T. P. Golding

T. P. Golding, 101, of San Saba, Texas, passed away Saturday, Sept. 15, 2001, in Brownwood, Texas. He was born Sept. 6, 1900, in Dublin, Texas, the son of John Reid Golding and Pearl Price Golding. He was a country boy, riding his horse four miles from his father's 250-acre cattle ranch to Dublin. He tied his horse behind Mr. Maurice Reid's Ford dealership and walked to school. When T.P. was 15, he went to work full time at Reid's dealership in Dublin, washing windows and cleaning floors. While working for Reid, he learned the car business from the ground up. On Sept. 15, 1920, T.P. Golding and Florence Bowden were married in Lingleville, Texas. In 1938, Reid and T.P. came to San Saba and bought a dealership. They co-owned San Saba Ford and Mercury until 1948, when he assumed full control and changed the dealership's name to Golding Motors. In 1945, Paul Golding started working full time for his father at the dealership. Always a team, father and son went quail hunting together every fall, a passion the elder Golding had enjoyed for decades. He had owned his share of good pointers down through the years. T.P. was a great field trialer, a longtime patron of field trials, and a great field trial judge. On several occasions, the Permian Bird Dog and Sportsman's Club of Big Spring, Texas, used T.P. as one of their judges. At his 100th birthday party, the mayor of San Saba presented him with a plaque naming him "Mayor for the Day." The county judge presented him with a plaque designating a "Tommie Golding Day." A representative from Ford Motor Co. recognized him as the "Oldest Living Ford Dealer in the entire world." When asked to what did he attribute his long life, Tommie said, "I always believed in and urged my customers to buy the 'Extended Warranty.' " Recently, Bill Mathis wrote in The American Field magazine that Mr. Tommie Golding was a pretty fair used car salesman! He was preceded in death by his parents, his wife, and his sister and her husband, Ruth and Bill Lisso. Funeral service for T.P. Golding will be at 3 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 18, at First Baptist Church with the Rev. Jack Riley, the Rev. Sam Crosby and John Shero officiating. Interment will follow in San Saba City Cemetery. The family will receive friends from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 17, at the funeral home.