LIVING HISTORY
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sleep a wink the night before, for fear of being late.”
She remembers leaving for cow hunts with old friends like
Bobby Hamrick at the crack of dawn with a pack of dogs and
gathering about a hundred head of cattle. The popping sound
of the cow whip guided the cows in the right direction.
“We’d amble along with them cows, and if we heard the
whips popping behind us, we went too fast, and we hold the
cattle up,” the cowwoman says. “But if we heard the whip
popping ahead of us, we’d have to speed up. We’d hear those
whips popping and we’d know where those cattle were.”
Wall fondly remembers cow hunting trips with her father
when they would stop, build a campfire and have dinner
Cracker-style. Her dad would cut and trim some palmetto
fans and use them as skewers, stick the fatback on one end,
and plant the other end in the ground by the fire.
“When that bacon cooked, it would be so good,” she said.
“And we’d have a sweet potato, a cold biscuit and that was
dinner.”
LIVING OFF THE LAND
The Depression years followed by World War II were tough
economic times for families like Wall’s. Just surviving was a
real job. Yet, the fish and wildlife were plentiful, which made
it easier for them to eat and live off the land.
“You could say, ‘I’m going to kill a mess of quail for dinner,’
and you’d just go out there and come in with a vest
packed with quail,” Wall recalls. “We didn’t hunt for sport.
If we wanted meat, we’d kill a deer, quail, or whatever we
needed and that’s all we killed.”
All the Crackers Wall knew back then mostly ate wild hog,
venison, chicken, wild turkey, quail and fish. Her family >>
RICK CRARY
Iris Wall still takes care of her big love — the High Horse Ranch, where she
raises cattle and some Cracker cattle.
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