Louis “Bud” Abernathy, 10 years old & Temple “Temp” Abernathy, 6 years old in Frederick, Oklahoma, 1910
If you want a single dramatic example of how much America has changed in the last century or so, stop talking about trips to the moon and super computers and start talking about this: in 1910, two brothers, Temple and Louis Abernathy, saddled up a pair of ponies and rode alone from their home in Frederick, Oklahoma, to New York City, almost 2000 miles away, to see Teddy Roosevelt give a speech. At the time, Louis, called “Bud”, was 10 years old, Temp was 6.
After two months on the road, alone, they arrived safely in Washington, D.C., where they were greeted by the Speaker of the House and met President Taft, whom they felt a fine man, but inferior to their hero Teddy Roosevelt. Two weeks later, they were in New York City riding behind Teddy in a ticker-tape parade in Roosevelt’s honor. He had just returned from a grand hunting trip to Africa.
From a Washington Post account:
Louis (whom his brother called “Bud”) and Temple left Oklahoma early in April. Louis rode his father’s horse, Sam Bass, and Temple rode a pony named Geronimo. Temple was so small that he had to climb on a stump to mount, and often slid down the pony’s leg rather than drop to the ground. They rode without maps, watching the sun and asking directions as they went. Behind their saddles they carried bedrolls and bacon, and oats for their horses, and they paid food and hotel bills by check. They wore broad-brimmed hats, long pants and spurs, and stayed in touch with their father through telegrams and occasional phone calls.
The boys traveled through wind, rain and snow. As they moved east and their celebrity grew, more reporters greeted them at each town. People gave dinners for them, took them into their homes and welcomed them as honored guests. They drove a train in Indiana and toured the zoo in Cincinnati. Wilbur Wright showed the brothers around his Dayton airplane factory. In Wheeling, W.Va., a hotel manager roused the boys in the middle of the night so they could see Halley’s comet blaze overhead.
Marshal Jack Abernathy and his sons, Bud and Temple
What’s the opposite of a helicopter parent? That would be John Abernathy, United States Marshal for the western district of Oklahoma. Abernathy was, by any standard, a singular man. A working cowboy at 9, by his mid-20’s, Abernathy had become famous for his unique method of hunting wolves: he dragged them out of their dens’ alive with his bare hands, earning the nickname “Catch-’Em-Alive” Abernathy. (Abernathy actually shoved his bare hand into the animal’s mouth and then used wire to bind the jaws shut.) This skill so impressed Teddy Roosevelt, who came to Oklahoma to hunt with Abernathy, that he made Abernathy, all 5’2” tall, a U.S. Marshal, the youngest in American history.
“Wolves” was the name old-timers gave to coyotes. I doubt Jack Abernathy ever met Shannon’s father-in-law, Fred Schluens, but a meeting of two legendary coyote trappers would have been a perfect thing.
This is only the beginning of the story of the Abernathy brothers. At 13 and 9, they rode this Indian motorcycle to New York City.
You can’t stop reading the stories now…they have just begun. Read them to the end.
RTWDT.
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