How I Got My Name, Zuleika and the Arabian Horse. (original) (raw)
�I was born out in the country in a farmhouse. You know, people wasn�t born in the hospital then. They were born at home. Dr. McFarland came to the house in a buggy. They didn�t have cars in those days because that was 1911, December 20, 1911. They gave me the name Zuleika Kendrick. The rule is i before e except after c and in my name. I didn�t even know how to spell my real name until I was in the fifth grade.
�Daddy named me. None of the family liked my name, and Mama did not want to name me that, but Daddy was determined he was going to. There must have been quite a discussion on it. Finally, Granny said, �If you all don�t decide her name, I�m going to call her Tom, Dick, or Harry.� You know, Dick stuck with me until I married Dick O�Daniel. Then, they couldn�t call both of us Dick. My brothers and sister never had called me anything but Dick. After we married they tried to change it, but every now and then, they would slip and call me Dick.
�I was named for one of my grandfather�s horses. He raised Arabian horses. I found my name in the dictionary one time. It was the name of an Arabian princess who died of a broken heart because her father shot her lover. I guess someone else has got that name somewhere. I saw it once in a movie magazine. Some movie star had named his daughter that.
�Anyway, Daddy brought that old horse, Zuleika, out here to this country from Waco. And there was loco weed out here. Loco weed is the only thing green in a dry year. It will be green when nothing else is. Animals won�t eat it if there�s any other green stuff, but if horses get started on it, it�s like marijuana is to people. It�s a drug and they usually get hooked on it. That old horse, Zuleika, did that after it was old, and it craved water like people do when they�re on dope. Daddy said the old horse fell in the water tank and drowned.
�After I was grown, I worked in our Sunday School with fourth graders for about forty years. There was one little boy who thought Zuleika was a terrible name. One time he asked me �Why did your parents name you that?� So I told him the story. A long time later he went to work for the Arabian Horse Association. He called his mother and said, �Zuleika was telling the truth. They�re still carrying her name in the registered Arabian Horses.��
� Louise George
Zuleika O�Daniel is featured in Louise George�s book, Some of My Heroes Are Ladies, Women, Ages 85 to 101, Tell About Life in the Texas Panhandle. Louise can be reached at (806) 935-5286, by mail at Box 252, Dumas, TX 79029, or by e-mail at lgeorge@nts-online.net.