Aulds established prosperity in Real, Kerr counties

HOMESTEAD: Aulds established prosperity in Real, Kerr counties

Family hit marks in oil, hunting

• By Jerry Lackey
  
• Posted November 2, 2013 at 6:31 p.m.
  

“Daniel Auld spent late years of his life enjoying safaris in Africa.

The life of Alexander Daniel “Dan” Auld Sr. was filled with struggles, triumphs and tragedies, yet his golden years were rewarded with safari hunting experiences in Africa and around the world.

Dan was born Aug. 2, 1896, in Bandera County (before it became Real County in 1913) to Alexander Kennedy and Susanna Lowrance Gibbens Auld. He was the next to the youngest of eight children. His older siblings were Ida “Dollie,” his half-sister, Maggie, Annie, John, William, Archie and the youngest, Joe Marcus.

Alexander Kennedy Auld came to America from Scotland in 1878.

“Grandpa Auld came to Kerr County as a bachelor, looking for a widow on a ranch. He went out on a Thursday, and came back the next Monday with a wife,” granddaughter Mary Louise Auld Saunders Lehman told Irene Van Winkle with West Kerr Current.

Dan married Gussie May Brown on Oct. 19, 1920. They had four children: Mary Louise, Ayleen Aydeen and twins Alexander Daniel “Jack” Jr. and Joan “Donnie May”

Gussie’s father, Joshua D. Brown (1816-77), was the first white settler of record in Kerr County.

Joshua Brown was born in Madison County, Kentucky in 1816, to Edward and Janey Campbell Brown when she died. Edward married 12 May 1816 Anastasia Worland Brown and had they had six children. They came to Sabine County about 1831. In 1837, Edward married Sara Goss and had another son in 1838. Joshua came to Texas before October 1, 1837 and found his father and step-mother in Sabine County. They all moved to Gonzales in 1841.

Joshua married Eleanor Smith and had one child, Mary Louisa, born in 1847. Eleanor died a year later in Gonzales County.

In 1849, Joshua married Sarah Jane Goss (1833-1892). They had seven children: Eleanor Ann Brown Rees, John William, Mary Ela, James Stevens, Nicholas Jr., Virginia A. Brown Barlemann and Alonzo Potter “A.P.”

A.P. Brown married Grace Ida Stulting. They had three children: Roy, Gussie May Brown Auld, and Jane Helena “Pete” Auld.

“Mother and aunt Pete delivered milk to Pampell’s candy store (in Kerrville). They had an old horse that pulled a wagon. They would stop to unload the milk and then go on to school. That horse didn’t need guiding. He just knew where and when to stop,” Mary Louise said.

Pampell’s made its own candy in those days.

“Aunt Pete worked there. Mr. Pampell was pretty smart. He told her that his policy was that if you worked there; you could eat all the candy you wanted. So she ate a whole bunch on the first day and then got so sick, she never ate anymore,” Mary Louise said.

The Auld Ranch was sprawled across parts of Real and Kerr counties on the Divide, which serves as the watershed for the Frio and Guadalupe rivers.

Grandpa Auld died at an early age after being dragged by a horse when his foot got hung up in the stirrup, Mary Louise said. (In July 1905, Alex fractured his skull when he was hung up on his saddle by his chaps and drug by a steer he had roped).

“They brought him back to the ranch, but the only way they could get him to a doctor in San Antonio was by wagon, and it would have taken them four days. He said ‘No,’ and died at his ranch in Real County,” she said.

“My dad worked on the ranch during the screw worm era in the late 1920s and early 1930s,” Mary Louise remembered. “I’d help bring the goats from the pasture. If you saw the goats running around, that meant they had worms. So, I’d catch them, doctor them and then put them in the ‘wormy trap.’ You had to keep them separate.”

Dan Auld, a World War I veteran and one of the founders of the first Marine Aviation Air Corps, became active in the oil business in 1932.

He was a charter member of the All American Wildcatters.

Dan served as a director of Game Conservation International, was a vice president of Sportsmen’s Clubs of Texas, a charter member of the Texas Order of Saint Hubertus Hunt Club, and was a life member of both the San Antonio Livestock Exposition and the San Antonio Zoological Society, serving as director for the later.

After Gussie Auld died June 6, 1962, Dan married Pat Pate Oct. 24, 1963. They shared a love for hunting big game and went on many safaris all around the world.

Cleopatra “Pat” Pate was born Feb. 1, 1918, to Clarence and Inez Foster Pate in Goose Creek, where her father was production supervisor for Gulf Oil Company.

Pat was known as one of the world’s greatest female hunters.

The government of India honored her for heroism in taking “the man-killer Semmen.”

She held the record for the largest polar bear ever taken by a woman, the second largest recorded polar bear kill.

According to the San Angelo Standard-Times, Dan and Pat Auld rode an elephant in the Himalayas on a wild buffalo hunt. It was the only means of transportation.

Some of her major hunting accomplishments included bagging the wild buffalo in India, a giant polar bear in Alaska, rhino, elephant, leopard and the much sought-after African Bongo Antelope.

Dan Auld died in April, 1980, at 83 years old. Pat Auld Apperson died March 20, 2010, at 92 in Corsicana.”

This article first appeared in the San Angelo Standard Times newspaper on November 2, 2013 at 6:31 p.m., written by Jerry Lackey and updated and corrected by Jan P. Wilkinson, granddaughter of Dan and Gussie Auld.