Tío Cowboy: Juan Salinas, Rodeo Roper and Horseman

5 Young Juan Takes Over and the Roping Starts in Earnest

5 Young Juan Takes Over and the Roping Starts in Earnest One of the reasons the family moved to the Encinal area was that Papá Antonio was in failing health. He suffered a cerebral stroke about1918,andfinallysuccumbedfromitseffectsin1923.Theyoung family took the death extremely hard; their strength, their means of support was gone. In reversed roles, young J. C. Martin, and John Martin, known to the Salinases respectively as Tío Jose and Tío Juanito, served as executors of Papá Antonio’s estate. Substantial debt required sale of half of the ranch. Mrs. Gertrude Chilton from Dallas, who already owned an equal amount on the east side of U.S. 81, a ranch known to this date as the San Román Ranch, purchased the acreage. With the Salinas purchase, the acreage doubled to about 15,000 acres. As I write, rumor on the street is that ownership will change soon for a reported $19 million. By tacit agreement, Juan and Chema cared for Mamá Minnie, Juan running the cattle operation and Chema raising crops. The girls moved to Laredo to find work. Maggie found secretarial work in Laredo, and Mucia a job as a teacher, and they both lived with the tías Chente and Margarita. Papá Antonio’s last will and testament left everything to Mamá Minnie and their five children. However, Papá Antonio had been married before, his wife had died, and he had two sons from this previous marriage, Antonio the first, and Jose. Antonio and Jose became part of the second family; they got along very well. They saw each other as brothers in the second family, which they were. For some reason, Papá Antonio decided to leave them out of his 50 Tío Cowboy will. Jose and Antonio were jailers at the Webb County jail. Disappointed in being left out of the will, Jose and Antonio filed suit to set aside Papá Antonio’s will. After a few months of litigation, Mamá Minnie’s lawyers advised her to settle the lawsuit; otherwise , attorneys’ fees would devour the estate value. Mamá Minnie agreed, and the solution was to divide the ranch into eight equal shares, Mamá Minnie getting her share at the home ranch, then The Salinas brothers (Juan, l.; Tony, r.) Young Juan Takes Over 51 each of the children getting 948 acres. Antonio the first got Share One, Jose Share Two, Momma Mucia Share Three, Maggie Share Four, Juan Share Five, Tony Share Six, Chema Share Seven, and Mamá Minnie Share Eight. After the settlement, Juan kept running Mamá Minnie’s and his siblings’ shares. The siblings had an opportunity to make their own money with their land if they wanted. For example, Momma Mucia, my mother, made an agreement with a sharecropper on a small portion of land. The sharecropper agreed to farm a small field, Momma would put up all the seed, and the mules and implements , and net proceeds would be distributed equally. Momma told me about going to visit the sharecropper on New Year’s Day. The sharecropper lived in a tiny lean-to along a fence. Prickly pear cactus grew throughout the barbed wire fence. The sharecropper had cooked about two dozen buñuelos, a typical New Year’s pastry , and not having a table, hung them on the prickly pear cactus for cooling. After they cooled, he took them down and kept them in an empty flour sack. A buñuelo is like a hot fried flour tortilla sprinkled generously with cinnamon and sugar. With Papá Antonio gone, Juan had to obtain financing to get into the cattle business, and Tío Juanito Martin took him to meet the president of Laredo National Bank, Mr. Ben Alexander. Tío Juanito told him that Mr. Alexander knew the cattle business was a very insecure business and did not necessarily want to loan money on such a venture, “but don’t worry. He’ll probably jump about 3 feet off the floor when you tell him you need a loan for a cattle operation, and he’ll hem and haw and disagree with you, but he will lend you the money.” It turned out exactly as Tío Juanito described. Juan met Mr. Alexander for the first time and he jumped and hollered and told Juan that a cattle ranch was the worst business in the world, and tried to discourage him, and...