Frank Moves, Mopes, And Baloons

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 pretty much wore out his welcome in Houston, being that he beat up three reporters and he knew the entire news machine would be undermining him from that point on. Plus, it didn't look good for law enforcement so he resigned.

He and Molly moved back to Navasota, Texas.

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Today's story

The details are scarce about what Frank and Mollie did when they got back to rural Texas but we do know for sure that Frank ate well and continued to put on weight.

He'd started putting on the pounds as soon as he got married. It was said that Mollie was a really good cook. Plus his newly found love of ice cream didn't help!

That reminds me of that Batman meme lol:

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Ok, it wasn't quite that bad but he went from a lean 190 pounds to a much fuller 240 pounds! He's a photo of him when he was in Houston. This is with Mollie's niece and you can see he's "rounding" out some:

taken from the book The Epic Life Of Frank Hamer

It didn't help that he was unemployed and depressed because he wasn't working.

Frank was very private and didn't talk about himself and avoided the press, interviews and reporters and never wrote about his life so we don't know what was going on at this time except to say that he was NOT happy.

Mance Lipscomb was very happy to have him back in town though, remember Mance?

He was the young black boy who used to take Frank around in a buggy, like his personal driver, and went on to become one of the greatest Blues singers in the country.

He was 18 now and it's safe to assume that they spent some time together playing and fishing and so forth.

Back to work

Frank got a break when there was massive flooding in their county in 1913. He was asked to help the Marshal of Navasota, the man who took Frank's place. They helped evacuate people along the Brazos River but hundreds were found dead along the river when the waters receded.

Frank stayed on, helping the Marshal catch burglars in the county and that helped him but not his marriage, which was on the rocks. No one knows for sure what happened but they got a divorce the next year.

It was seemingly amicable though and they both spoke fondly of each other in later years.

This is what he was waiting for

From Navasota Frank was offered a job hunting sheep thieves in Kimble county, Texas which is on the edge of the Hill Country where he grew up. He was all over it.

He bought a great horse named Bugler, which became his all-time favorite, and he was back in the saddle!

Courtesy of the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum, Waco, Texas.

Frank's story continues on the next post, he's really just getting started.

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

PS- here's a couple more gravity-defying sculptures you might like.

This one's in London:

I don't know where this one is but it's a little unnerving:

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