Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

My grandfather was a little old Italian who spoke accented English.  Although he knew nothing about horses, he knew about my obsession with horses and he called me Maryhorse until the day he died............Maryben

On 3/2/07, Ann Blankenship <annie@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Since everyone else is sharing their Grandpa stories…  My grandpa was a saddle maker in Fairfax, OK and he was famous for miles around.  He was born in 1882 and died at the age of 96 with hardly a sick day in his life.  He worked in his little saddle shop out back of his house until he was 95.  I loved going out to the shop, sitting on the saddles and watching grandpa work.  I still can hardly go into a saddle (or shoe repair) shop without missing him.  It was especially fun seeing all the old Oklahoma cowboys (real ones) come to the shop to have stuff fixed or just to visit.  Since Oklahoma was a dry state until recently, lots of times the visiting cowboy would bring something in a little brown paper bag to 'share' and I was sent into the house to see grandma. Lol  They tell me that grandpa never said a swear word in his life.  One time he dropped an anvil on his foot and all he said was "oh shoot and hockey poot".  I sure loved that old man!