DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I wouldn't change a word. A few years after Odessa was founded, in 1881, a squirrel — just going about its squirrel business — made a decision that would outlast everybody involved. It stole a pecan off a neighbor's porch and buried it in the yard of W.
T. Malone. Now, that squirrel never came back for it, far as anyone knows.
But the pecan did exactly what pecans do when left alone in good Texas dirt. It became a tree. And not just any tree — a landmark.
A genuine rarity in the downtown area, a native pecan standing right there where nobody planned to put one, courtesy of one industrious, forgetful little thief. On July 1, 1926, R. T.
Waddell — known to most folks as Cotton — and his wife Mary Lee moved from their ranch to that home. And when they arrived, they found the entire neighborhood had already been helping itself to the pecans off their tree. Now, some folks might've put up a fence.
The Waddells just kept on sharing. Cotton was born in 1889 and died in 1964, and he and Mary Lee were part of a family that had been influential in this region since the 1870s — the younger generation carrying that weight forward. The marker says they gave their time and talent to civic works as freely as their tree gave shade.
And if you've ever stood under a good pecan tree in a West Texas summer, you know that's saying something.
What the marker says
A few years after Odessa was founded in 1881, a squirrel stole a pecan from a neighbor's porch, and buried it in the yard of W. T. Malone, planting this tree. A rarity in the downtown area, it became a well-known landmark. When R. T. ("Cotton") Waddell (1889-1964) and his wife Mary Lee moved from their ranch to this home on July 1, 1926, they found entire neighborhood enjoying the native pecans from their tree. The R. T. Waddells, younger generation of a family influential in this region since the 1870s, gave time and talent to civic works as freely as their tree gave shade.