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GROWING UP IN THE GOAT PEN by Lora B. Davis Garrison  We children—in my family—all grew up in the goat pen, which was our way of life and our livelihood. Our lives could no more be separated from the goats than our bodies could live without the food we ate. From daylight to dark and often longer during kidding season we were never far from the goat pens. The whole family was dedicated to this industry. Many times little kids (baby goats) had to be taken into the house and warmed behind the wood stove, to help them make it through the night. I was reminded of how it used to be when I went to visit with my brother John Allen, and found him in the goat shed awaiting the arrival of twins (he suspected). The nanny was getting old and had produced twins in the past. She was stock from some of the old line Papa had, and John Allen was very proud he had gotten some of that bloodline back. We talked about the goats while we waited. Sure enough, in about forty-five minutes two beautiful little nanny kids were on the ground. But not without difficulty, resulting from breach births and the sack being over the face of the firstborn. With a sigh of satisfaction John Allen commented, “See there, if I hadn’t been here I would have lost them.” That was the third set of twins his flock had produced in the past twenty-four hours. We both agreed that to witness and be a part of such a beautiful miracle was near to holiness. My grandpa’s cousin, Dr. James Davis of South Carolina’s Agriculture Department, went to Turkey in 1847 to teach them how to grow cotton. When he returned to the United States he brought with him two pair of Cashmere goats, a Tibetan buck, and two pair of Turkish goats. It was through this cross breeding that the Angora goat we know today was begun. James Davis’s brother Nat went to Turkey with him. Uncle Nat, as my family knew him, took two of the Turkish nannies in an 15 ox wagon with one kid and one billy tied behind the wagon to California . This was during the Gold Rush in 1849. My father Bob was born in Brown County, Texas, in 1880, a fifth generation Texan. He was the son of John Henry Davis and Nancy Susan Blanton Davis. The Davis family moved first to Nolan County, then to Edwards County in 1888, on the headwaters of the Nueces River. They brought with them a tent, a wagon, a few cows, a bull, and four children. That year Nancy Susan helped organize the first church in the Bullhead community, now called Vance, Texas. Meetings were first held in a brush arbor, typical of the times. That same year a cattle drive stopped to overnight there. During the night two baby calves were born, and being too young to travel the next morning, the trail boss gave the calves to Bob. The next year he traded these two yearlings to Johnny Brown for eleven old nanny goats. About that time Uncle Nat came to the Nueces River with his flock of one hundred-seventy goats. He was still living in his wagon, and the goats were following him. Uncle Nat had been living in California all those years. The goats, being raised for several generations around the wagon, were trained to stay with it. When the wagon moved to a new range the goats followed. In 1893, Uncle Nat sold his entire herd to Johnny Brown, except for thirty head that he gave to Bob for the help he had given him in caring for his goats. Brown accused Nat of coaching Bob on which goats to choose. Uncle Nat declared, “Bob knows those goats just as well as I do.” Bob acquired more Angoras, and soon he earned more money from the newly introduced Angora goats than his Father did from cattle. My grandpa moved to the West Prong of the Frio River, on land he bought from Alex Auld. Bob stayed with Johnny Brown to herd goats, until his mother told him he had to come home and go to school or he wouldn’t ever amount to anything. Bob moved his Angora herd to the ranch on the West Prong of the Frio River. His late teens and early twenties were spent...

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