TX BIOS:  Robert Verdon
   Selected and converted.American Memory, Library of Congress.
   
   Washington, 1994.
   
   Preceding element provides place and date of transcription only.
   
   This transcription intended to be 99.95% accurate.
   
   For more information about this text and this American Memory
   collection, refer to accompanying matter.
   
   U.S. Work Projects Administration, Federal Writers' Project (Folklore
   Project, Life Histories, 1936-39); Manuscript Division, Library of
   Congress.Copyright status not determined.
   
   0001
   
   White Pioneer
   
   Claudia Harris P.W.
   
   Amarillo, Texas [??]
   
   District #16 PANHANDLE PIONEERS
   
   Related by Mr. Robert Verdon
   
   [208 1/2?] Folk Street
   
   Amarillo, Texas
   
   Mr. Verdon was reared beside the banks of the river Lee, a tributary
   of the Thames, where he often played as a child with Evangeline Booth.
   Later in life he emigrated to the United States, locatings in North
   Dakota, where he prospered. However, he was not satisfied in the cold
   northern state. His unrest was increased by tales told by men coming
   into the region for the purpose of selling land in the Panhandle of
   Texas, the last frontier of the country. According to these glowing
   reports, the Panhandle was a fine place to invest and get a new start
   in life. Land was cheap. Amarillo was a big, lively town. The climate
   was all that could be wished.
   
   On the Fourth of July, 1908, Mr. Verdon arrived with his family in
   Amarillo. Unbelievably, there were no fireworks, no brass bands. There
   were only a few people in the town, and fewer houses.
   
   Once settled, Mr. Verdon purchased the Mason Hotel from Mrs. Mason,
   who had built the hostelry, which stood near the Denver station in the
   old Bowery district of the new town.
   
   Mr. Verdon's daughter, now Mrs. Shaeffer, who later taught in the
   Amarillo public schools, received her doctor's degree in England.
   
   Mr. Verdon recalls that in the early days of Amarillo when there was a
   bad blizzard, in the evening after work hours, an old gentleman [DEL:
   woul :DEL] would ride around in a buggy to the three or four hotels
   which the town boasted and tell the proprietors that they were to /
   turn no one away who came to them for shelter at night during the
   "spell" of inclement weather. The bills for such service to those who
   could not pay were to be sent to him. This man was W. H. [Fuqua?], for
   years a financial power in Amarillo. Mr. Fuqua who worked hard and
   saved his money, had no sympathy for the shiftless no'er-do-well who
   made no effort to help 00022himself. To those who tried, but failed,
   he was lenient and kind, always willing to lend a helping hand. Many a
   rancher, beaten by the drouth, with his cattle mortgaged, was given a
   new lease on life by Mr. Fuqua, who refused to take the mortgaged
   animals, often lending a further sum to help the unfortunate mortgagee
   to build his fortunes anew. But the person who did not try to help
   himself did not need to come to the astute banker, who was the first
   to 'clamp down" on all such offenders. Mr. Fuqua also quietly and
   unostentatiously helped many a poor, hard-working man of Amarillo to
   get a foothold on the ladder of success.
   
   Mr. Fuqua often told the night officers of Amarillo not to let the
   stranger in the gates sleep in a cold box car, but to send him to an
   hotel for shelter and food, sending the bill to him. He also saw to it
   that no one who was unable to buy coal should suffer for lack of a
   fire. Coal was furnished during the winter at his expense to all
   families unable to pay for fuel themselves. ( Mrs. Fuqua, like her
   husband, was renowned for her kindness to the less fortunate. Many of
   the early settlers in Amarillo recall her visits to the sick, the
   poor, and the needy).
   
   Mr. Verdon remembers the Cornelius twins as the first white girls born
   in Amarillo. The Cornelius family lived on the corner of Fourth and
   Fillmore, opposite the present site of Cal Marley's filling station,
   on lots given then by [W?]. B. [Sanborn?] for moving to the new
   location of Amarillo. The first baby boy born in Amarillo and Potter
   County, Mr. Verdon recalls, was Duncan Kersey, the son of Jeff Kersey,
   a dispatcher for the Denver railroad.
   
   Mr. Verdon, as the keeper of a hostelry himself, had occasion to be
   familiar with many interesting experiences. Among these reminiscences
   is one of an old Indian, known as Chief Pie Face, who came to the
   McIntosh Hotel to get a room one night. The clerk of the hotel,
   evidently adversely impressed by the old Indian's appearance, refused
   to let him have a room. Chief Pie Face waxed furious and, waving his
   arms wildly, stamped out of the Hostelry, yelling, "We buy your hotel!
   We buy your hotel!" And he could have made good his word; for Mr.
   Verdon says that 00033the Indian was a wealthy man. However, Chief Pie
   Face was not left out in the cold, laterally or figuratively; for
   someone told him of an Englishman (Mr. Verdon) who had a hotel where
   he could obtain comfortable quarters.
   
   Mr. Verdon, a most modest gentleman, has more than two dozen / medals
   which he received for saving the lives of others. One day, shortly
   after his marriage when he was walking along the banks of the Lee, he
   heard a splash in the river. Looking around, he saw a man disappearing
   for the last time in the water. Without stopping to think of the
   danger to himself, he jumped intothe water. The young man whom he was
   trying to save, got a strangle [grip?] [o?] his rescuer's neck and it
   was necessary to knock him unconscious before he could be rescued. Mr.
   Verdon in some way got the man to the river bank and by means of
   artificial respiration brought him back to life. England has strict
   laws against suicides, as well as murderers. There one who attempts
   suicide and fails may be tried for murder if the affair is brought to
   the notice of the authorities. Needless to say, Mr. Verdon did not
   report the matter of the young man and the river to officers of the
   law.
   
   Two weeks later a young man appeared at the Verdon door to thank Mr.
   Verdon for saving his life. "But you have the wrong person. I did not
   save your life", he denied the charge, failing to recognize the man,
   whose hair had turned snow-white in the short time which had elapsed
   since the attempted suicide. Whether shock or the worry caused by fear
   of [DEL: tr l :DEL] trail as a murdered caused the phenomenon or not,
   Mr. Verdon could not say, but he vouches for its truth. He has been
   asked to give the story over the air on the "Believe it or Not" hour
   of Robert Ripley. At some time in the near future, he plans to
   re-enact the episode for Ripley.
   
   On another occasion, Mr. Verdon was on his way to the market place to
   buy a Christmas turkey (on December 23, to be exact). Hearing some one
   scream that a man was drowning, he ran to see if he could be of any
   assistance. The weather being cold and foggy, he was burdened with a
   heavy topcoat, which he pulled off as he ran. He plunged into the
   chilly water, but he was too late. When he pulled the man from the
   river, he could revive him.

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