Cow puncher "Gid" Nance
A Crouch Family Heritage Association Family
Tree page, Nance family line
Text excerpted from Dave Nance's Definitive Nance
Genealogy Clearinghouse
Cow puncher "Gid" Nance -- This is an excerpt from a
"life history" given by J.M. Brown, part of the WPA Life Histories
Collection. These "life histories" were collected by the Federal
Writers' Project for the U.S. Works Progress (later Work Projects)
Administration (WPA), during 1936-1940. The collection is accessible on
line, and there is a search engine that allows keyword searching --
which is how I found this Nance reference.
Brown, from the Ft. Worth, Texas area, worked as a bronc buster in
Texas, and one of his employers was a rancher named Daggett. Here is his
recollection about a wild cow puncher he ran into at the Daggett place,
by the name of "Gid" (Gideon?) NANCE. Time period is unknown,
but it
probably would have been sometime between in the early 1900's:
"There was one cow puncher that worked on the Daggett place off and
on,
that was the worst at starting these fights of anybody I ever heard of.
He was one of these picture show kind of cow punchers. The swaggering,
showy type. He'd wear his chaps to town, and swagger around like a
rooster on parade. The trouble about his swaggering was, that he was
able to about call any of his bluffs. He was as good a rider as I ever
saw, and a dead shot. He was so good, and careless with it, that he was
always getting into hot water with the law here and having to go to
Oklahoma. Then, the next time he showed up, he was running from the law
in Oklahoma. He was always either running from the law here or the law
there. Oh yes, his name was Gid Nance. All the old timers here knew him."
NOTE (August 7, 1997): According to the Texas census of 1880, a GID A.
NANCE was living in Stephens Co TX in that year.
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