TEXAS TURKEY!
I’ve been fascinated by this little photograph for many different reasons. First of all, I have no idea who the attractive young woman with the turkey is! This was in a group of photos my nephew Joe sent—they had belonged to his mother Tootsie. Most of them were either photos of me or were of people he couldn’t identify.
On the back of this little black and white photograph are two stamps identifying the film developer, The Fox Co. in San Antonio, Texas, and the date April, 1946. Several brief sentences written with a pen resemble Tootsie’s handwriting but I never heard that she ever visited San Antonio—and it’s certainly not a photo of her.
The inscription reads: “This gobbler is dead. He got his leg hung in the tree. Poor thing.”
The frame house in the photo looks like a farmhouse. It would have been fun to eat at the table and chairs on the back porch. The young woman definitely has that post-war style about her! The long curly hairstyle, bright lipstick and nail polish—she could almost be a model. The turkey seems to be enjoying her attention—I wonder why she didn’t look at the camera and flash a smile! It’s almost as if she had a premonition this gobbler was going to die sooner than planned.
We never raised turkeys although when I was little, Arley bought live turkeys which he killed and cooked in water over a wood fire outside in a big iron pot. Certainly didn’t make for a fancy presentation – a browned roast turkey to be carved on a platter. But somehow I imagine those turkeys were tastier. Perhaps this young woman’s family enjoyed a meal or two from this unfortunate gobbler.
Seeing a story 