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    PHOTO BY GARY ZUPANCIC/WIMBERLEY VIEW Lera Lumbly grew up on what is now called El Rancho Cima.
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    PHOTO BY GARY ZUPANCIC/WIMBERLEY VIEW Jack Talley, Lera’s dad, on the back of Old Pat.
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    PHOTO BY GARY ZUPANCIC/WIMBERLEY VIEW Lera points out the old goat barn, now a stable.

Reliving the history of El Rancho Cima

There are many ways to look at history. Scientists calculate the age of the universe. The same goes with planet earth, man and so much more. Historians look at the political and social realities and their effects of each era on future generations. But one facet of history tends to get overlooked, the one that should mean the most to us. The first hand telling of our history, especially local accounts, can’t be beat.

Lera Lumbley, is 99 years old, but very lucid when it comes to remembering her time growing up in Hays County.

She is currently a Round Rock resident, but she grew up on El Rancho Cima before the Boys Scouts purchased the property in the 1950s. Then it was called Donaldson Ranch, “named after Mr. Donaldson who owned the ranch before us,” said Lera. The ex-Boy Scout property and soon to be regional park and nature conservancy has a lot of personal history and meaning to her.

The house she grew up in, only in the summers, was torn down to the foundation then rebuilt on top of it. She described the features of the house in detail, down to the location of the outhouse and the piano that was moved after ten years.

The other nine months of year, her family lived in a rented house in San Marcos. She was proud about attending every school in San Marcos, including the Baptist Academy and Southwest Texas Teacher College. Local girl, she was.

She left the area, attended Columbia in New York City. While at Columbia, one of her jobs that she worked while attending school was under Manhattan Project physicist George B. Pegram. Columbia was a magnet for a lot of celebrities of the time. There she met many including senators and the actress Shelly Winters.

She got married, traveled around, taught art in schools for thirty-four years around Texas and New Mexico including a stop at St. Johns in the Virgin Islands. Her life was very different from growing up on the Blanco River. But being in the very rural place she grew up, miles from anywhere, memories of the ranch came fast and easy. The memory of her family and taking care of animals and working the ranch was close at hand.

Her dad was only 5’3” but was a good rancher. He kept up with research on farming and animal husbandry techniques from Texas A&M, watching for animal disease and how to treat it. Having 200 head of sheep, 1300 goats, 1100 head of cattle, and 12 horses was a job you had to keep up with. If there were buzzards, “he’d pick up the animal and bring it home (on horseback)…and tend to it overnight.” He kept records on the animals as to what mares were bred with what bull. He relied greatly on the latest information provided by A&M, having attended there for two years.

She did remember his horse was very special to him. His horse was so special; it led to Lera learning to drive at the age of 12.

“I learned to drive. Everyday the horse was tied up from 11 in the morning because it was a mile and a half to the highway the Blanco Road, where the mailbox was. I picked up the Austin Statesman and the mail, and we had to get back as we had chores we had to do. One day he (dad) said ‘meet me on the big flat.’ I didn’t ask what for dad?” Dad was Jack Talley.

“He had 5’ 3” stirrups on Old Pat (the horse). So at 12 years old I (learned and) drove a pickup, shifted gears, three gears. I had to practice thirty minutes a day. Dad said ‘I don’t want to tie up the horse for that amount of time,’” she said.

The holding pen next to the cement cistern also had deep memories for Lera. The pen entrance was just over 5’ 3”. Even the cement cistern that held water for animal troughs held more memories. The cement troughs are about 4 foot high or so, and when mentioned Lera’s eyes lit up, her pet female goat Billy “would walk the cement top of the cistern.”

“My brother ran her down and caught her. Mr.Wilborn (a neighbor) said if you catch her you can keep her.” Her brother Fred did and gave her to Lera. “He said that little goat you been playing with is a sancho (an orphan), take care of her. I came back the next summer there were two billys. She had twins that spring. She did her motherly duties.”

The goat kids were always were fun and entertaining to watch. “Dad built a playground for the kids to go on, a see-saw, and the kids (goats) would jump around. They would use the see -saw.”

Another animal remembered was a “queen dog, she was good at killing snakes. There was one hiding behind a trunk. A rattlesnake. The dog shook it ‘til it was dead.”

But there was always work to do. One job was mixing up chemicals, copper sulfate, tobacco and water to administer to the animals to repel disease-carrying insects, which required huge paddles in a big tank.

“The paddles were 18 feet by three feet, and we would stir it…we would then fill syringes.” Another chore was giving vaccines.

“You had to give them to each sheep. You have to starve them for 12 hours then the vaccine for three or four hours more. They bleated all night. It was a sleepless night.” Then in the morning the sheep would be voracious eaters, making up for lost meals.

The times were not idyllic, though. It was the Depression and the times were very hard. A few poachers would steal livestock, and one neighbor would not let others on his property, not even the telephone company, delaying phone service for a while.

But learning to swim was a good memory. “The water from the windmill that was good to swim in. It tasted good. The water would run into a big barrel, and it overflowed into the pool. In two or three different places it would run into troughs that were clean for the animals in pens. In three weeks I learned how to swim, three or four weeks while it took little sister five or six.”

“We played on Bear Mountain (now Sentinel Peak.) We took rocks and built a circle. A playhouse for me. For Fred it was a fort.”

Were their any stories concerning the Devil’s Backbone Tavern back then? “Dad was never there. No Tavern, it was forbidden.” This is something that has never been breeched.

Good memories, and reliving past times made history more real to those that listened to Lera’s stories. Even though it has been 80 years later, Lera’s emotional hold on the old ranch where she grew up can be summed up in a few words: “This land was home.”

And soon, it will be home to a new natural area for all of Wimberley to enjoy – and hopefully appreciate the history of those that worked the land.

Wimberley View

P.O. Box 49
Wimberley, TX 78676
Phone: 512-847-2202
Fax: 512-847-9054