"Meeting on the Josey Ranch" by Maxine (Howard) Powell
BY SAGORA SENIOR LIVING JANUARY 4, 2013

My name is Maxine (Howard) Powell and this is the story of how my husband, George and I, met on the Josey Ranch, way back in 1958, well over 50 years ago.

I was very fortunate to grow up on the Josey Ranch. In 1949, when I was 11 years old, we moved from Addison, TX to the Josey Rancho in Carrollton, TX. My Dad, Zemry Howard, a widower with 2 young children, took a job with the Josey family on the ranch. The Joseys owned an oil company, Rancho Oil, and the ranch was home to their windowed mother and a weekend getaway for her sons, Clint and Don. My dad was the yard and grounds-keeper and also, served as chauffer for Mrs. Josey. She was a wonderful woman and so very good to us, as were her sons. The ranch was a showplace in the area, with a beautiful lake, a rodeo arena, a lovely rambling, white stone ranch house, a house for the ranch manager, Mr. Arthur Newton, and his family, 2 large barns, and other smaller buildings, all located on Josey Lane.

We lived on Keller Springs Road, another area of the ranch east of the main buildings, in a large, white frame house, on what had once been the home of an area family by the name of Warner, and was called the “old Warner Place.” The floor plan of the Warner house is almost exactly the same as, what is now, the Perry Museum in Carrollton on Perry Road. When I first visited the Perry Museum, I felt like I had come home. At the time, we thought we had moved into a mansion, because the Warner house had an indoor bathroom….no more outhouse!! It also had butane gas to heat and cook with…. no more wood stove!! Our house sat up on a hill and we could see all the way east to the intersection of Keller Springs and Marsh Lane. During the time we lived on the ranch, we did not have a telephone. The phone company had not run lines out that far from town. It, somewhat, hampered my social life.

George and I met on a blind date, arranged by his cousin, Rita, a co-worker of mine at Otis Engineering Corp. At the time, George was in the army, stationed in New Jersey. He was home on leave and Rita asked George if he wanted a date with a “good” girl or a “bad” girl. Fortunately, he said he preferred a “good” girl. Unfortunately, as I said earlier, I had no telephone, so George and Rita couldn’t call me when he got in town. He arrived on a Sunday and that same afternoon, he and Rita drove from his home in Dallas to the ranch to meet me. Now, a side note…Sunday afternoon was nap time for our family. So, when George and Rita arrived, guess who was asleep? All of us! My bedroom was just off the front porch of our house, with a big window looking directly into my room. Way out in the country, back then, we didn’t bother to pull the shades because no one was usually around. When George walked up on the porch, who did he see through the window, but yours truly, sound asleep (probably with my mouth wide-open….. not very glamorous, huh?) He knocked (loudly) and I jumped up like I’d been shot. My dad and brother, Tommy, also leaped up and ran for the back door, George later said “like the cops were after them.” So much for a romantic first meeting! I’m glad to say, the rest of the afternoon went much better. So much so, that George took me home to meet his parents that very evening.

We dated 2 weeks while he was on leave, just before he was deployed to Germany for 2 years. Even though we only had 2 weeks to get to know each other…..it was time enough for us to know we were meant to be together. For the next year, we wrote each other every night (I still have a box full of his “love” letters). During that year, George proposed, again by letter, and we became engaged.

On Christmas 1959, George came home on leave from Berlin, Germany. It had been a year since we had seen each other. He had arrived home just in time for his grandparents’ 50th Wedding Anniversary celebration the next day. George’s Grandpa Powell told us later that he had hoped we would get married on their anniversary….a little too quick to arrange a wedding! That 30-day leave was wonderful, a blessing from the Lord, and we made every moment count. It was a wonderful Christmas!

The rest of the story………George went back to finish his tour in Berlin. He was discharged from the military in February of 1961 and we were married the following September 8th. Fifty-one Christmases, 2 wonderful children and 2 precious grandchildren later……Here We Are! God is Good!

The Josey Ranch, once 1,000 acres, now homes one of Carrollton’s newest rental retirement community, Lakeview Josey Ranch owned and managed by Legend Retirement Corp. Maxine and George are good friends with several of our residents and visit our community from time to time.

To find out more information about Lakeview Josey Ranch check out their website at http://www.lakeviewatjoseyranch.com/