One woman's Texas ranch story--probably not what you expect

 

Into the Sunset

Spent much of the day working on an entry on Electra Waggoner Biggs for the Handbook of Texas Online Special Project on Women. Electra has long interested me. Born to wealth as one of the heirs of the largest ranch under one fence in this country, she could have spent her days reading Silver Screen and eating bonbons, but she chose instead to develop her skills and talent as a sculptor. Not that she eschewed the debutante life—in her twenties and thirties, she was frequently seen at at “21,” El Morocco, and the Stork Club, as well as the Waldorf Astoria, the Biltmore, the Roosevelt, the Plaza, the Ritz. She partied with people named Rockefeller, Bouvier, and Chrysler among others. But by the early 1940s she had found her routine—she partied at night, slept in the mornings, and devoted afternoons to her art.

In 1943 she married a young Army officer named John Biggs (after a disastrous and brief first marriage) and, from a family noted for multiple divorces, she stayed married to him until his death in the 1970s. About the time of her marriage, she was commissioned by Fort Worth Star-Telegram owner Amon Carter to do a life-size statue of comedian, humorist, and philosopher Will Rogers, seated on his horse, Soapsuds. Rogers, a close friend of both Carter and Electra’s grandfather, W.T.Waggoner, had died in a plane crash in Alaska, along with pilot Wiley Post. The statue was titled “Into the Sunset.”

Although she did busts of many famous people—John Nance Garner, Harry S. Truman, Knute Rockne, actor Victor McLaglen, and others—the Rogers statue was the high point of her career. After it was dedicated in 1947, with General Dwight D. Eisenhower doing the unveiling, she and John settled at the Waggoner Three D Ranch near Vernon, Texas where he was assistant manager for many years. They raised two daughters, and Electra seemed content with life on the ranch, although she traveled frequently and brought celebrities from all over to North Texas for lavish parties.

In the early 1980s I spent a couple of days at her home, the Santa Rosa, on the ranch. I don’t remember how I wrangled the invitation, but I know I went because I was interested in her as a sculptor and expected to find an artist, an heiress, and an international celebrity. I found instead an international celebrity, an heiress, and a sculptor—in that order of priorities—not to mention that she was a widow and the mother of two daughters, grandmother of four.

My memories of the visit have grown foggy over the years. Mrs. Biggs was preparing for a big dinner party, which meant she and her cook did a trial run, preparing a test of every dish they would serve. I had a few talks with her, and she showed me the portrait miniature medallions she was currently working on—she had a small studio/workshop that was neater and tidier than you think of most working artists’ studios.

Mostly I spent the days prowling through oversize scrapbooks into which someone—Electra herself?—had pasted (that no-no in scrapbooking) articles and clippings, in random order, often with no source. After two days, she announced it was time for me to leave. I took the bus from Vernon back to Fort Worth. Thereafter, for some time, whenever the ranch plane flew into Fort Worth’s Meacham Field, it would bring me more scrapbooks, and I would exchange the ones I had. Today those scrapbooks are held by the Red River Valley Museum in Vernon, Texas for safekeeping. The museum was given instructions that no one be allowed to view these caches of history, so they are today unavailable to the researcher.

What I wrote from that experience was unsatisfactory. Mrs. Biggs and I saw the world differently—I was interested in her artistic accomplishments. She was most interested in all the men who had whirled around her all her life. I wrote up a bland fifty pages or so and gave them to her. This was long before computers, so I have no digital record and, to my great regret, no copy. Nor do I have any idea what happened to it. I was left with a lot of history and anecdotes jumbling around in my mind.

But I remained fascinated by the whole Waggoner story. As a Sesquicentennial project, the Star-Telegram commissioned me to write a serialized novel, So Far from Paradise, available as an ebook today, based loosely on the story of Dan Waggoner and his son and partner, W. T. Waggoner. And then there was Electra’s aunt, Electra Waggoner Wharton, who set a standard for extravagant living that has rarely been matched even today. And brothers and nephews who divorced more times than I can count. A couple of years ago I proposed a nonfiction project to be titled, The Most Land, the Best Cattle: the Waggoners of Texas to TwoDot Books at Rowman & Littlefield. That book will launch in September 2021.

So it was fun for me today to revisit Electra and her colorful family, to read again about dedication to the land and cowboys who lived all their lives on the ranch, prize horses and cattle, oil that was, she said, all played out and land with no water supply. It’s a Texas story at its best. And yet it’s also a woman’s story, perfect for Woman’s History Month.