Nice to Meet Ya: Roberta Mitchell

Perspective is one’s viewpoint on life and Roberta Mitchell has one very unique one, that of living 104 years. Last Friday was her birthday and she is still very active. A few years ago you could catch her riding her John Deere lawn mower cutting the grass. A heck of a storyteller, she now lives with her daughter and son-in-law, Lynn and Bob Bridge in Dripping Springs.

But her perspective is different on life. It is one that contains wolves as an everyday occurrence back when she was a child in Round Mountain in Blanco County.

Roberta’s life has been a good one so far. She graduated from Southwest Texas State Teachers College (now Texas State University). She taught Art in Kerrville, but when she got married, she became a stay at home mom with one daughter. While at Southwest, she was part of a chorale group, “a quartet that sang at burials,” a common practice at that time. Her tales of childhood are unique.

Roberta rode horseback to school as her family lived in the country. One can only imagine what it was like to go to school back in those days. “While hopping off to open the gate, it was scary to get off a horse because a wolf might show up. There were no deer around, the wolves took care of that,” Roberta said.

But that was just one minor part of her stories--the thought of wolves as a daily concern while growing up is a unique story unlike the fairy tale little red riding hood. “Once a wolf was in the bedroom. The neighbors got together on the weekends. They’d ride and all gather to go look for wolves on horseback with some dogs. They didn’t come across any wolves, you had to follow it, but you couldn’t get close,” she said.

“(While walking) I saw a wolf in the meadow coming towards the house. I ran, yelling, ‘a wolf is coming mother’ (and she said) come into the house. In the back room, in the back there was a door open, and it went into that room.

The men rode up just as the wolf went into the back room. He roped it and dragged it outside.”

Harrowing as it was, it was not her scariest wolf story. “The family was on a family camp out by the Pedernales River outside of Johnson City. We had a Model T truck carrying the camping equipment with mom and daddy…on the way home there was a wolf in a trap. There was no way to dispose of it.”

The wolf was tied up and still in the trap, but alive in the back of the truck with Roberta. “I was holding a lamb (in my lap). A lamb, the wolf and me in the back of the T. (Finally) the lamb was put in the cab with mom holding it in her lap and holding on to a child on the running board, two foot long and one foot wide. It was very precarious.”

Personal histories of early life and times are fascinating; they give a perspective that otherwise one might never hear. Wolves in Central Texas are unique stories, seldom if ever heard. Happy birthday and many more Roberta, and thanks for the new perspective.