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Texas Twosome

“Hard work, I think, has been what’s kept all my family alive so long," reflects Luther Prunty, 95, a former POW who runs a ranch with Dorothy, his wife of 60 years.

By Fred Minnick

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Luther Prunty sits upright, his crackled farm hands firmly gripping the black steering wheel. The sweltering summer Texas heat beams through the dirty windshield of the 95-year-old's 2002 Ford Ranger, but his sweat-stained straw cowboy hat shades Luther's soft blue eyes while his tattered black leather boots keep steady pressure on the accelerator. Cruising through Jacksboro's back roads like a NASCAR driver, Luther hopes to reach his 540 acres of ranchland before the rain.

He pulls up to a dirt driveway with a rusted metal gate. Luther pops a silver lock off the thick chain and looks around the vast fields of "mostly weeds," hoping to spot his lost cattle, which have run away during a thunderstorm and migrated to neighboring property. "I've been trying to get a hold of the owners of that land, but they live in Florida," he says. For now, his cattle are lost, away from their owner.

On this day, the former World War II prisoner of war-the last living member of the storied Lost Battalion-keeps a watchful eye out for his livestock as he navigates a thick rock road that perturbs him. "Putting those rocks here was one of my only regrets," Luther says of the bumpy ride and of the land his family has owned for four generations-the land where he was born.

Luther reaches another gate and opens it. The farm has helped him overcome tragedies, such as the Japanese POW camp, and to youthfully live such a long life, he says. "Hard work, I think, has been what's kept all my family alive so long." His mother, brothers, and sisters all lived more than 90 years.

He jumps back in the truck and takes off, leaving a cloud of dust. Driving over small trees and two-foot-deep holes, Luther sloshes through the mud puddles like a 12-year-old boy four-wheeling with a bunch of friends. He keeps one hand on the steering wheel, easily commanding his little truck on this rough terrain. Off-roading seems downright fun for a man five years shy of reaching the century mark, as if he were a boy just learning the ways of the world.

On the way back, Luther finds a handful of his 14 head of cattle enjoying the shade of an old tin barn. He honks at them, and they are happy to see him. They run toward the truck, mooing. It must be lunchtime.

Luther grabs a five-gallon bucket from the truck bed and fills it with feed pellets. A couple of healthy-looking white heifers hurry over, ready to devour whatever's inside the bucket. "Boy, they are hungry," Luther says as he pours the feed into their trough. He watches them eat and talks to them with those funny clicking noises only farmers can roll off their tongues, and which only cows and other farm animals can somehow understand.

Luther puts the feed bucket back in the truck and heads home. He didn't find all of his livestock, but he's comforted to have a few in the pen.

Back at the house, Dorothy, his wife of 60 years, is sitting at the computer. "She loves to play bridge and Scrabble" on the Internet, Luther says. Much like her husband, Dorothy is a marvel for the local doctors. "The other day when I jumped up on the table, the doc said he couldn't believe I was 87," she says.

Dorothy is a retired school teacher and member of the Red Hat Society, a women's group that claims it aims for "fun after fifty." She walks 30 minutes a day and spends a lot of her time "Googling" for random information. But it's evident those activities are not nearly as enjoyable as spending time with Luther. "I just love him so much," she says, nearly tearing up. "He's always taken care of his family. That sense of loyalty and respect and hard work is what got him through those POW camps."

The two met at a hospital in Tyler, Texas, in the mid-1940s. Luther charmed her from a hospital bed-he was recovering from malaria. Not too long after their meeting, Luther asked Dorothy to marry him. "Getting married at 35 was tough. She made me give up smoking...and (eventually) Scotch."

But don't let Luther fool you. The jovial-hardly ever serious-great grandfather is in love with Dorothy, as much today as when they first married, he says. He admits his strong wife takes care of him, too, keeping him from compromising his diabetic needs with an occasional piece of cake or staying out on the farm too long.

After hearing her sweet husband dote on her, Dorothy plants a soft kiss on his lips. "Whoa," Luther says with a wry smile and hint of excitement. "If only I were 40 years younger, I'd..."

Some boys just never stop being, well, boys.

-Fred Minnick is a writer and photographer in Louisville, Kentucky.

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