The stormiest month in North Texas is May. We experienced that this week and will probably experience it more before June arrives. This year we are slightly behind in spring rainfall, so we can’t complain. Remember what droughts are like?
I love to read on a misty, moisty morning or any other time I’m not waiting for the lights to come back on after a thunderstorm. Here are a few Texas History fiction and non-fiction books perfect for that quiet time.
For humor I recommend a collection edited by Hunt County resident, the late Fred Tarpley. Fred had a great love for local history but was actually a member of Literature and Languages at what was then East Texas State University. He and his students found numerous old towns, many abandoned, with very interesting names. The assignment was to discover the origin of the name. For example, Celeste is not named for a Celestial Event, but the daughter of an executive for Santa Fe Railroad. There’s Bug Tussle and Frog Not as well as Cumby and Hatchetville. For a few chuckles try 1001 Texas Place Names.
A good romantic novel based on actual events in the Republic of Texas is Love is a Wild Assault. It sounds unbelievable, but when the reader becomes involved with the plot, fiction or fact, don’t really matter. More than likely it is as true a story as could be written during that time frame. Very little facts were recorded, and someone else’s oral history is deemed doubtful, yet it makes for an excellent way to spend a rainy afternoon.
Goodbye to a River is a Texas classic; not really history but memories of a man who lived his life along the Brazos River. Over his lifetime, countless changes occurred, dams were built, the channels changed, and a canoe trip from the headwaters to the mouth of the Brazos is now impossible.
I liked Luke and the Van Zandt County War by Judy Alter. Judy was Editor-in-Chief at the TCU Press; she knows Texas history and was curious about an incident that may have occurred in Canton, Texas. I had a special interest as I have a great-grandfather who was a young boy there at the time. I called her when I finished the book and asked about the validity; politely, of course. She had heard the same stories I heard but because there were no records, it must be considered fiction. The moral of this is important, just because a book is shelved with fiction, it might really be true. Read it anyhow.
Another book like Luke and the Van Zandt County War is News of the World. It came highly recommended. I opened the first page and began reading, thinking it was great. That is until I realized that it was set in Wichita Falls between 1865 and 1870. There was no Wichita Falls at that time. But I went on a few more pages when I read about the stage from the Crazy Water Hotel in Mineral Wells, Texas. The Crazy Water Hotel wasn’t built then, those mineral waters weren’t known for their medicinal powers, and by that time all Native Americans had been removed to Indian Territory. For someone who considers herself a Texas historian, it was a little too much. Maybe I’ll read it when I have finished my last book. Now I have three ready and waiting to be written.
So have a good book by your favorite chair this spring for lots of good reading on rainy days.