My! Oh My! Where Do We Go From Here?

When one sits down to write about his life and to say something about his ancestors, it is very difficult to decide just where to begin the "saga." It is also difficult to know the best way to arrange the "yarn" so it has some chance of being read. Should it be put in chronological order or should it be arranged in a topical way.

This "yarn" will be a mixture of chronological events and topics that are in someway related to each other. None of the material will go back very far since not much is known about our family in early times. If anything was known it has been kept quiet and that was probably a very good idea.

Our family followed very closely the development of this country, that is, they moved from east to west as the country was settled. We know they lived in Kentuckey, Arkansas and Texas before John Waldrip and Lola Davis were born in Texas in the 1880s. John was born somewhere east of Dallas in Coleman County and Lola was born in the small town of Divine south of San Antonio. Both came from large families of eight to ten children as was the practice in those days when one had to grow his own help rather than recruit help from the outside.

Apparently the Davis and Waldrip families avoided the large centers of population and as an area became too settled they just picked up and moved farther west so they would have elbow room. They cleared new land, blazed new trails and always moved toward the "Far Blue Mountains." Because of the places they lived, they were continually involved in ranching of some kind. They raised cattle or goats or sheep and always had horses for transportation.