1968-Voice Of The Tennessee Walking Horse 1968 August Voice RS | Page 90

good life made up for a lot of those brooding sick-bed thoughts,
and those thwarting incidents when it was so hard to rationa­
lize justice and the law.
Gilbert Mac Williams Orr, Jr., first saw the light of day on
May 6, 1936. A son—a fine, strapping baby boy! This, too,
helped compensate for so many of those dark, empty, cheer­
less days of youth, when illness held the upper hand, and hope
lay quiescent. A son to bear the name, the hopes, the dreams!
But, once more tragedy struck its deadly blow, and, four days
later, on May 10, Mrs. Orr died. The man of good cheer was
once more faced with what seemed to be more than human
spirit could endure.
Enter the Tennessee Walking Horse
Probably the best known picture ever taken of Gillie Orr is this
one within the horseshoe of flowers. He used it one year as his
personal Christmas card
(Continued from page 28)
more ' G. ■■mans*’! No more to walk across a football field
with the team after a game, to speak words of encouragement
after a loss and congratulations after a winning game. A dis­
mal future apparently faced this fine young man with the
weakened legs.
But, with that valor understood so well by those who knew
him. Gillie Orr rose to surmount these terrifying new cir­
cumstances, and determined to train himself for a legal career.
When his health permitted, he entered Cumberland University
at Lebanon. Tennessee, where he received his law degree, and
later passed the State of Tennessee bar examinations.
INcw Fields of Endeavor
Back in Columbia, he hung out his new shingle and started
practicing his new-found profession. After the usual period
of struggle through which young lawyers go, lie began to
realize dial the cold impersonality of the law could not be
reconciled with the warmth of his feeling for people, and he
determined to find some less inhibiting field of endeavor. At
that time he was serving as a Magistrate in the Maury County
Quarterly Court, so. in 1922, he ran for the office of County
Court Clerk, and was elected, serving three consecutive terms
in office.
On Decemher 17, 1927, Miss Virginia Street of Alexander
City, Alabama, became Mrs. Gilbert Mac Williams Orr. Leav­
ing the law and politics, the Orrs set out to travel around the
South producing amateur plays for civic clubs and community
groups in Alabama, Tennessee, North Carolina and Ken­
tucky. Meeting new people, arranging costumes, writing
publicity, watching amateur actors learning their lines, seeing
new places and moving on, was a satisfying way of living (hat
appealed to this man to whom people meant so much. This
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A little later, almost by accident, Gillie Orr became pro­
fessionally interested in Tennessee Walking Horses. One spring
day in 1938 he drove to Lewisburg, Tennessee, where he
understood that a well-known Jersey cattle man was staging
an auction sale of Tennessee Walking Horses. He had heard
of Jimmy Joe Murray and he knew of Tennessee Walking
Horses, but an auction sale of this little-known breed was
something he wanted to know more about. He witnessed the
first of what later became the famous Murray Farm Sale. He
saw Jimmy Joe Murray on the rostrum praising this breed of
horse and exhorting buyers to raise their bids. He heard
Auctioneer Jim McCord, later Congressman from Tennessee
and still later Governor of that state, chant the prices in an
effort to get the bids increased. (See Gillie Orr’s article, Jim­
my Joe, the Master Showman elsewhere in this issue). From
that day, Gillie was a devotee of the Tennessee Walking Horse,
and from that day dates the beginning of his new career de­
voted to the horse of the free and easy gaits.
Lives there the man who knows Tennessee Walking Horses
who has not heard of Gilbert M. Orr? From that start in
1938, Gillie Orr carved out for himself a place in the Tennes­
see Walking Horse world that can never be taken by any one
man. On his death the question arose, “Who can take Gillie’s
place?” No one can take Gillie’s place, because Gillie did not
hold a fob for which some younger man had been trained, or
to which some experienced man could hope to succeed. He
had made for himself a career —one so broad in its scope that
many will have to be called to try to fill even parts of his
work. Pie was “Mr. Tennessee Walking Horse” to people from
In the center of the ring, Gillie Orr enjoyed, side comments and
wise cracks with other officials and co-workers. Here he is having
some fun with ribbon girls and office workers