A Texas Tragedy: Orphaned By Bootleggers

In May 1951, a car, loaded with bootleg whiskey and traveling without lights, ran a stop sign at a West Texas country crossroads and collided with an ordinary cotton farming family. Five adults died that night, including Elva Edwards’ mother, Pearle, her father, Calvin, and her beloved Granny Rogers. One-year-old Elva and her 3-year-old sister somehow survived. The girls grew up on the farm with their Edwards’ grandparents whose lives were forever changed that night. The grief the children and grandparents shared molded their lives from the moment Calvin’s heart stopped beating. Psychology had not reached the farms in West Texas, and no one had the tools to deal with their shared grief. If the name Calvin or Pearle ever came up in conversation, the feeling permeated the air to “leave it alone.” Nothing further would be said. After college and a failed marriage, Elva went to chiropractic school where she was faced with the body’s many issues that are impacted by trauma. One thing after another lead Elva closer to her past until one day life presented a situation where Elva felt compelled to discover what happened that fateful day of May 21, 1951. Through that discovery, she had to deal with all the feelings that had been stored in her body and mind in order to find peace and healing. Six decades later, comes the truth about what really happened in “A Texas Tragedy: Orphaned by Bootleggers.” In “good ol’ boy” Texas tradition, author Elva Edwards details the illegal bootlegging, sometimes referred to as the West Texas mafia, headed by the notorious Wizard of the West, Tom “Pinkie” Roden. Three fascinating trials, the repercussions on the author’s Tahoka, Texas farm family, outlaw money, and a confrontation with an Associated Press writer form the focal point of this shocking true story where true healing is found.

In May 1951, a car, loaded with bootleg whiskey and traveling without lights, ran a stop sign at a West Texas country crossroads and collided with an ordinary cotton farming family. Five adults died that night, including Elva Edwards’ mother, Pearle, her father, Calvin, and her beloved Granny Rogers. One-year-old Elva and her 3-year-old sister somehow survived. The girls grew up on the farm with their Edwards’ grandparents whose lives were forever changed that night. The grief the children and grandparents shared molded their lives from the moment Calvin’s heart stopped beating. Psychology had not reached the farms in West Texas, and no one had the tools to deal with their shared grief. If the name Calvin or Pearle ever came up in conversation, the feeling permeated the air to “leave it alone.” Nothing further would be said. After college and a failed marriage, Elva went to chiropractic school where she was faced with the body’s many issues that are impacted by trauma. One thing after another lead Elva closer to her past until one day life presented a situation where Elva felt compelled to discover what happened that fateful day of May 21, 1951. Through that discovery, she had to deal with all the feelings that had been stored in her body and mind in order to find peace and healing. Six decades later, comes the truth about what really happened in “A Texas Tragedy: Orphaned by Bootleggers.” In “good ol’ boy” Texas tradition, author Elva Edwards details the illegal bootlegging, sometimes referred to as the West Texas mafia, headed by the notorious Wizard of the West, Tom “Pinkie” Roden. Three fascinating trials, the repercussions on the author’s Tahoka, Texas farm family, outlaw money, and a confrontation with an Associated Press writer form the focal point of this shocking true story where true healing is found.

Dr. Elva Edwards is a chiropractor in private practice in Denver, Colorado. She lived her early years on a cotton farm in West Texas outside of Tahoka with her grandparents and sister. After attending Baylor University, she graduated from Texas Tech University. She was married and moved to Denver. With a failed marriage behind her, she returned to Texas and taught school before moving to Portland, Oregon, to enter Western States Chiropractic College. Learning how trauma affects the body while also thawing from her own emotional chill from having lost her parents at 19 months of age, her healing began. She graduated from Western States Chiropractic College in 1986 and began her own practice in Denver in 1988. Only a few years passed before she learned of a series of articles written by an Associated Press writer about the “Wizard of the West,” the kingpen of the bootlegging business in West Texas. She felt compelled to investigate the accident that took the lives of her parents and left her orphaned before she had conscious memory. She remembered her Grandpa saying Pinkie, the king of the bootlegging business in West Texas, was the reason her parents were dead. An emotional healing journey coupled with her investigation brings her experience of growing up without parents to life. She explains how patterns are created in our lives when we are so very young, and our job as adults is to see them and change them if we so desire. And, she writes of her healing her own body and mind of emotional trauma! Being particularly interested in the body’s relationship to trauma, she has studied emotional trauma extensively. She is available for seminars, lectures, and consultations.