By L.J. Abernathy
PPP Columnist

First of all, thanks to Priscilla Geeo for her patience with this Ole Heifer in renewing her subscription.

There was a “pilot error” which resulted in some confusion when “Prissy” rejoined the Palo Pinto Press reader family.

Thanks for your patience, dear friend. Merry Christmas to you and your family.

With that apology and thank you in place, let’s begin our gratitude list with the fact we are not caught in a drought this month.

My Grandmother Abernathy used to call this weather “Indian Summer” due to the Indigenous People and the pioneers using any warm days after Thanksgiving to catch up on their storage of goods for the winter.

Audie Abernathy was familiar with some of the natives who visited the village of Palo Pinto. One visitor, as Audie recalled, was a friendly fellow who was most likely a member of the Lipan tribe or nation.

According to Audie, when she was a small child, the native would come to the home of her parents Ida Corbin and James Crittenden Son on the southwest side of the village to trade small game for butter.

Sometimes, the caller would bring a portion of a larger kill such as a quarter or smaller portion of a deer.

According to my grandmother, whose father founded and published the Palo Pinto County Star, the man, dressed in buckskin, would appear silently, almost magically from her perspective. He would wait at the edge of the old Corbin homeplace property until he was invited to the door.

The Lipan were a friendly people who farmed and were hunter gatherers much like the old settlers with whom they interacted. They were in as much danger from the more nomadic tribes as were the pioneer settlers of the day.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, my grandmother had a large iron pot with a spot repaired where a less cordial indigenous person had shot and cracked the pot in extremely cold weather.

Audie was also the niece of Joe Corbin who was fishing with Jesse Veale when the slightly older Veale was killed by a raiding warrior at the Mouth of Ioni Creek on the Brazos.

According to most reliable sources, the death of Jesse Veale and the death of members of Choctaw Tom’s family and hunting party on Elm Creek on the then Slaughter/Harris Ranch property were two of the incidents which resulted in extreme conflict between the settlers and the natives who lived along the Brazos River and her tributaries.

Eventually, the Indigenous People were marched from the two internment camps on the Upper Brazos to Oklahoma. At the time, and sometimes still today, the camps were mistakenly called reservations.O

At least in this Ole Heifer’s heart, all of their spirits, those of the early settlers and the indigenous peoples alike, seem to dwell among us on some of these sparkling days of early winter.

Be they warriors, hunters and gatherers, farmers or the children and descendants of many cultures, both Indigenous and European… …at least the memory of them survives.

Especially, perhaps, on warm and sunny days…

Readers will find more details about the death of members of Choctaw Tom’s hunting party at the Texas Fort Tours site, particularly in the work of J. Carroll McConnell.

Search for Fort Tours; J. Carroll McConnell book.

There is a most romantic and likely quite possible version of the escape of Joe Corbin and the death of Jesse Veale in the book “Goodbye to a River” by John Graves.

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Whether the missing hard copy is a customer service issue or the neighbor’s dog was the culprit – we’ll get you a copy of the newspaper you have missed.

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Please know you are invited to drop by the office at 501 E. Hubbard to renew Monday through Thursdays from 9 a.m. until 1 p.m.

As always, your patronage of the Press is truly appreciated.

Without subscribers, there could be no local newspaper!