Lake Bosse Oaks

Lake Bosse Oaks

What's In A Name? by Bonnie Anderson

Have you ever been on the phone with someone and tried to tell them the name of our neighborhood only to have them not understand if you’re saying Bosse or Boffe? I don’t consider myself to have a speech impediment, but I am frequently misunderstood (in more ways than this) and usually resort to saying “Bosse, like Bosse the cow.” That seems to clear it all up.

So, what is in a name? How did our wonderful little neighborhood receive the name of Lake Bosse Oaks? The oak tree reference is a given, although we are concerned about the lack of Magnolia trees on Magnolia Homes Road. Where did they go, if they were ever there. I digress. So, what about Lake Bosse? Where did that name come from?

One of our neighbors has told me that she believes those drawn to this neighborhood have been so due to the inner bossiness that we possess. I quickly dismissed this and let her know that she wasn’t going to boss me around with her theory. So I decided to keep my eyes and ears open for a more palatable reason for the name.

Recently I chatted with a native Floridian, born in O.R.M.C. in the 1940s, who told me a little of the history of our neighborhood as he remembers it. I have no facts from books or newspaper clippings to back this up, and I have scoured the internet looking for information only to come up empty. As a result of this search, and teamed with my concern regarding the passing on of false information, and not wanting to mislead you, I’m choosing to consider the following to be true and pass this possibility on to you anyway. After all, I am the boss, I mean writer, of this article. If you have any facts to the contrary or facts that would substantiate this information, please submit them for future publication.

It seems this gentleman remembers traveling the Lockhart area with his father who would frequently visit a dairy farm where our neighborhood now stands. There was the typical wooden arch entryway with a bell hanging for visitors to ring to announce their arrival. It seems that the owner of the ranch named it after his favorite cow, Bosse. That makes sense to me. I like that thought.
I can picture cows roaming peacefully through our oak tree laden property, stopping by the edge of the lake for a refreshing drink. It evokes a pastoral setting in my mind that lines up well with our peaceful neighborhood, not to mention that it brings creedance to my reference to something I’ve unconciously known all along - there really was a “Bosse, the Cow”.