Bossie The Cow
by Carl Hoyal
I don’t remember Alhambra. My earliest memories begin with
El Monte. I remember visiting grandma and grandpa Hoyal in Alhambra. Ralph and I would spend
two weeks with grandma and grandpa each summer.
Alhambra was a town just east of Los
Angeles. When leaving Alhambra we
would go down Atlantic to Valley Blvd.
Valley went from L A to San Bernardino. In those days each town had its shopping center just like the name implies. Valley ran
through each town along the way. From
Atlantic we turned left on to
Valley and drove to El Monte. The area was agricultural and farming. As
we traveled down Valley , both sides of the road were corn fields and
strawberry patches. There were stands where farmer would sell their produce.
Sometimes we would stop and buy corn and watermelons. From Alhambra to El
Monte the land was for farming. El Monte was
growing but it was still mostly agricultural .We had an acre of ground and had animal as well. We had a cow we
called Bossie . Every cow we had was
called Bossie. It seems all cows are
called Bossie. It is their nature to boss their
owners There were open spaces all around El Monte and we would stake
out the cow on one of the lots . There
was a chain about twenty feet long
attached to the steel stake and would allow the cow to graze that twenty
foot circle. When it was used up we would
move the stake to another spot. 
To help feed the cow
we would take gunney sacks and pick grass then stuff the sacks with the grass. We had a
large wooden box we put on a wagon
and filled it with grass as well. In the
spring the grass would grow tall and
green and lush just perfect for the cow. At the time it was fun to pick grass .
I realize now that we had a hard time
feeding the cow. Down Tyler ave. was O.H. Kruse grain and milling where we got
the hay for Bossie. Our Bossie was the
center of our diet and food source.
We got our milk and our beef, the
staples of our diet. Pop would bring in a bull
to get Bossie pregnant so we
could get a calf that we could slaughter
. Needless to say Pop would not let us
kids watch the Bull .Cow operation. We should have had steaks and all sorts of expensive cuts of meat. Mom claimed that we
wouldn’t eat those cuts , so she
had every thing made into hamburger.
Bossie had to be milked each morning and each evening. I
was in the process of learning how to do the milking , when we were annexed into the city and had to get ride of our animals. There are
stories about Bossie that are
interesting and funny. One time the cow got loose and the neighborhood was
looking for her. When we finally got her under control and tied to the walnut tree, she was very excited lowing and acting like a crazy animal. A neighbor kid was standing
with his back to the cow. She charged the kid and picked him up with her horns
and threw him to the ground. There was
no 911 in those days, so we had to run him to the hospital ourselves. Another
time Bossie got loose and got imto the grain barrel She ate so much that she had gas so bad the vet had to come and let the gas out. He put a hole into the cows stomach you could
hear the gas hissing out from her bloated stomach.
While we had animals on our little farm, Mom would have one of us kids take one of the chickens
to the butchers. There was a butcher shop on Garvey just on the other side of
the high school. We would take the chicken to the butcher. He would put the bird in a cone shaped devise with its
head through the bottom so it would be easy to cut its head off then he would
defeather it, wrap it in butcher paper
and we would take it home. It would be part of our dinner. We learned early where our food came from. It didn’t
come from the local supermarket. We knew that animals had to be killed for us
to have meat and Bossie provided us with all the milk and cream we could use.
We learned that whipped cream was the food or the dessert of the Gods to be
enjoyed with cake and strawberries.
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