I’d like to start this week’s column with a reminder about Saturday, June 13, when neighbors and friends will once again gather for the Elm Grove Volunteer Fire Department Fish Fry and Fundraiser beginning at 5 p.m. Just as Mrs. J.P. Cummings once wrote about crowds filling the enlarged fire station for the annual fundraiser, we are hoping for another wonderful turnout as our community comes together to support the men and women who are always there when we need them most.
Items being raffled include firearms provided by McGregor Arms and Gear in San Saba and jewelry provided by Nathan’s Jewelers in Brownwood. Please remember these local businesses when shopping. For tickets or more information, contact Doug Chapman at 325-792-6431.
Donations may be mailed to P.O. Box 113, Richland Springs, TX 76871.
Unfortunately, I will miss this year’s fish fry as I will be traveling to Whidbey Island, Washington, to visit my U.S. Navy son before his squadron deploys to the Middle East. Please keep all of our military families and our country’s leaders in your prayers.
This past week, I received one of the sweetest phone calls imaginable from a 98-year-old former community resident now living in Burnet. She thanked me for writing these articles and shared a story from the beginning of World War II. She told of a time when many men left to serve their country or take wartime jobs, communities had to step up in ways younger generations today can hardly imagine. She told me the Richland Springs school bus driver left to work in a San Antonio factory supporting the war effort. His tiny 15-year-old daughter, Annie, was chosen to continue driving the school bus because they lived near Elm Grove at the far corner of the district.
Keep in mind today’s highway routes did not exist then. Highway 45 was not completed until 1953, and Highway 765 was not completed until the late 1970s. Young Annie drove the school bus over the bumpy, dusty, and sometimes muddy roads of Northwest San Saba County long before the convenience of today’s highways. Stories like Annie’s remind us that the strength of rural communities has always come from ordinary people stepping forward when they are needed most.
In keeping with the tradition of this column in years gone by, rainfall totals for my little corner of Bowser were May 21 — 1.6 inches; May 22 — 1 inch; and May 24-25 — 0.4 inches, for a total of 3 inches since installing my new rain gauge on May 20.
Have a great week!
Rhonda Wyatt
830-305-9908