Frank Gets Bored And Leaves

Navasota is a thriving little city these days. For some reason they boast of having the world's largest tea pot. Which has nothing to do with this post. lol.

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Howdy folks and greetings from the Great Plains of North Texas!

We're in a series about one of the top Texas Ranger lawmen to ever wear the badge, the great Frank Hamer, who was brought out of retirement to take down Bonnie and Clyde.

Recap

In the last post Frank intimidated the criminal element of Navasota by putting on shooting exhibitions and he also started to like a lady who sent him letters and postcards every week.

She only lived 30 miles away but in 1910 most everyone still rode horses so it wasn't a quick, easy trip to travel that distance. Plus he was working all the time since he was by himself.

There were cars and trucks being made at that time but they were not affordable to the average person with prices around $5,000 so only the wealthy could buy them. That 5grand translates to a value of $140,000 in today's money!

In 1909 Henry Ford created the assembly line which brought prices down to about $850 and then by 1913 the Model T was down to $550 which is equivalent to $14,000 in today's money.

Frank got a raise to $100 a month because he was doing such a good job but he liked his horses and he had Mance to drive him around in the Marshal's buggy.

Today's story

Frank was pretty clueless about women. In fact, he knew nothing. lol. But it's understandable because when he was growing up he spent all his time out in the woods by himself and then joined the Rangers at a very young age and had spent all his time working.

He thought this new lady in his life was a friend I guess, one that he really liked.

Mollie was ready to give up on him

Yeah, she was ready to throw herself at him and he was so unaware, that he was calling her "Little Sis" because he didn't know she liked him in a more serious way! lol.

She'd been writing and sending photos of herself every week for months with no particular response from him. Finally she got tired of waiting and wrote him a postcard which said, "Think of me sometimes..Hope I'll see you again some day."

THAT finally got his attention and he realized what was going on..and started a long courtship. He was slow as molasses but after two more years they finally got hitched.

Frank's family didn't even know when they got married and couldn't afford to come to the wedding. On their honeymoon Mollie wrote to Frank's mother to tell her they'd been wed.

Why Frank didn't call them isn't known, maybe they still didn't have a phone at the house. Isn't that amazing how different things were back then?

Frank was itching for action

He was finally getting bored with his job in Navasota. After 3 years it was calm and peaceful there.

No one would have believed that one man could totally transform a hateful, racist town but he did it. The mayor of Houston knew about his work and offered him a job there so he accepted.

He didn't resign until they hired another ex Texas Ranger who would also be tough on crime.

The town was sad to see him go and by that time the newspapers were completely on his side and super impressed with his work and wrote articles praising and honoring him.

His young Black friend and companion, Mance Lipscomb had this to say about Frank's work:

"Boy, he cooled that town down. Po colored folks was scared to meet white folks on the street...cuz they was white and they was niggas, they don't wanta touch up aginst no white folks. But them white folks commenced ta lettin the colored folks git by. Give some room for them. But wad'n no room fur nobody but whites until HE come there."

Sometimes it takes brute force

While Frank had his critics screaming about his violent tactics, sometimes that's what it takes if the violence is for the enforcement of moral and righteous law against criminals who violently oppose it.

Evil behavior should have consequences. Might for Right was Frank's philosophy. And it worked against impossible odds.

Navasota today

Since I trashed the town's reputation of the past I wanted to make sure not to leave that impression today. It's a fine little city now, no racism and very peaceful. They haven't forgotten Frank's amazing work there either.

They have a bronze statue of him in front of city hall, honoring him for single-handedly cleaning up the town and stopping racism in their city:

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Frank's story continues in the next post when he arrives in a very violent Houston, Texas.

Thanks for reading folks, God bless you all!
-jonboy
Texas

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