Ramon F. Adams, Adams, a respected and prolific writer and bibliographer specializing in the Old West and cowboy life. And he lived in Dallas. Ramon Adams was born in Moscow, Texas in , near Houston, but left there as a young man to study and teach music. He was a professional violinist who played not only an occasional symphony gig, but after his years of teaching, he made a steady living playing in movie theater orchestras, accompanying silent films. While playing in the orchestra at the Rialto in Fort Worth, he even wore white tie and tails.
When the Rialto musicians went on strike in , he and his wife, Allie, moved to Dallas, and he played in the orchestras up and down theater row until the fateful day when he was cranking a stalled Model T Ford in an attempt to start it and broke his wrist.
It never healed properly, and his days as a professional violinist came to an abrupt end. I never knew about his first career as a musician, and I never knew about his second career as a candy merchant!
The Candy Years began when he and his wife bought a little candy store on Elm Street between the Melba and the Majestic, and it did such good business that, a few years later, he went into manufacturing and wholesaling candy. The Adams Candy Co. He had been writing all along, in his spare time, but only in short bursts, usually at night, at the kitchen table.
And then the floodgates opened. When he died in , his obituary noted that he had written 24 books β in addition to numerous articles for magazines and journals.
