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'gords 1110
"lioness"
"Bones", pioneer Negro bronco -buster of the Panhandle, has given 275 vhite
flowers to rel-tives of old-timers who have crossed the Lest Frontier. He has prep.
sented nany others to those who have done something outstandingly "white". Among
those who ava raceived this "gaerdon of hipaor" aro the Jreoldent of t:ao ited Stitet,
Mrs. eor coocvolt, -ostiAa3ter enera1 Jamie farley, Governor James V. AllreA of
Texas, Governor Olydo fin. -,ley of ,sw :Lexiash lush Crem4
May S, 1940, nfrked the fol e-slz.;"Z year slaws AA oagan the custom. t the time
he was working on the Clarton ranch ia the i-sp000 reL:lon, breakiag, traininr, and racing
horses with young Tom Clayton, to whom he became very nuch devoted. When on was
injured in n fall from a horcs, thc colored youth gathered E bunch of Tialte wild
flowers to give to his young employer, thinking that they would remind him of the range
that ha loved. :Jaen he was informed that young 'dlayton was dead, the heartbroken
Negro gave the flowers to Tom's mother with the request that they be placed upon his
grave.
Bones was born November 3, 1867, at Orangeville in Robinson County, Texas, the
son of Fleck, an er-slave who bore the carman° of his former master, and Annie Hooks.
Christened Matthew, he received the nickuame, Bones, wham he was ten ye -re old.
At that tender age he left his home to drive Boa& and Berry, oxen that drew the
chuck wagon, for Steve Donald to the latter's ranch near heyieville in Denton County.
Here he often watched the cowboys Toy liee la their lef..ourc -a-leato. once, then
they laid the dice down, the Negro boy, latrigned 7ith the "ccalo,;:ing cubes% lacked
them up to examine them more closely —and perhrps to am-eriment with them. When the
cowboys -voilin st.=rted their .:;lay, one of them yellorl, "7:Fhereis thom 'Canoe I'll tat
that nig er's got' em". Thinking that he was boing called "Ilene.", the boy vigorously
protested, "4 name ain't Bones". By overwhelming majority the eow hand 3 proved that
his name Imo Booea, ,,,neBonos ho beo.Ame frolA that moment.
2
Bones learned to read and write from Bob, young brother of 9teve Donald. At
night he studied the lessons that t' -e white boy yrs rrivileged to learn in the school-
room.
young Bones grew to manhood, he lesrned, also, Viet, no natter haw ez.art he
night be in any work, he was barred from certain positions by his color. Ticking out
en ceauPation in ahich he thought that there woulC not be so much competition with
white men, he became a "bronco-bmster". At the eee of fifteen he was an emeert at
beeaking the wildest horses. In later veers be broke hareem for the .7k, Rawl, end
many other large ranches in the Panhandle, to which he came ''when he as green".
Bones is eerhaps the only rereon for whom a train has waited while he rode a
horse. When his bronco -busting days were over, he became a railwey porter. One day
when the Santa Fe train upon which he made his run stopped at Yamna, it renaintd long
enough for him to ride an =flew horse that no one else had been able to "top".
When he was thirty-five, Bones left the plains to go to Bast Tines and bring back
Indiana Crenshaw as his wife. A short time later, Adeline GrandY, a friend wto came
to the Peehenelle with her, was killed by a rendoe shot fired frror. the guns of drunken
cowboys, ns they Passed the honeymoon cabin of Bones and hie bride, to scare the
Negroes, who as a race were hot welcome in the region at that tiro.
when hie firet if -ied ,fter a happy nerried life of twenteeeee? yerru, Bones
"tried one of them new models, but it didn't work". When he loft th eeee" wife,
he gAve as nlinony his equity in n business building that he was "eeyine eat".
eltheateh Borneo has not aeoulduleted mach or this world's goods for Mreeelf, he has
been inetrameatel in obtaiuing verious thinge, material and imerteriel, for others of
his race in Amarillo. Through his efforts North Heights, exclusive Negro additien to
the elk-, was established in 1.926.
In the Heiehte is located Bones lark, named in honor of the edaneer Negro. In
the park the base of native stone is all that has been ceopleted of an equeetrian
etetue planned as a tribute to the Chamnion bronco-baster.
Although Bones, the son of a prtacher, belongs to no ohurdh, he was instrumental
in establishing the first iingro Church in Amaine nnd the Panhandle. Ho also helped
to greet the first 'Wheel for colored Children in the city.
Bones, who never had any "schooling", is a great believer in education. One of
a family of sight Children, he helped to edneate his three sisters and four brothers,
one of 'hem became a doctor.
Although he never had a child of his own, :Ionea trIce a, keen interest in the
colored boys and girls of his city, over whom he has a great inflames for good. Per
years he WO0 in charge of the Dogie Club, arming whose marbers crime was practical]
unknown.
At the 1940 convention of Negroes In. Detroit. at Thigh seventrwfive years of
history and development of the sabred race- In Amsriea was celebrated, Dunes was
present with :pictures and oral and written reeorda of his people in the Panbnwdle,
both, black and white, with ahem he had lived the history of fifty of those seventy-
five years.
01d -timers and other white people of the region have grown to know and respect
the aged ',loos. whose heart is as white as their can. NC pioneer gathering is eamplete
without Bones and his white flower for the eldest settles present. *The White Car-
nation", composed br Mrs. Zahn Arnold and Sylvester Cross of Silverten, was written
in honer of bie qaaint custom.
Bonne a fund of homely wisdom and philosephr, wilioa, as he Ws, coeS from
eraarience. Although he is a meMber of no church, he has a religion of work and
service for his tenement. knowing that 'Aggress in America: do not have the privileges
and advantnges of the whits neoplo, hi yet deplores the attitade of nSP, of the modern
generation of colored boys and girls. Freedom, he says, is in the heart. Bones is
well informed on the tople-of the day, but his favorite subject is the history of the
Panhandle and those who and, that history, the pioneer*, of Whom he is proud to say
that he is one.