Welfare, Texas

An excerpt from an e-mail sent by Gabrielle "Gaby" McCormick, proprietor of the wonderful Welfare Cafe in Welfare, Texas:

It will be July next week and the temperatures are so hot that the tomatoes are not flowering and the existing fruit is dying on the vine. Its dry and I am afraid it is going to be a lot dryer before it gets cool and wet. I am not sure if the fall garden can be started without rain because we want to limit the amount of water we take out of the aquifer. What would we do if we didn’t have a grocery store to go to for provisions?

Our neighbor, Herbert Weltner, who passed away in 1999, knew what it was like to live totally off the land or “self sufficiently” as he would say. We would pass him working in his garden every morning and evening on our way to and from San Antonio. He always had a gentle smile and wave of the hand. He was no more than 5’4” and probably didn’t weigh more than 130 pounds. He was born in 1916 into a family which would ultimately have eight siblings. Their ranch was at the head water of Camp Verde Lake.

When Herbert was born he could not drink his Mother’s milk so his father had to buy goat’s milk for him at a ranch several miles away. Later, on his small ranch in Welfare he raised milk goats which he had learned how to do from his father. His garden was approximately 4,000 square feet and produced many varieties of vegetables with corn and sweet potatoes being the dominating crop. With the exception of eggs they were life long vegetarians.