Posted on 02/19/2006 11:01:03 PM PST by Paleo Conservative
The life and family history of Kenedy County commissioner and ranching legend Tobin Armstrong reads like a Texas storybook. It's filled with Texas Rangers, bandits, famous neighbors, princes and presidents. It's a love story. And a tale of the countless lives Armstrong touched as a friend and mentor.
Armstrong, 82, who died of cancer in a Houston hospital Friday morning, was mourned Friday by the friends and family he saw every day in Kenedy County and equally so by some of the most powerful men and women in the world.
Friday afternoon, Vice President Dick Cheney, former President George Bush, former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and President George W. Bush's deputy chief of staff and senior adviser Karl Rove expressed sadness at the loss of Armstrong.
"Tobin is one of our dearest and most respected friends," said former President Bush. "Barbara and I loved Tobin Armstrong. Tobin participated in local politics, which so many of his peers turned their backs on. The bottom line is, he was a very good man, a wonderful Texan and a great friend."
Baker, a regular visitor to the Armstrong Ranch and longtime friend of the family, said Armstrong's friends from all walks of life will miss him.
"Texas and the nation have lost a lion, a quintessential rancher who was also a dedicated public servant," Baker said in a prepared statement. "Tobin Armstrong was the descendant of one of Texas' most outstanding pioneer families - a true son of the Lone Star State."
Armstrong lived history, spending much of his life on the 50,000-acre Armstrong Ranch in Kenedy County. The ranch was purchased in 1852 and settled in 1882 by Armstrong's grandfather, John Armstrong III, a Texas Ranger from Tennessee, who was famous for capturing the notorious outlaw John Wesley Hardin.
Charlie Armstrong, Tobin Armstrong's father, graduated from Yale in 1908 and returned to South Texas to manage the ranch. Tobin Armstrong was tutored at home until he was 9, when he was sent to private school in San Antonio. He attended the University of Texas and Texas A&M University.
Tobin's older brother, John Armstrong, married the King Ranch's Henrietta Kleberg, and his uncle, Tom, married her mother, Henrietta Kleberg Larkin. Tobin Armstrong was also at the King Ranch a lot during the summers of his youth and beyond, and was close to the extended Kleberg family, said Helen Kleberg Groves, 78, who knew him her entire life.
"He would work cattle whenever he could," Groves said. "He and his brothers would come up and stay for weeks at a time. We used to play poker on hot summer afternoons in my grandmother's house, the big house on Santa Gertrudis. Nobody had air conditioning and there was a breeze. We always discussed ranching things, politics and cattle breeding."
One hot summer day in 1942, Helen Kleberg (Groves) brought her friend Anne Legendre to visit the King Ranch, from Foxcroft Boarding School they attended in Virginia.
"I introduced Tobin and Anne, when Anne was about 14," Groves said Friday.
In 1998, 56 years later in an interview with the Caller-Times, Tobin Armstrong still recalled seeing Anne, his future wife, as the "incredible looking chick in the pool," according to archived reports.
The Armstrong marriage was an enduring partnership of 55 years that offered mutual admiration, respect and love, friends and family said.
The couple successfully juggled raising five children, marriage and Anne Armstrong's conquering role in Republican politics as a national leader of the party, Cabinet-level adviser to Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, U.S. ambassador to Great Britain and an adviser to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush on foreign intelligence.
She also served as a board member for companies such as American Express, Braniff Airlines, International Harvester, General Motors and Union Carbide.
"It was wonderful because my father and mother were a remarkable team, a love match," said daughter Katharine Armstrong. "They were partners that admired each other."
As a couple, Tobin and Anne Armstrong have hosted the world's most talked about and most powerful people at the ranch.
Vice President Cheney, former President Bush, James Baker and Karl Rove hunt quail regularly at the ranch. Rove said Friday that Armstrong was like a father to him.
"He was just a grand man," Rove said. "He was somebody who could just as easily converse with queens, governors and presidents, as cowboys and strangers he met on the street. He was a gentleman and he had credible character. He was an odd mix of cowboy and well read intellect, an outdoorsman and a sophisticate. He was bigger than life. When you were around him, you felt better and bigger."
The couple has also hosted governors, senators, princes, prime ministers and heads of state, including Prince Charles who came for a polo match in 1977.
Katharine Armstrong attributes her parents' draw to the combination of their personalities and her father's ability to make almost anything fun.
"I'm overwhelmed with gratitude to share a life with a father like that," she said. "He was rare."
Daughter Sarita Hixon said that growing up, "It was magical, a special way to be raised, a wonderful father and mother and their friends. We were exposed to incredible people. I will always remember that and cherish it."
Armstrong is survived by his wife, Anne; three sons, Barclay, James and Tobin Armstrong Jr.; and two daughters, Katharine Armstrong and Sarita Hixon.
The family will hold a memorial service at the Armstrong Ranch, at 1 p.m. Thursday. Armstrong's burial in Austin will be private.
Contact Jaime Powell at 886-3716 or HYPERLINK mailto:powellj@caller.com powellj@caller.com
They've got some BIG ranches in Texas. In some parts of Texas, you can drive for 30 minutes or more and the land on both sides of the road will be one ranch. Ranches with their own jet runways. Owners you would never suspect of being really wealthy because of their humble demeanor and quiet.
I imagine that David Gregory and Maureen Dowd will somehow tie this into Vice-President Cheney's shooting at the ranch last weekend, and then complain that the death was kept under wraps until now.
You forgot Peggy Noonan, James Carville, Barba Streisand, and the whole Wonderland crowd at Daily Kos, Moveon, and DU.
The article was published months ago.
Doesn't matter. It's still Cheney's fault!
Hell, some of them drive ratty 20 yr old pickups around and hang around the local gas station commiserating with old buddies over the domino table about the cost of living and the low prices for cattle. From the way the act and talk, you'd never know they were the richest people in the county. Highly amusing!!
RIP. A family dating back to the time when Tennessee gave birth to Texas.
LOL! Right you are! I guess it was too early in the morning when I read it and thought it happened this past Friday.
I don't know if it is accurate, but I have read in the past that John Armstrong used the reward money he received for capturing JW Hardin to form up the original ranch.
Didn't John Wesley Hardin shoot a man just because the man was snoring?
I have no idea where you got this but Tobin Armstrong died in early October of last year (2005).
Three of four members of my family fought for Texas Independence, none of them from Tennessee. That said, we do honor the help.
I believe that is true.
Also those that might visit the Oak Alley Plantation in Louisiana will see a picture of a very young Tobin Armstrong in the upstairs hallway in a blue velvet suit. He was a nephew of the last owner.
From the Caller-Times Obituary section. Yes, he died last year, but due to the recent attention the Armstrong Ranch has received in the news the past week, I thought there would be some interest if I posted the obituary. Apparently I was right, because it has been viewed 955+ times while the adjacent threads had been viewed 179+ and 440+ times.
I have no idea where you got this but Tobin Armstrong died in early October of last year (2005).
Perhaps when someone posts something that is several months old, they should point it out.
Perhaps when someone posts something that is several months old, they should point it out.
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