Two Retired Cowboys

Remember “Daddy Tom” Sherry from the two story building on 11th and Atlanta Place? His son, Ray Sherry, was a police officer who married Beth Shirley. Beth Shirley became Beth Sherry. Ray ended up passing away in the front bedroom of their home. The unusual part about it was… they had a heck of a time getting to ‘ol Ray because his bulldog didn’t want to let anyone near him!

After her husband passed away, Beth (Shirley) Sherry continued to live in the home and built garage apartments for her two brothers, Bill and Joe. Bill and Joe were real cowboys that had worked on the 101 Ranch. The 101 Ranch was a 110,000 acre ranch east of present day Ponca City. They had lived most of their life there but got too old and couldn’t cowboy. So, they would sharpen lawnmowers, this that and the other…in a little shop out in the back. The kids in the neighborhood would go down there and pester them and they’d show them rope tricks and all that kind of stuff…because they were real cowboys.

References:
Photograph: By A. Mueller, October 2019. Ray and Beth Sherry’s house.
Holderman, J. (2019, October 5). Personal interview. Also present were C. Holderman and P. Casey Morgan.
Oklahoma Historical Society. Retrieved from: https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=MI029

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