by Barbara J. Wood
SPORTS
Big Catch
*These two ladies caught a big one! Well, actually the lady wearing the cap caught the fish while the other lady helps her hold it for the picture. It was caught in the Cibolo! Who are they? Joy Wiley guessed Henrietta King & her daughter Bessie correctly! Mrs. King was the "Annie Oakley" of fishing in Sutherland Springs.
Hunting time in Wilson County, Texas
Do you know these two gentlemen & the young child (far right)? Joy Wiley guessed correctly first as, "I think it may be Herbert Dixon and Hugh McGuffin. The little boy maybe Nub Wiley."
Sandra McGuffin Bird adds, "My Dad on the left, and Herbert Dixon on the right. The boy is Nub. They killed the lion close to the Wilson/Guadalupe county line."
Helen Lambeck says, "I remember, and I think it's the same cat, it was big talk when we were young about this big cat roaming the Sandhills: as I remember a lot of our wolf hunters were hunting the cat . It was very exciting. It was a big relief when we heard the lion had been killed. I always thought it had been killed near Cave hill on 123. I don't know the exact place but hearing the stories, that's where I pictured it. It was an exciting time listening to the old timers talk ."
Softball at Kasper School
By Lois Wauson
I was talking to my brother Bob Zook the other day, about playing softball at Kasper School. I remember those days when we played, thisp was before I went to Poth High School, which was in 1947. It was right after the war. Bob has an even better memory that I do. He remembered how Floyd Raabe was such a good hitter and would hit homeruns at Kasper School, when the ball went over the outhouses by the fence and way out into the pasture and sometimes they couldn't even find the ball. But we had to look for it till we found it, because we only had one softball.
He said, "Do you remember when we had to go to McCoy
School and play them, and the whole team piled in the back of the Raabe's truck to go there?"
He said I was there, but I sure don't remember that!
He went on to talk about the McCoy School. He said the ball field was a combination of stickers and prickly pears with a peanut field behind it. Bob said the field was mostly in deep sand too. You could hardly run the bases. Especially if you were barefoot! And my brother Bob was always barefoot! I don't think he even liked shoes.
After the war ended Three Oaks got a new player. He was a Hosek. Bob couldn't remember his full name. He had been in the army. He came back to school. He was probably 19 or 20. He played on their softball team. He was a good player. Three Oaks was hard for Kasper to beat, or any other school for that matter! People sure were mad, saying it was unfair, because he was older than any kids on the other school. But I guess Three Oaks didn't budge. Bob didn't know who won that argument or the game when Kasper played them.
Kasper School had a legacy of softball teams through the years. Those were good times for all the children who went to Kasper School. Anyone from Kasper who I have talked to, remembers those softball games and playing the other schools in southwestern Wilson County. I know I have good memories too. (read the chapter in my book, Rainy Days and Starry Nights called "Sports and Softball Dreams")
Henrietta Pundt and I were the only girls on the team. She played left field and I played catcher. Billy Haese was the picture. We played fast pitch. I didn't have a glove. Most of us couldn't afford gloves. I hated playing catcher. One time I almost broke my thumb. Sometimes it still hurts after 70 years. But those were good times and makes for such good memories.
Pandora Girls Basketball Team
Pandora Wilson County Texas .... Pandora Girls Basketball Team (Photo courtesy Pat Lorenz) COURTESY/ Wilson County Historical Society