if you have not watched it in a long time, I highly recommend it. And, finally, if you are interested in a good non-fiction book about both Cynthia Ann and Quanah, I would recommend S.C. Gywnne's Empire of the Summer Moon:
Enjoy!
|
|
|
Post by linefacedscrivener on Nov 7, 2019 11:31:25 GMT -5
“An empire was being built on muscle and guts and audacity, and men dreamed gigantically and wrought terrifically. No dream was too mad, no enterprise too tremendous to be accomplished.” —Howard from “The Vultures of Wahpeton” In my last post on "An Unborn Empire," I mentioned that if Howard had continued to write, he may very well have expanded into writing more Texas history. I certainly think so, and so do many others. Still, I thought I would provide some evidence for why I think Robert E. Howard's Texas is important to understanding Robert E. Howard and his writing. If the quote that I lead off this thread with doesn't get at it, I am not sure what would. In his letter to Smith in 1930, he said himself he was going to write a history of early Texas days some time, and he thought he would name it something like "An Unborn Empire." Had he lived, he may have done just that. But, don't take my word for it. A far better and reliable source is Howard scholar Rusty Burke. In his article, “The Active Voice: Robert E. Howard’s Personae,” in The Dark Man (Vol. 3, pp. 22-26), Burke states, “In studying Howard’s letters closely, and correlating his comments with the fiction and poetry he was producing at any given time, an interesting pattern emerges which may help us understand a little better this ‘internal force and sincerity’ which Howard brought to his work” (p. 22). Burke continues, “Particularly from the mid-1920s through his death in 1936, we can trace the development of three different personae, three different Robert E. Howards who would speak through this fiction. We may dub these, respectively, The Boxer, The Celt, and the Texan” (p. 22). Burke demonstrates that Howard took on the personae he wrote about by learning and reading about the subject and then writing on that topic. The personae at the end of Howard’s life had assuredly become “The Texan.”
|
|
|
Post by linefacedscrivener on Nov 8, 2019 11:17:44 GMT -5
There is perhaps no one better than H.P. Lovecraft to demonstrate that Robert E. Howard was developing a Texas personae that most likely would have further developed into his stories had he lived: “He has spent most of his life knocking about ranches & boom towns in Texas.” —H.P. Lovecraft to August Derleth, Oct. 16, 1930, Essential Solitude, The Letters of H.P. Lovecraft and August Derleth Vol. 1, p. 280. “Howard is 27, & is probably the greatest living authority on the history & traditions of the Southwest, & the lives of America’s noted outlaws.” –H.P. Lovecraft to Robert Bloch, Apr. 27, 1933, Letters to Robert Bloch, p. 9. “Howard is the chap who can give you the colour—the sweep of the oil camps across the primal Texas plains, and the pageantry and social developments connected with them. He does not welcome the coming of derricks and the slimy black ooze, but he is acutely sensitive to their place in the long drama of the Lone Star country.” –H.P. Lovecraft to Wilfred Blanch Talman, Oct. 1930, Selected Letters of H.P. Lovecraft Vol. 3, p. 173. “Some of the long argumentative & descriptive letters of our group really approach literature—the most remarkable ones coming from Robert E. Howard, whose reminiscences & historical sketches of his native Texas country are literature in the truest sense of the word, far more so than any save the very best of his stories.” —H.P. Lovecraft to R.H. Barlow, Mar. 14, 1933, O Fortunate Floridian: H.P. Lovecraft’s Letters to R.H. Barlow, p.56. “He is a living compendium of the sanguinary annals of the southwest—which he re-tells with all the fresh gusto of a primitive epic poet.” —H.P. Lovecraft to J. Vernon Shea, Oct. 23, 1931, Letters to J. Vernon Shea, Carl F. Strauch, and Lee McBride White, p. 70. “He has a poet’s sense of the epic sweep of Texas life & history, & really ought to link up more with this native & lifelong soil of his. Perhaps he will some day—I shall certainly encourage it.” —H.P. Lovecraft to August Derleth, Nov. 1, 1930, Essential Solitude, The Letters of H.P. Lovecraft and August Derleth Vol. 1, p. 283. “He certainly ought to write a history of the Southwest.” —H.P. Lovecraft to Clark Ashton Smith, Dec. 25, 1930, Downward Spire, Lonely Hills: The Letters of H.P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith, p. 287.
|
|
|
Post by linefacedscrivener on Nov 11, 2019 14:10:43 GMT -5
Still more evidence from those who recognized "The Texan" personae in Robert E. Howard comes from his one and only girlfriend, Novalyne Price, and the only fellow pulp writer that he ever met, E. Hoffman Price (no relationship). Novalyne Price Ellis in her book One Who Walked Alone, recalled how Howard “says that the hero he likes best is a cowboy who is a little bit larger than life” (p. 144). Later, in an interview with Rusty Burke, she had this to say about Howard writing a book about Texas: “Although he said he put something of Texas in everything he wrote, I’m still very sorry that he didn’t give himself time to write the novels about Texas he wanted to write.” —Ellis, Novalyne Price. Day of the Stranger: Further Memories of Robert E. Howard, p. 46. [ E. Hoffman Price in the picture above is on the far right in profile, the other two are Henry Kuttner & Clark Ashton Smith] E. Hoffman Price's essay on “The Memory of Robert E. Howard,” is filled with references to Howard as The Texan. “His was typical Texas talk,” Price wrote, “and he knew his medium: salty, rugged, volcanic, colorful—shot with whimsy, and set off with phrases of scriptural simplicity” ( The Last Celt, p. 85). As he got to know Howard in that short visit, he opined, “More and more, I began to understand why his western burlesques were so convincing. For all their Homeric extravagance, or perhaps, indeed, because of it, they were more true than any sober narrative could have been” (p. 86). Price always thought Howard’s westerns were superior to any of his other writings because, “Howard’s material came from the land and the people of his childhood and his manhood” and “he had not only spirit, but also, the facts, the locale, the characters, the stuff whereof his life had been shaped” (p. 86). Price saw Howard in the last personae he had embraced; Howard was The Texan.
|
|
|
Post by linefacedscrivener on Nov 12, 2019 9:39:41 GMT -5
So, let me wrap up my evidence for Robert E. Howard possibly having moved on to writing more about Texas had he lived and to demonstrate the motivation behind this thread. The best way to do that is to summarize with a quote from H.P. Lovecraft in a letter to E. Hoffman Price, after Lovecraft had learned of Howard's suicide: “He made the southwest and its traditions live before my eyes—supplementing his descriptions with generous batches of pictorial matter (all now in my files) whenever he made a trip to any place of historical or scenic interest. He also sent various pertinent odds and ends such as rattlesnake rattles—with one set of which he included a page of comment so vivid and so finely phrased that I’d like to publish it some day as a prose-poem (Indeed, I’d like to publish all his letters with their descriptive and historical riches).” —H.P. Lovecraft to E. Hoffman Price, July 5, 1936, Selected Letters of H.P. Lovecraft, Vol. 5, p. 278. H.P. Lovecraft’s idea is a sound one. Publishing those portions of Robert E. Howard’s letters, and perhaps his poetry -- those “descriptive and historical riches, -- seems like a truly viable idea. Although Howard did not get the chance to do so during his lifetime, by creating this thread, at least, Howard's idea of writing a history of early Texas days entitled An Unborn Empire lives.
|
|
|
Post by linefacedscrivener on Nov 12, 2019 9:47:38 GMT -5
With a Set of Rattlesnake Rattles - A Prose Poem"Here is the emblem of a lethal form of life for which I have no love, but a definite admiration. The wearer of this emblem is inflexibly individualistic. He mingles not with the herd, nor bows before the thrones of the mighty. Between him and the lords of the earth lies an everlasting feud that shall not be quenched until the last man lies dying and the Conqueror sways in shimmering coils above him. "Lapped in sombre mystery he goes his subtle way, touched by, neither pity nor mercy. Realizations of ultimate certitudes are his, when the worm rises and the vulture sinks and the flesh shreds back to the earth that bore it. Other beings may make for Life, but he is consecrated to Death. Promise of ultimate dissolution shimmers in his visible being, and the cold soulless certainty of destruction is in his sibilances The buzzards mark his path by the pregnant waving of the tall grasses, and the blind worms that gnaw in the dark are glad because of him. The foot of a king can not tread on him with impunity, nor the ignorant hand of innocence bruise him unscathed The emperor who sits enthrones in gold and purple, with his diadem in the thunder-clouds and his sandals on the groaning backs of the nations, let him dare to walk where the rank grass quivers without a wind, and the lethal scent of decay is heavy in the air. Let him dare - and try if his pomp and glory and his lines of steel and gold will awe the coiling death or check the dart of the wedge-shaped head. "For when he sings in the dark it is the voice of Death crackling between fleshless jaw-bones. He reveres not, nor fears, nor sinks his crest for any scruple. He strikes, and the strongest man is carrion for flapping things and crawling things. He is a Lord of the Dark Places, and wise are they whose feet disturb not his meditations." -Robert E. Howard to H.P. Lovecraft, October 1933
|
|
|
Post by linefacedscrivener on Nov 14, 2019 10:20:00 GMT -5
"I’ve lived in land boom towns, railroad boom towns, oil boom towns, where life was raw and primitive, and all I can say is: Texas is just too big for me to grasp. A better man than I will have to write her history." --Robert E. Howard to H.P. Lovecraft, October 1930
I believe Howard was the better man to write the history of Texas, just perhaps not in 1930. By 1936, however, as he developed his Texas persona, I believe he had become the right person. Still, having said that, listen to how he conveys one aspect of Texas to Lovecraft in that very same letter: "I’ve seen towns leap into being overnight and become deserted almost as quick. I’ve seen old farmers, bent with toil, and ignorant of the feel of ten dollars at a time, become millionaires in a week, by the way of oil gushers. And I’ve seen them blow in every cent of it and die paupers. I’ve seen whole towns debauched by an oil boom and boys and girls go to the devil whole-sale. I’ve seen promising youths turn from respectable citizens to dope-fiends, drunkards, gamblers and gangsters in a matter of months." --Robert E. Howard to H.P. Lovecraft, October 1930.
He had a strong understanding of not just historical Texas -- historical from his perspective at the time -- but also an understanding of what was happening in Texas during his lifetime. Oil is obviously an important part of Texas life and culture, but he saw the ill effects the oil industry was having on the Texas people and their communities. Understanding the early Texas oil boom is important for understanding Robert E. Howard, so I searched for a video that would adequately present these early days of Texas oil. That proved difficult. Most of the videos are one-sided, railing against the oil industry or are nothing more than mouthpieces for the industry itself. The best one I could find follows, though it is not as hard-hitting of the industry as REH, it still presents a good overview of the Oil Men:
|
|
|
Post by Von K on Nov 16, 2019 6:58:21 GMT -5
Great insights here linefacedscrivener. I especially appreciated the quote from Day of the Stranger. First words from that book I've read.
|
|
|
Post by linefacedscrivener on Nov 18, 2019 15:05:36 GMT -5
Great insights here linefacedscrivener. I especially appreciated the quote from Day of the Stranger. First words from that book I've read. Thanks, Von K. I appreciate the kind words. Rusty Burke's interview with Novalyne Price, titled Day of the Stranger, is definitely a great source for all things Howard. He managed to gain a number of new insights from his interview with Novalyne Price Ellis, as well as have her expound on a number of things from her book One Who Walks Alone.
|
|
|
Post by linefacedscrivener on Nov 18, 2019 15:13:40 GMT -5
“The old Texas is gone or is going fast. All the plains are fenced in, where in my childhood I’ve ridden for a hundred miles without seeing a foot of barbed wire.” --Robert E. Howard to H.P. Lovecraft, October 1930 “My grandmother - born in Alabama and raised in Mississippi and Arkansas - used to say that she’d never heard of barbed wire till she came to Texas in 1885.” --Robert E. Howard to H.P. Lovecraft, February 1931 These are the only two quotes I could find from Robert E. Howard in which he mentions barbed wire, but the first quote neatly sums up how barbed wire changed Texas. That is the one of the many things that impresses me about Howard; not only does he recognize how certain things changed Texas historically, but he was also able to recognize how things occurring during his lifetime were also changing his beloved state (See the previous post on the Oil Men). The following video from the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum (which I highly recommend if you ever find yourself in Oklahoma City, OK) demonstrates in a short 3+ minute video everything Howard had to say about the topic. Enjoy!
|
|