Wendel Munson

Not Quitting When It's Hard

endell Munson at his home in Pleasanton, Texas (2012)

Plesanton, TX

March 20th, 2012

Weldon Haddock

Palo Alto College

History 1302 - Spring 2012

 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

TRANSCRIPTION

 

ANALYSIS

 

TIMELINE

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

 

INTRODUCTION

Wendell Holman Munson was born on September 29th, 1943 at Nix Hospital in San Antonio, Texas, to Houston Cotton Munson and Mildred Holman Munson. He was the third of three children. Wendell's two older siblings are Houston Cotton Munson Jr. and Ellen Munson. He attended San Antonio Academy for the first years of school then attended TMI and eventually graduated from Jefferson High School. In 1968 Wendell met Linda Fluit and on January 17th, 1970 was married at the First Baptist Church in Poteet, TX. After marriage Mr. and Mrs. Munson moved to Uvalde, TX where they both attended college. When Linda graduated Jr. College they moved to San Antonio and worked for one summer. That fall the Munson's moved to Alpine so Linda could finish college and get here degree in Education. They lived in Alpine for one year. After Linda graduated Wendell and her moved back to Uvalde for a few years. Linda taught school while Wendell started his cattle business. They bought a ranch outside of Pleasanton, TX about twenty years ago and live there still today. They never had any children of their own but over the years touched the lived of many local kids. Linda is now retired from teaching and Wendell is still in the cattle business and also raises bucking bulls. I met Wendell in 2006. Both he and Linda have become like family to me and my family. I think of them as closely as I do my own parents.

 

 

TRANSCRIPTION

You come from a family of successful lawyers, what made you decide to go into the cattle business instead of your family's law practice?
My father's side of the family was ranchers; they came to Texas about the time of Steven F. Austin. They thought having a law degree was the best education. All the males on my fathers side were lawyers and later all the females. My dad actually never passed the board to be a lawyer but back then it really didn't matter. Some of the men went on to become judges even. Dad moved us to San Antonio because he thought us kids would get a better education. I just always wanted to be a rancher, I never dreamed of doing anything else but ranching. My brother and brother-in-law have a law practice; when I was young they offered me a partnership straight out of law school if I wanted. I was on my last semester of college in San Marcos and was accepted into law school at UT when I quit. I just never really cared about school at all and couldn't see myself working inside all the time. I wanted to ranch so that's what I did.

 

How old were you when you started trading cattle?
When I was probably around 16 years old I started working at the stockyards in San Antonio and doing day work for people. When I was about 20 years old I started buying and selling cattle for myself and other people. It was around, I would say 1976 before I really started being successful with it. Even though I was established by then as an order buyer I still worked cattle for folks, hauled cattle, just what ever I could go to make money I was doing it. I had to.

inda and Wendell Munson (1984)

How has government regulations affected the cattle business? For good and bad?
The government has always made it a struggle for the cattleman. A lot of these state and federal programs and agencies is nothing but welfare for the ranchers that don't want to work. One good program I will say was the beef check off program. It raised the value of beef and it educated people on the value of beef. It contributes to education for youngsters and gives money for college scholarships. It helps keep the ranching heritage alive.

How has tighter immigration policies affected you business?
We don't have the workforce we used to have, I seen the quality of people coming from Mexico change too in the 1970's. I don't mean it in a bad way but over the years I've had a lot of Mexicans show up wanting to work. The people that would show up would be just good people, not just good workers but good people, with their family's and just trying to make a better life for themselves, and would work hard. I don't have many stop by wanting to work anymore and the ones that do would rather just steal from you or kill you than work. The white people won't do the work either. I won't ask anybody to do anything I wouldn't do myself. Just nobody wants to work anymore.

How have been able to deal with the struggles of raising cattle?
You have to make a profit to stay in business. I try to make a few dollars off of every trade instead of trying to make it all on one. I have worked all I could, any type of work to stay in business. You just have to have ranching in your blood, you have to want to do it and enjoy it. You have to take pride in what you do and that pride has kept me going.

What have you enjoyed most about trading cattle for all these years?
I love buying cattle, trying to please to customer. I enjoy putting a group of cattle together that makes the customer and me money.

endell Munson at the Nixon cattle auction barnendell Munson on his ranch in Pleasanton (2003)

How has the decline in accessible land for grazing affected your business?
It's affected it greatly, and in a bad way. When the state passed the Land Management Law it took away a lot of country for ranching. The law let people start these deer ranches and they can get the same tax breaks as cattle ranches. When that happen people from big cities with a lot of money started buying up all these big ranches, high fencing it, and started these hunting ranches. Now, the cost of land is more than you can ever pay for it with cattle.

What changes, both good and bad, have you seen in the cattle business over the past 40 years?
The main change for the bad is accessibility to land, there just is not any. For the good would be the quality of cattle. We can cross breed cattle now and you get a more constant product and a better product.

With consideration to what changes you have witnessed in the cattle business for the past 40 years, where do you see it going in the next twenty years?
When I started ranching, with supply and demand, I always thought we would not only see a shortage of land but also a shortage of beef. I think we're beginning to see that now. In the next twenty years I think beef will be a delicacy, it won't be as abundant as today.

If you had it to do all over again, would you still have went into this line of work?
Yes, I would have become a rancher but I would do some things different. I would have taken better care of myself.

endell and Linda Munson at her birthday party (2011)

 

Is there anything else you would like to add to this interview?
The one thing I would like to add is that if something is easy it is generally not worth doing. Don't quit when things get hard.

 

 

eldon Haddock and Wendel Munson at the ranch office April 11th, 2012

ANALYSIS

Mr. Munson is a hard man and now I understand why. He's always had to struggle to make his bussiness work, he's had to deal with alot of backstabbing people. He has tried to run his bussiness and his life the right way and it has paid off for him.

The most important point for me was that money is not everything. Mr. Munson could have became a lawyer and probably had a more confortable life than he did but that's not what he wanted to spend the rest of his life doing. He's made a living doing what he loves not doing what others wanted him to do.

I really didn't learn anything new. I've been knowing Mr. Munson now for going on five years, I've heard him tell some of these old ranching stories so many times but I never documented any of them till now.

My six word memoir is "not quitting when it it is hard", I chose that because that's how Mr. Munson lives his life and that's the advise he has givin me for going back to school.

Mr. Munson has acomplished alot in his life, but what he really loves is ranching. When he would answer my questions about ranching and being in the cattle bussiness he just showed more passion in his answers than he did with questions about any other topic.

What did these stories teach you about the topic? Nothing really, I've been in the cattle bussiness too and I know exactly what obstacles Mr. Munson goes through every day.

With my interview I don't see any drawbacks. A benifit is that, in this case, I think it made Mr. Munson feel good that there was someone out there that wanted to know all this about him.

Overall, is this an effective way about learning about the past? I think it is. The past is made by just normal everyday people. This is the history that we will not learn about from our Foner text or any other book.

 

 

TIMELINE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

List a minimum of FIVE sources. There must be links to each of the sources within the transcription. Consult Citing Web Sources MLA Style for further help. Not sure how to cite a reference, utilize EasyBib: Free Bibliography Maker. Here's an example of an annotated bibliography:

 

 

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