|
|
|
 HISTORICAL BADASS
The Abernathys Were the Original Free-Range Children
When your dad is the youngest U.S. marshall ever, you probably shouldn’t expect to be coddled. For the Abernathy boys, though, that was just fine. On July 10, 1909, the brothers Temple (age five) and Louis (age eight) saddled up their horses Geronimo and Sam in Guthrie, Oklahoma, and aimed for Roswell, New Mexico—by themselves. It was their father’s idea. Jack Abernathy said they boys needed to toughen up. But there were limits—they were restricted to traveling no more than 35 miles a day on their 1,300-mile ride.
They came from hardy stock, the Abernathy boys. Their father was a musical prodigy who by age six was playing piano in a Nolan County, Texas, saloon for $13 a night (at a time when cowboys made $30 a month). His mom quickly put a stop to that, but by 11 he was working as a cowboy, by 15 he was in charge of busting the toughest horses at J-A Ranch, and by the time he was in his late 20s he’d learned how to catch prairie wolves alive with his bare hands. It was this last unique skill that brought him to the attention of Teddy Roosevelt, who went on a wolf-hunting expedition with Abernathy as his guide.
Jack and Teddy became friends, and Roosevelt appointed him to be a marshall in Guthrie. Through that relationship, Abernathy met some of the biggest names of the day, including Mark Twain and Thomas Edison, through whom he came to make films of the boys’ exploits.
In 1910, the two young Abernathys set out from Oklahoma for New York, again alone and again on horseback, to meet Roosevelt when he returned from a hunting trip to Africa. Their trip was a sensation from the start, with the country following each leg via breathless reports in the newspapers. Temple, now six, was dodging kisses from adoring women the entire way. When he and his brother arrived in New York City on June 11, there were greeted by a crowd of several thousand (and their dad).
“One woman tried hard to kiss Temple,” the New York Times reported, “but the lad drew his hat down over his face and clung bashfully to his father’s neck for protection.
|
|
Ieri e oggi... Nekoč in danes...
.
CORREVANO GLI ANNI '60/'70
Piccolo Balilla
.
.
.
Contacts
Web