Window to the Landscape
E. Dan Klepper has missed one of life’s little experiences by not traveling [in Big Bend National Park] through the dry creek bed that once led to the Window, a total pleasure [“Lay of the Landscape,” February 2015]. It took us through places where the water was running, and we stepped into holes knee deep, which filled our brand-new hiking boots. In places, we guessed where the trail led while we climbed up and down rocks. Then suddenly, we arrived, and there before us was the breathtaking beauty of the desert floor below.
Joanne Cheshier | Fredericksburg
Central Texas EC
Doc Crumley’s Legacy
Another interesting article by Gene Fowler [“The Old Indian Doctor,” March 2015]. The madstone that Doc Crumley carried in his saddlebag might have been the same one author and San Saba area resident Sarah Harkey Hall used after a rabid skunk attacked her while she was asleep on her front porch on a scorching summer day. She said it took her husband until the next day to return with the stone, which she also said saved her life.
Hall’s book is “Surviving on the Texas Frontier: The Journal of a Frontier Orphan Girl in San Saba County, 1852–1907.”
Vardy Vincent | Kingsbury
Bluebonnet EC
Gene Fowler replies: Dr. Crumley’s madstone could very well have been the one applied to Sarah Harkey Hall. I have another article that documents his stone being used in Hamilton County.
My late husband’s grandmother told the story of how, as a small child, she saw Doc Crumley in the 1890s riding around the Buttercup community in a donkey-pulled cart, and he scared her to tears.
Karen R. Thompson | Leander
Pedernales EC
We believe our great-great-grandmother was a Crumley. Her daughter’s name was Cassie Parthinea Echols. Cassie’s family lived in Hays County near Dripping Springs.
She first married a member of the Knox family and then may have had another marriage before marrying John Alexander.
They lived and died at Evant and are buried at Knox cemetery, where Doc Crumley is buried. We believe he is an uncle. If any of the family is interested or has more information about her, we would love to communicate with them.
Nell Clover | Chappell Hill
Cherokee County EC
I am saddened by the fact that everyone in America seems to want to perpetrate the mistake of Christopher Columbus, who called the Native Americans or First Nations Peoples as “Indians” because he was actually looking for a route to India.
Being an Indian from India, I feel sad that the ethnic identity of more than a billion is being hijacked by a few hundred thousand people living in America, and the rest of the country, including educated people, are not doing anything to stop the spreading of this lie.
It is more than 400 years since the mistake, and it is time to move on and correct the historical mistake. It is up to academia and the media to work toward correcting this mistake and not cause confusion.
Ned Lakhanigam | Denton County
CoServ Electric
Feed Sack Fondness
I wore many pretty feed sack dresses [“Feeding Their Fashion Sense,” February 2015] when I was a child, even after I started school.
I loved them.
Nancy Coakley | via Facebook
Caprock Memories
I really enjoyed the article by E. Dan Klepper on Caprock Canyon and Turkey [“Turkey Trottin’,” January 2015].
My family lived about three-quarters of a mile from the entrance to the canyon for several years in the 1940s. My brother and I would ask our mom if we could go to the canyon. The answer was always the same: “No, you will get lost.”
Several years later, we did go into the canyon. We found a place way back where there was a narrow path, similar to a cave, with water running through it. Over the years, we visited Palo Duro Canyon many times just to explore and wade the clear, cool water.
Once we saw a centipede that was about 12 inches long, the largest I have ever seen.
Cleo Adams | Hamilton
Hamilton County EC
