Yoakum County Genealogy

Though he did not get much schooling, Walter Anderson was self-educated, keeping a dictionary and something to write with nearby when he was reading. When his daughters were at Sul Ross College, he told that he "had been through college!"

He went outside and studied the stars every night regardless of the temperature. He remembered Hailey's Comet though he was only 11 at the time. When he married, he said he slept out under the stars over half of his life.

He bought his first fiddle at 19 for $25 while in Datil Mountains near Magdalena, New Mexico, and taught himself to play while snowbound. He did not see another human all winter. After he injured a knee and could not ride horseback very easily, he was determined to continue cowboying, so he worked on chuck wagons as a cook.

He enjoyed Masonry and held dual membership in Plains and Denver City Lodges. He went to Waco for another charter for Plains Lodge after the lodge hall burned in the late twenties. He also enjoyed studying the Bible and was a great lover of mankind and God. He had a wonderful sense of humor and practiced the Golden Rule.

From "Yoakum County From Sod to 1986" published by Yoakum County Historical Commission